The English in Southeast Asia (ESEA) Conference series began in 1996 as a collaboration between NIE, NTU (Singapore), Universiti Malaya and UBD. Since then the group of collaborating institutions has expanded to become truly representative of Southeast Asia:
- National Institute of Education (Singapore)
- University of Malaya (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
- Universiti Brunei Darussalam
- Curtin University (Perth, Australia)
- Ateneo de Manila University (Quezon City, the Philippines)
- Hong Kong Baptist University
- Sanata Dharma University (Yogyakarta, Indonesia)
- King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (Thailand)
- Waikato University (New Zealand)
- University of Macao (Macao)
- Hangzhou Normal University (Hangzhou, China)
The ESEA Conferences are attended by an international group of scholars from ASEAN countries, the USA, Europe, Japan, Australia and elsewhere. Keynote speakers are world leaders in the field of English Language and Linguistics research, and the conference series has always tried to be distinct, by not replicating the annual RELC Symposium in Singapore, which focuses mainly on language teaching and learning issues, nor the annual International Association of World Englishes conferences, where issues relating to varieties of English worldwide are addressed. Instead the ESEA conference series aims to achieve a balance between English language learning issues, aspects of language policy and planning, English Linguistics and English in relation to the many other languages of the Southeast Asian region.