MA TESOL

Have you seen Juup’s new book chapter:

Chapter 5: What is communicative language teaching

“There are two reasons for why I wrote this chapter called ‘what is communicative language teaching’. As a tutor on an MA TESOL course I meet English language teachers from around the world, and a common question I get is: What is communicative language teaching? Trying to respond to this question again and again I have come to understand that there is no straightforward answer. This is especially true if you imagine how communicative language teaching (CLT) may change as it is interpreted by teachers in very different parts of the world. This brings me to the second reason for why I wrote this chapter. There is currently a ‘movement’ within TESOL that says it is inappropriate to use a standard teaching method across different teaching contexts and with different learners. CLT is often a ‘casualty’ of this argument.

This is no surprise as there have been frequent attempts to impose a standard version of CLT in teaching contexts around the world. I wrote the chapter because I think it is a mistake to reject CLT on this basis, and I believe it is a mistake to think that there is such a think as a standard version of CLT. Instead, I think that because communication can be understood in many different ways, communicative language teaching can be, and probably should be, understood differently by teachers working in different contexts around the world. You may say, then, that I wrote the chapter to encourage English language teachers to formulate their own understanding of what communicative language teaching is, thereby saving me the effort of trying to answer a question that they can answer so much better themselves.”

This chapter appears in the following edited volume:

• Introducing Applied Linguistics: Concepts and Skills
• edited by Susan Hunston and David Oakey
• Published by Routledge (2010)

Read more about the authors here including LTE’s Juup Stelma.

Subject: [TESOL] TIRF Doctoral Dissertation Grant

April 21, 2010

 The deadline is May 15, 2010 for the TIRF 2010 Doctoral Dissertation Grant (DDG) competition. For more details about the grants and how to apply for the 2010 awards, visit TIRF’s website www.tirfonline.org

TIRF, The International Research Foundation for English Language Education (TIRF) is a non-profit organization whose goal is to generate new knowledge about English language teaching and learning.

It aims:

To promote the application of research to practical language problems

To collect, organize, and disseminate information and research on the teaching and learning of language

To influence the formation and implementation of appropriate language education policies, taking cognizance of the complementarity of English as an international language and indigenous languages and cultures worldwide

TIRF is committed to the development of a research agenda that is flexible and dynamic, both addressing perennial issues and evolving as critical questions present themselves. The foundation’s current focus is on promoting research and best practices that will improve the use of English in the emerging global knowledge economy of the 21st century.

Please find below details of the following PhD studentship at Northumbria University (deadline for applications is 18th March 2010). Please forward to potential applicants:

English Language and Linguistics, The Department of Humanities at Northumbria University invites applications for a PhD studentship in Language Attitudes and World Englishes/English as an International Language.

Applications are welcomed in relation to the investigation of outer/expanding circle Englishes and especially in the following areas: attitudes towards varieties of English; language and identity; spread of English; language policy and planning; second language acquisition.

The successful applicant will receive:

A full fee waiver (home and EU students only);

£5k per annum bursary for 3 years (all students, including international);

A 30-hour teaching preparation course involving teaching practice and shadowing of experienced staff;

Guaranteed teaching hours in years 2 and 3 of the programme;

A dedicated work station within a good quality working environment;

Access to funds to support research expenses (conferences or library visits).

Eligibility

Applicants are normally expected to hold a MA degree in Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics or a closely related field.

Further information about the PhD studentship is available here:

English Language and Linguistics at Northumbria University is a diverse subject that covers a wide range of topics from language evolution and change to language spread and metaphor, with particular strengths in language learning and teaching, sociolinguistics and the psychology of language. While most of our research focuses on English (including historical varieties and world Englishes), our staff members have also worked on or have an active interest in a number of other languages, including Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, French, German and Polish.

