Our need to communicate in different modes and languages has become even greater and more immediate with the rapid developments and spread of information technologies in our everyday lives. English as a global language in particular is in a key position of enabling people to keep in touch, do business and/or travel in this ever-globalising "new world." Thus, teaching and learning English has critical importance.

Despite this critical positioning, problems that we, English language teachers in Cyprus, and our colleagues all over the world encounter in English language teaching cannot be ignored.

As Savignon (2005) reports, there are not only problems in pre-service teachers' understandings of the recent buzz word, "communicative language teaching," but also difficulties when these teachers attempt to transfer communicative teaching strategies to actual classrooms.

In this respect, "Pains and Gains: New Trends in ELT" is meant to provide a platform for discussing newly emerging methodological as well as practical issues and suggesting solutions in the teaching and learning of English as a second/foreign language.

With this conference, we hope to share experience in language teaching research and practice as well as to inform practitioners about the latest research in the field.

We are kindly inviting you to join us for this enlightening gathering!