Stephen Ryan
Waseda University, Japan
ACLL 2016
Keynote Speaker
Stephen Ryan has been involved in language education for over 25 years and is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the School of Culture, Media and Society at Waseda University, Tokyo (from April, 2016). His research and publications cover various aspects of psychology in language learning, with his most recent books being The Psychology of the Language Learner Revisited (co- authored with Zoltán Dörnyei) and Exploring Psychology in Language Learning and Teaching, co-authored with Marion Williams and Sarah Mercer (Oxford University Press).
Keynote Presentation: Psychology in Language Learning; Diverging Approaches and Converging Goals In recent years there has been a growing recognition that language teachers require more than simply a knowledge of language and teaching techniques. Language education is not a one-way process and teachers need to be able to understand and to harness the various contributions learners make to their own learning. These contributions are crucially informed by learner psychology, which encompasses the ways in which learners view themselves and their abilities, their motivation for initiating and persisting with learning tasks, their beliefs about how language should be learned and taught, and the range of emotional states encountered throughout the long, and often arduous, language learning experience. Of course, good teachers already understand psychology—it is a key factor in the various classroom decisions they make—but this understanding often comes at an intuitive level. However, I wish to argue that good practice demands. a more systematic knowledge of concepts from educational psychology—such as motivation, identity, and group formation. Fortunately, in the world of language education research, there has been a surge of exciting initiatives exploring diverse aspects of learner psychology and the good news is that we are now witnessing moves to bring these diverse strands of research together to form a practice-oriented resource. In this talk I hope to show some of the ways in which this resource can enable teachers to better understand both their own teaching and the potential within their learners.
Keynote Presentation Friday, April 29 09:30-10:15 Prokofiev Hall 14 | IAFOR.ORG | ACLL/ACTC 2016