For further information about the Department of Humanities and the English Language and Linguistics group at Northumbria University please visit us and more specifically here:

For additional information about the PhD studentship and an application form, interested applicants should contact:

Gill Drinkald, Senior Research Administrator,

Email: gill.drinkald@northumbria.ac.uk Tel: 0191 227 3880

Dr Robert M. McKenzie

Senior Lecturer

English Language and Linguistics

School of Arts & Social Sciences

Northumbria University

Lipman Building

Sandyford Road

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 8ST

Tel: +44 (0) 191 227 3122

email: robert.mckenzie@northumbria.ac.uk

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS: IAWE 2010

16th Annual Conference of the International Association for World Englishes
Date: 25-July-2010 – 27-July-2010
Location: Simon Fraser University Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue
Contact Person: Suzanne K. Hilgendorf
Meeting Email: iawe2010@sfu.ca
Web Site

Elsewhere in this LTE blog, the long-standing links between Manchester’s MA TESOL programme and the Hellenic Open University’s comparable programme have been mentioned. The HOU TESOL team have now launched their online journal celebrating the contributions being made by their students, tutors, and collaborators. 

Check out the journal at:

http://rpltl.eap.gr/

Quite a bit is in Greek but by no means all of it

In the upcoming Issue 2, I will have a contribution (based on a paper I gave at the HOU conference in May 2009). So will ex-LTE colleague Mike Beaumont

Javier, E. (2010). ‘Foreign-ness’, Race and the Native Speaker. In D. Nunan, D. and J. Choi (eds.), Language and culture: Reflective narratives and the emergence of identity. Routledge.

LTE’s Julian Edge also has a chapter in this volume:

Edge, J. (2010). Elaborating the monolingual deficit. In D. Nunan, D. and J. Choi (eds.), Language and culture: Reflective narratives and the emergence of identity. Routledge.

http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/docs/TQCallforAbstractsSept.pdf

Some of LTE’’s narrativists have submitted proposals for this special issue.

For example, Richard Fay, Tanya Halldorsdottir, Eljee Javier, Tzu-Hsuan Liu, and Xiaowei Zhou.

More information on these proposals shortly.

The Third International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca
University of Vienna, 22^nd -25^th May, 2010

Richard is giving a paper at this event with his Greek colleagues Nicos Sifakis and Vally Lytra as follows:

Sifakis, N., Lytra, V. and Fay, R. (forthcoming, 2010). English as a lingua franca in an increasingly post-EFL era: The case of English in the Greek state education curriculum. Paper (to be) presented at the Third International Conference on English as a Lingua Franca, hosted by the University of Vienna, 22^nd – 25^th May 2010, Vienna, Austria.

This builds on the previous paper given at the 2^nd ELF conference as follows:

Sifakis, N. and Fay, R. (2009). Integrating an ELF pedagogy in a changing world: The case of Greek state schooling. Paper presented at The Second International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca, University of Southampton, 6^th -8^th April 2009, Southampton, UK.

Conference details

This third international conference on English as a Lingua Franca is a response to the increasing interest and research activity in this field and follows on from previous successful conferences in Helsinki in 2008 and Southampton in 2009.

 The programme is designed to further maximum interaction and focused discussion among participants. To that end, four main themes will be given prominence:

A.     The sociolinguistics of ELF: theoretical issues arising from the study of ELF in relation to language variation, and language and identity.

B.     The methodology of ELF description: issues concerning the collection, analysis and interpretation of data.

C.     ELF and language policy: issues concerning the development of multilingualism in Europe and elsewhere.
 
D.     ELF and language education: the implications of descriptive work for the design and implementation of teaching programmes.
 
 Apart from four plenary sessions, the conference programme will consist of four colloquia, each dealing with one of these themes.

Plenary sessions
Two of these will be presentations by individual speakers:
 
*Edgar Schneider*, University of Regensburg
*Andy Kirkpatrick*, Hong Kong Institute of Education
 
The other two plenaries will consist of panels of invited speakers who have been active in ELF research, highlighting descriptive and pedagogical issues respectively.
 
Closing date for submission of proposals:  15^th November 2009

http://elfconference.univie.ac.at/

Please direct any enquiries to the conference e-mail address: elfconference@univie.ac.at

People may find this resource of some use: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/catalogue