To provide an access among many to rich ideas on educational excellence, International Burch University starts holding its annual conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (FLTAL). The FLTAL Conference aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and educators with interests in language teaching and linguistics at all levels from around the world. The theme of the FLTAL 2017 conference, “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Language Studies” is designed to attract the research communities to promote connections between theory and practice and explore different perspectives on the application of research findings into practice.

We are kindly welcoming scholars coming from the international and local regions as well as language teachers and prospective teachers to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The overarching theme of this annual conference reflects important trends and issues on language teaching and linguistics. The current conference will bring together numerous famed linguists and scholars to give speeches, conduct panel discussions, and present research findings and directions. With inclusive support and recognition from both its attendees and the university itself, this conference will take effort in keeping its quality and hence making contribution to the field of language education.

FLTAL 2017 intends to remain open to linguistic and cross-cultural education-related topics broadly defined, looking more closely into the current dynamics in the world between old and new trends, local and global tendencies, progressive and conservative views, stabilization and destabilization patterns, national and global identities. In that context, the special focus theme proposed for the conference this time is universal vs. culture specific in the teaching foreign language and applied linguistics.

It is expected that FLTAL will attract a significant number of front-ranking academics, professionals and policy makers working in the broad area of language education, linguistic and intercultural education. The main aim of the conference is to promote the values of multilingualism and intercultural cooperation in a rapidly changing and communication-driven society with cross-border and culture-convergent encounters. Our task is to re-examine and re-define key questions on our existing agenda, as well as to identify new collaborative and networking opportunities, both of which will inform future directions of research and development.