As they say, you wait at the bus stop for 20 minutes and then three buses come at once. Same apperas to be the case with journals. Not that this one is new, but it is new to me.
This is a peer reviewed plurilingual journal of Language and Literature Teaching Methods from the Faculty of Education of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain). Good to see articles on language teaching published in languages other than English.
Anyone interested in qualitative research in general, and interviewing in particular, is likely to find something relevant and useful in the last issue of Applied Linguistics (32/1), edited by Steven Talmy and Keith Richards.
I had to smile the other day when I pointed this collection out to someone about to complete her PhD. “No!” she cried. “I don’t want to see anything new about that now!” I do sympathise. It’s a feeling that anyone should recognise when they’re trying to finish something off. Intellectually, of course, you always want to be in touch with the latest thinking, even if it is “threatening”. And pragmatically, it can rarely do you any harm if your text shows that you are aware of what is happening in the current literature. A final word of warning, mind, you have to be sure that you have got your head around just what is being said in that new publication. As the ancient saying has it: It is better not to have referred at all and have people think that you are not aware, than refer inaccurately and have them think that you didn’t understand.
Another reason I smiled, I have to admit, was because this situation reminded me of probably my favourite line collected from the recent trip to New Orleans. There we were in a small boat, creeping along a bayou and heading towards some open water among the swamps, with hopes of alligators, water snakes, cormorants, herons, pelicans, egrets and all sorts ahead, when the woman in front of me looked down at her camera and said, “Oh no! My battery’s low. Hope we don’t see anything great!” I thought this was an even greater triumph for the digital world than the idea of kids playing video games all the sunlit, sunshiny day.
Oh, don’t let me get started on that front. IT is so much with us and dealing with information overload is truly a constant battle. On which topic, our colleague, Drew Whitworth, has made a study of this with his work on information obesity.
The trouble with that obesity parallel for me, mind, is that while my body sets certain parameters to help me judge and control the food that I put into my system, my intellect and imagination are not so clearly bounded. So, how small would a topic have to be for me have a shot at gathering even the truly authentic and legitimate information about it, even if I could make those evaluations accurately?
That can’t be the way forward. I think the answer must lie in changing one’s attitude to the status of what is that one wants to say. More than ever, and increasingly, we have to speak and act while knowing not only that our knowledge is incomplete, but that the information we lacked would have been available if only we had known where and how to look for it. Humility, a tolerance for uncertainty, and recognition that others are in the same boat seem to be the qualities required.
None of the above, I might add, have been apparent in the political scene here in Britain of late. We are about to vote in a referendum on changing the system according to which we elect our members of parliament. What has stood out most clearly for me has been the unspoken and unchallenged assumption that the best way to inform the public about the issue is to set up an argument between two people who have already made up their minds. This is Deborah Tannen’s (1998) Argument Culture in all its glory. Rather than any measured information about the advantages and disadvantages of the different systems, we are presented in all media with the unedifying spectacle of people talking past each other while trying to score points off each other. And then we are apparently meant to be surprised when the “debate” sinks into rounds of accusations of misrepresentation and name-calling. Your life in their hands. Oh yay.
On the other hand, meteorologically speaking, I hereby declare this to have been, thus far, the most beautiful British Springtime that I can ever remember.
And Stoke City in the FA Cup Final.
Best,
Julian
Posted in edgeblog
Tagged developing researcher competence, distance education, doctoral community, Educational Technology & TESOL, IATEFL, intercultural education, language teacher education, LTE at Manchester, MA EdTech & TESOL, MA Educational Technology & TESOL, MA TESOL, Narrative Inquiry, research, researcher competence, Teacher education, TESOL
I remember causing a certain amount of audible eye-rolling among colleagues a few years back with my use of the verb, ‘to membership.’ I didn’t make it up, and I must have acquired it while reading something sociolinguistic, but I am embarrassed to say that I no longer know where. As you can probably guess, it means to assign someone to a certain group (with the added implication that you will use your own schemata regarding that group in order to interpret what it is that that person says.) I mention it because yesterday I found myself being membershipped in the most unusual way.
