Shamim Ali
Allama Iqbal Open University, Pakistan
Dr Ali teaches English courses through communicative methods of teaching at Diploma, Certificate and Foundation Levels, and has planned, prepared and delivered lessons that cater to individual learning needs and styles. She has a considerable number of publications in the field of English language teaching. Her research deals primarily with computer-mediated communication, intercultural communication, English as a lingua franca, and second language acquisition. Other research expertise includes epistemological and methodological issues in applied linguistics research. She is an editorial board member of several leading international journals, and serves as an external examiner and research supervisor at a number of universities in Pakistan and abroad. She has delivered invited lectures in many national and international conferences.
acll/actc 2014 featured speaker
Shamim Ali is Assistant Professor in the Department of English language and Applied Linguistics in Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad, Pakistan, having previously taught at the National University of Modern Languages. She received her Ph.D. in English Linguistics from National University of Modern Languages Islamabad, and has a long and distinguished academic career as an English language teacher. She is also an internationally published poet.
Teaching English as a Foreign Language: Curriculum Development for Communicative Competence The discussion revolves around a research conducted on developing the most effective curriculum for students studying English as a foreign/second language. The aim of such a research is to analyze the ESL textbooks of a country on factors such as general criterion and teaching communicative competence. Communicative competence is extensively acknowledged as an excellent way to ensure a successful language teaching program. It is based on instilling proficiency in the target language by improving the abilities and potential of second language learners. The term communicative competence describes the learner’s proficiency and expertise in handling the target language in all kinds of communications in real life situations with confidence and understanding of how/when to use certain vocabulary items depending on contextual elements, however, this does not mean that the learner should have native like accuracy or fluency. This discussion is based on my research work regarding Pakistan’s ESL textbooks in which questionnaire and discussion methods were used. The questionnaire was based on certain significant elements identified from various checklists employed for material evaluation along with a section based on the four techniques of communicative competence. The completed questionnaire was submitted by English teachers who were teaching at different secondary levels from selected government schools, later followed by a description of the strengths and weaknesses of their respective textbooks. In the second phase, the four important areas of communicative competence were analyzed by selecting and evaluating the three main ESL text books being used in Pakistan.The framework will be shared with the audience to enable them to analyze the textbooks within their own respective countries.
Featured Speech: Sunday, April 20, 2014 15:00-15:45 OICC - 8F
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