Thursday, December 22, 2016

Summary of Topics by David Nunan in IATEFL and TESOL International Association Joint Web Conference

Summary of One of the Topics in  IATEFL and TESOL
International Association Joint Web Conference

Topic: Identity, discrimination and the non-native speaking professional in TESOL
Most of Professional Association prefer to hire Native  Speaker as an english teacher rather than Non-Native Speaker. L1, ethnicity and place of birth are often confounded. Advocates for the profession reject L1 background as criterion for employment as language teacher. Is it called discrimination toward non native speaker?
In this talk, David Nunan says that discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially  on the ground of age, race or sex. Regarding with the teacher identity and discrimination David gives  examples of job vacancy of English Teacher in China, Saudi, Arabia and Japan. One of the criteria is the candidate must be people from UK/US/Canada/Australia/New Zaeland. What do you think about that condition? Does it discriminate non-native speaker? In reality, the students’ own language  has no role when it comes to learn other languages. So, bilinguals have nothing special to offer. In addition, according to Davies A. (2004) being a native speaker native speaker is no guarantee of facility in the language. From the research, 420 University students in Hong Kong had positive attitudes toward NNESTs, though they thought as effectively and preferred them (Heung, 2002). In Hungary, 400+ university students, 83% felt, it is important that their teacher could translate the L1, 82 % thought the ideal was to have both NNESTs  and NESTs, 5 % only wanted NESTd (Medgyes, 1992). So, it is important to use L1 in the L2 classroom. The benefits are more effective vocabulary explanation, more effective clarification and feedback, more effective grammar explanations, greater rapport with students, better classroom management,  time-saving in setting up task, useful in helping individual students (Mohebbi & Alavi, 2014).
Knowing those realities, professional association need to consider that English language learner have the right to be taught by qualified  and trained teachers. But, native speaker proficiency in the target language  alone is not sufficient qualification for such teaching positions, the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages is a profession that requires specialized training (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 2003). So that in this situation, professionalism should be referenced against teacher standards.
What I can learn from David Nunan is that as a speaker we need to prepare anything before giving speech. We also  need to know who  the audiences are. In this presentation, David  had prepare material for his presentation, and he used familiar words  so I am as a native speaker can understand his speech easily. He also used Power Point to support his presentation.  Furthermore,   I am so glad knowing that David Nunan  is a former president of TESOL, and is currently a trustee and executive committee member of The International Research Foundation for English Language Education (TIRF). He has published over 30 books on curriculum development, language teaching methodology, research methods, and teacher education. I am so motivated. Hopefully, I can meet him someday, share and discuss knowledge together.  Aamiin



Summary of One of the Topics in IATEFL and TESOL International Association Joint Web Conference

Summary of One of the Topics in  IATEFL and TESOL
International Association Joint Web Conference
Description: C:\Users\toshiba\Downloads\20161117_204211.jpg










Topic: Teaching Dialect-Different Students: Pedagogical Implications

From this topic, I can learn that  as an educator we need to conduct collaboration to make sure that students who has different dialect or different first language with American or British can succeeded  in their social, academic, and professional development. In this condition, the stakeholder or the government need to provide the appropriate training and support the teacher. In addition, it is very important also for the candidate of the teacher to get training program concerning in learner characteristics, specialized strategies for teaching dialect different students, reflective pedagogy, contrastive grammar, sociolinguistics, and assessment methods that minimize the influence of linguistics and cultural difference
Regarding with the relation of this topic and today’s classroom, it is wrong that we consider the spoken and written from students with the different dialect or first language  with American or British as “Bad English”. In this case, students that have different first language is not inferior, mutant or a collection of slang. For example in this talk Yvonne gave example about Caribbean Creole English (CAE)  or native English speakers who grew up in Caribbean countries such as Trinidad, St. Kitts, Jamaica, and Guyana and Standard American English (SAE). They may have different phonological, lexical, and syntactic because they have dialect and different culture with American or British. So, curriculum and classroom activities should reflect the diversity of the student population and legitimize and highlight their experiences and backgrounds. It is the same with students in Indonesia that  have different dialect and culture too. Anyhow, by knowing this great talk, as a students , their native dialect should be seen as a bridge to their social, academic, and professional development, not an obstacle. They must  feel proud of their native dialect, its origin, and purpose . In addition, teachers  must teach the  Cultural awareness and  improve quality in Teaching English as a Foreign language.

At last, things that I have learnt from the presenter  is  that she is very confident in delivering the speech. In addition, Yvonne also had good material as well as she had god preparation in delivering her speech. She also knew that  audiences come from around the world that have different first language , so she did not talk too fast. Furthermore, I am so glad knowing that Yvonne Pratt-Johnson is Professor of Education at St. John’s University, USA  that have  many great achievements in such as recognized with multiple research and leadership, contributed to major publications, published in prestigious journals, and presented workshops and conference papers on five continents. I am very impressed and motivated. Hopefully, I can be like her, that gives incredible contributions to others. 