I was at a cross-disciplinary presentation on the theme of how academics need to make more effort to ensure that their work has more social ‘impact’ (a key term in the way that those set above us would like to judge and assess us this time around, but more of that another time). A representative of a lobbying organisation was arguing that academics should (guess what?) make more use of lobbying organisations. Not only that, he was saying, but they should make much more effort to use Web2.0 affordances, social networking sites, blogs and twitter.
During discussion afterwards, someone said that this was quite simply to misunderstand the nature of our endeavours. ‘Look around this room,’ he said, ‘How many people here “blog?” (And there was something about the way he said that last word that brought to mind activities that I’m sure we would all want to insist were best left behind with adolescence.) Well, there were about forty people in the room, ranging from PhD students to professors, from all across the university’s varied faculties and schools. Without thinking too much about it, I raised my hand. As I felt the silence closing in, the same voice from behind me, said, “Well, there’s always one, isn’t there!” And he didn’t say it in a nice way. Afterwards, two people came up to ask me about my blog, and so I found myself membershipped as the man who knows about blogging. As H.G. Wells almost wrote, in the world of the digitally deprived, the one-fingered typist is king.
But really what it made me think was how easy it is to fixate on how far one has to go, while constantly devaluing how far one has come. I may be too old to get out of that pattern, but I pass the warning on to those flexible enough to respond to it. Be pleased with your achievements. No need to show off, but don’t do yourself down.
As coincidence would have it, I was at another (and thematically related) cross-disciplinary presentation this lunchtime, this time by a corridor-colleague, Drew Whitworth. He has led a team drawn from the School of Education and the University Library in the production of what they call resources for postgraduates and researchers in media and information literacy. You can find them at: http://madigitaltechnologies.wordpress.com/infoliteracy/
This is not a repeat of training materials in the specifics of literature searches or the like. It takes a broader view of what is involved by viewing information processing according to a ‘Six-Frame’ model:
Feedback so far indicates that the resources take about 7-10 hours to work through, and there are tasks to help a person go into the frames in depth and pull things together. If it sounds interesting, take a look and let us know how you get on. Drew is certainly keen for feedback on the resources and I would also like to know what you make of them.
Oh, much as I’d love to visit with you some more, my lovelies, there are ethics forms to screen and other such joyful tasks before I can get on to the real fun of preparing tomorrow’s classes.
Best,
Julian
Posted in edgeblog
Tagged developing researcher competence, digital, distance education, doctoral community, EdTech, Educational Technology & TESOL, IATEFL, intercultural education, language teacher education, LTE at Manchester, LTE Group, MA EdTech & TESOL, MA Educational Technology & TESOL, MA TESOL, multimedia, narrative, research, researcher competence, Teacher education, technology, TESOL
Educational Research Symposium
Dubai Men’s College
Thursday, November 13, 2008
TESOL Arabia in collaboration with Dubai Men’s College is hosting a one-day event on Educational Research in the UAE. In meeting with new national initiatives, the intent of the event is to get teaching professionals in the region interested in research and assist them in their research endeavors. Plenary and parallel sessions will be conducted by well known figures in the field from the region and abroad.
Opening Plenary
Teacher Research: Means and Ends
Julian Edge, University of Manchester, UK
Inside our broad theme of Educational Research, I will focus on Teacher Research. I want to explore the following thoughts:
<!–[if !supportLists]–>1. <!–[endif]–>Some types of research can be done only by insiders; either by them, or not at all.
<!–[if !supportLists]–>2. <!–[endif]–>Research can be either descriptive (This is the way the world is) or interventionist (an attempt to make things better).
<!–[if !supportLists]–>3. <!–[endif]–>Statements about teaching that are not useful in practice are not “OK in theory,” either.
<!–[if !supportLists]–>4. <!–[endif]–>We do not work in a world of theory/application. We need to develop a discourse of exploration/articulation.
<!–[if !supportLists]–>5. <!–[endif]–>The important question is not, ‘Does it work?’, but ‘What can I learn from this?’
<!–[if !supportLists]–>6. <!–[endif]–>Our research goal may not be theory at all, but theorising.
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