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
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.
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