Summary of One of the Topics in British Council Online Conference



Summary of One of the Topics in British Council Online Conference

Critical Thinking  (CT) and Technology as part of 21st Century Skills
By Edouard Creemers, Renate Thummler Blum

Critical thinking (CT) with the aid of technology is one of the aspects of 21st century skill. Its function is to prepare students to communicate across cultures, negotiate meaning, handle ambiguity and  discover different perspectives. This section of  British online conference explains about what exactly a cultivated critical thinker is, followed by how we can become critical thinkers  and how to incorporate CT in the teaching/learning process, and what  means by digital citizenship/literacy.
Critical thinking is an aspect that must be done by teachers and students in the classroom to solve the problem or improve the idea. It  is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it (Paul and Elder 1998). CT is more than constitute thinking power but  it processes a need  of something to think about to proceed. Therefore, in CT the thinking should be clear, precise, specific, accurate, relevant, and plausible. While a critical thinker should  know the reason effectively whether it is inductive or deductive, uses system thinking, makes judgment and decision through analysis, synthesizes and interprets, and solves problem that are called challenges. Furthermore, strategies to develop CT are affective strategies and cognitive strategies; macro ability and micro skill.
Another aspect in 21st century is technology that is included in digital citizenship/literacy. It means the ability to develop social and professional connections within online networks, communicate effectively and handle turn-taking synchronous online communication environments, successfully search for relevant information over the internet, and gauge and validate the quality, authenticity and reliability of virtual information. It also encourages us to  manage our own online footprints and control the way we are viewed and portrayed online, protects ourselves from intrusion or harassment and protects our privacies, identities and personal information, cites online information source correctly and uses online resources appropriate with international copyright law and  knows when  to turn devices and disconnect from the internet as a way to keep balance  and healthy.
As a teacher we need to do critical thinking to improve our qualities in teaching and need to encourage the students to think critically also in the classroom. Hence, the learning process is student centered  not teacher centered approach. We also need to use technology  such as implementing on-line learning, blended learning and flipping the classroom and so forth. Although the consequence  is internet addiction, but it can be reduced if  we really understand about  the digital literacy. At last, it is imperative considering for  the  teacher to conduct critical thinking  and to apply digital literacy because we are the teacher of the language of global communication in the digital era of  21st century.


Saturday, December 10, 2016

Journal Review 14

 Title                             : The Effectiveness of the Flipped Classroom
Mode on the English Pronunciation Course
Writer and Institution  : Hongwei Zhang, Xiaomei Du, Xinfa Yuan, Liming Zhang
Foreign Language Department, Baoding University, Baoding, China
Publisher                     : Scientific research publishing
Creative Education, 2016, 7, 1340-1346
Published Online June 2016 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ce
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2016.79139


Pronunciation is one of subjects must be mastered by the pupils for the English majors in the first year of college study. In contrary, dealing with the pronunciation the problem still remains due to the many cases. One of the center problems is ineffectiveness of teaching. Hence, flipped classroom has brought fresh air to this unsolved problem. A teacher’s interaction with students in a flipped classroom can be more personalized and less didactic, and students are actively involved in knowledge acquisition and construction as they participate in and evaluate their learning (Alvarez, 2011).
            The aims of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a comparatively new teaching mode—the flipped classroom—in the English pronunciation course. Mixed methods were used in this study in order to seek sufficient evidences for the effectiveness of the flipped classroom teaching mode. The students’ final exam scores were compared with those of the students taught with the traditional teaching mode. In addition, individual face-to-face interviews were carried out to dig up the students’ attitudes towards the teaching modes. Ultimately, the result has been drawn that flipped classroom mode was more effective than the traditional mode in pronunciation teaching.
            As s reflection, the teachers in Indonesia have to adjust the way of their teaching with the contemporary education system and need to take the huge profits of technology. Therefore, the traditional teaching method must be deserted  or greatly changed to the fashionable teaching method, that is flipped classroom. But then, it should be noted that they need a workshop or a seminar on flipped classroom to build their knowledge before fruitfully in applying this flipped classroom to the learners. In short, the successful flipped classroom is greatly depend on the teachers’ motivation  and effort as well as a  help from government to facilitate teacher’s  quality in order to enhance educational system in Indonesia.




Friday, December 2, 2016

Journal Review 13


Title                            : Indonesian EFL Teachers’ Familiarity with and Opinion on the
                                    Internet-Based Teaching of Writing
Institution                   : Bambang Yudi Cahyono1 & Ira Mutiaraningrum2
1 English Department, State University of Malang, East Java, Indonesia, 2 English Department, Tanjungpura University of Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Indonesia
Publisher                     : Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education
English Language Teaching; Vol. 9, No. 1; 2016
ISSN 1916-4742 E-ISSN 1916-4750

The utilizing of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) notably the Internet has been so popular in an educational world. Benefitting the internet in teaching writing will urge the students’ writing quality and quantity, foster active and independent learning, motivates students’ learning, supplies learning flexibility, and improves students’ confidence. Regardless with the advantages of internet, research study about the internet in the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) writing, especially in the Indonesian context has not been frequently investigated.
Therefore, the objective of this study was to find out whether or not Indonesian EFL teachers are familiar with the Internet-based techniques for the teaching of writing. Aside from their familiarity in internet, it deeply dug  up their opinions on the Internet-based techniques of teaching writing. 17 EFL teachers from various parts of the country were the participants who were asked about their experiences and opinions dealing with the Internet-based teaching of writing.  The result of the study revealed that almost half of the teachers acknowledged that they have wielded internet in teaching writing but the other teachers have already accessed the internet indirectly,  while the remains have never used the internet in teaching writing.
However, the fact reveals that in Indonesia, there are still many teachers who neglect the fact of huge advantages of the internet  in teaching English. Surprisingly, they have private account in social media including Facebook, e-mail, whatsapp and so forth. Anyhow, it should be no burdens for the teacher in teaching their students by employing  internet. I do believe if they have high effort and motivations, internet and education will increasingly go hand in hand in this digital era.
 


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