British Association for Applied Linguistics
The British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) is a learned society, based in the UK, which provides a forum for people interested in language and applied linguistics. BAAL organises regular meetings of its members at various venues in the UK, publishes conference proceedings, issues a regular newsletter and awards student scholarships. There is an elected Executive Committee (EC) that represents the interests of members. The current Chair is Professor Zhu Hua of UCL Institute of Education. BAAL has an international membership of over 1200 members and is a registered charity in the UK (Charity number  246800). What BAAL does. BAAL organises scientific meetings, and publishes a newsletter and conference proceedings. It supports applied linguistics activity, special interest groups and an annual book prize. It brings together the applied linguistics community via BAALmail, its dedicated webmail list, through which members share and discuss applied linguistics-related news, achievements and opportunities. BAAL forges and maintains close links to institutions and organisations with a vested interest in applied linguistics. It also sends representatives to national and international meetings of interest to our members. BAAL plays an active role within organisations including: BAAL is also officially represented on the  Advisory Board of the journal Applied Linguistics (Oxford University Press). Annual Conference. Since 1967 BAAL has held an annual conference. At the conference three prizes are awarded: the annual Book Prize, the Richard Pemberton prize for the best postgraduate student paper and a prize for the best poster presentation. Recent conferences and conference themes Special Interest Groups (SIGs). BAAL has a number of Special Interest Groups (SIGs), which meet regularly and provide opportunities for researchers to share, promote and develop work within specific areas of applied linguistics. The current SIGs are: History. BAAL was founded in the 1960s, as interest  increased in the science of linguistics and its practical applications - for example, in language teaching and learning. BAAL's creation was the result of a proposal by Peter Strevens, recently appointed to a new Chair in Applied Linguistics at the University of Essex. At a preliminary meeting of interested parties at Birkbeck College in July 1965, a narrower remit was discussed than the wider set of issues that the Association would ultimately concern itself with. Initially, it was suggested that it might focus on language teaching and machine translation, but the first full meeting in 1967 at the University of  Reading agreed to broaden the scope. BAAL emerged as the UK affiliate of AILA, with Pit Corder its first Chair. Membership was narrowly defined in the early years, but a feeling that the Association could afford to widen recruitment was apparent by the early 1970s. In 1985, a requirement for formal qualifications, already flexible, was dropped; and today anyone can join. The BAAL Archive is housed in the Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick.