Children and Languages Today
Short Title: ChiLa
Theme: From Listening and Speaking to Reading and Writing

Date: 28-Nov-2025 - 29-Nov-2025
Location: Osijek, Croatia
Contact: Ivana Trtanj
Meeting URL: https://chila.eu/

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Ling & Literature; Linguistic Theories
Subject Language(s): Croatian (hrv)
English (eng)

Submission Deadline: 01-Sep-2025

Language development is fundamental to successful and effective education as it enables the comprehension and mastery of academic content. Moreover, the development of language skills is closely tied to the growth of communicative competence - one of the key skills for lifelong learning. Since language acquisition and learning are deeply intertwined with cognitive, emotional, and social development, studying children’s speech, reading, and writing provides valuable insights into the cognitive, affective, and social mechanisms involved in learning, thinking, and problem-solving. Understanding these processes helps us deepen our insight into the dynamic nature of knowledge and skill development throughout childhood. We invite researchers to explore the topic of language skills in the context of contemporary trends in theoretical and applied linguistics and literature. We encourage contributions that will expand existing knowledge on children’s communicative competence. The topic is both challenging and thought-provoking, inviting diverse research and scientific approaches.

We encourage participants to explore linguistic activities within the suggested subtopics:
1. Language skills and communicative competence
2. Language skills and different aspects of linguistic knowledge
3. Language skills and individual differences in children
4. Language skills in various social contexts:
a) wider social and cultural environment (traditional and digital media, children’s literature, multimodality,
language policy in education, linguistic landscapes, etc.)
b) educational environment (teaching methods and approaches, assessment of student achievements in
formal education)
c) family environment (parental education, socio-economic status, attitudes toward language learning,
academic socialization, etc.)
5. Interplay of language skills and cross-linguistic influences

REGISTRATION
Please submit your registration, an abstract of up to 300 words, and up to five keywords in both Croatian and English by September 1, 2025, to [email protected].
Notification of abstract acceptance will be sent by September 20, 2025.
The official languages of the conference are Croatian and English.

REGISTRATION FEE
Participants are required to pay a registration fee of 120 EUR by October 1, 2025, to the account of the Faculty of Education. After this deadline, the fee will be 150 EUR.
For students and postgraduate students, the registration fee is 60 EUR, or 90 EUR after the deadline.

Payment details available on our website

Conference updates will be available on our website https://chila.eu/ and our Facebook and Instagram pages.
For any inquiries, please contact us at [email protected].

We are looking forward to seeing you in Osijek!

Chair of the Organising Committee
Vedrana Živković Zebec, Assistant Professor

Chair of the Programme Committee
Ivana Trtanj, Associate Professor