In this issue: Feature Articles Captioned Video in the Listening Classroom: Some Considerations – Kelley Kelley Fast Fast Grammar-Translation Method: Still Alive in Arab TEFL Classrooms – Ahmed Ahmed Abdel Abdel Raouf Raouf
Lesson Plan Reader Response Emerging Technologies Reviews Networking SIG Group Reports Chapter Reports
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C o n t e n t s Perspec tives Volume 17 No. 1 January 2010
From the Co-Editors
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Message from the President
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TESOL Arabia Conference Update
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Feature Articles Captioned Video in the Listening Classroom: Some Considerations
Kelley Fast
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Ahmed Abdel Raouf
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Dana Kampman
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Vance Stevens
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Dave Allan
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A. Mehdi Riazi, PhD
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Neil McBeath
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Basic Spelling Tutorial
Daniel Mangrum
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Spotlight on CAE
Peter B. McLaren
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Mark Vevers
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Sally Ali
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Christopher Blake
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Grammar-Translation Method: Still Alive in Arab TEFL Classrooms
Lesson Plan Video Recipe Lesson
Reader Response How Can Teachers Deal with Technology Overload?
Emerging Technologies Are We Finally Bringing Placement and Practice Testing into the 21st Century?
Reviews Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methodology Cultivating Real Readers: Emerging Theory and Practice for Adult Arab Learners
Reading Explorer 1 Passages Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab Calendar of Upcoming Events
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TESOL Arabia News TESOL Arabia News
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Special Interest Group Reports
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Chapter Reports
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TESOL Arabia Membership Form
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Perspectives Contributor Guidelines
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Co-Editors This issue finds us not only in a new year, but a new decade. We hope that Perspectives and TESOL Arabia find the next ten years both stimulating and fulfilling to educators throughout the region. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the contents within these particular pages.
Melanie Gobert / Rebecca Woll Abu Dhabi Men’s College
Naturally, with the 16th annual TESOL Arabia convention just around the corner, on March 1113 at Zayed University in Dubai, we have a letter from the conference co-chair that will provide you with all the details concerning this popular event. This year’s theme, “Transformations in TESOL,” is most definitely a timely choice considering all the changes that have been going on in both the Gulf and worldwide in the past few years.
William Kennedy ADNOC Technical Institute Abu Dhabi, UAE
Copy Editor
Reviews Editor Cindy Gunn American University of Sharjah Sharjah, UAE
We have two feature articles this time round. Our first, by Kelley Fast, entitled “Captioned Video in the Listening Classroom: Some Considerations,” examines the effectiveness of using captions as a part of a listening exercise and the implications this has on the classroom. It may or may not surprise you to learn which side of the argument research seems to favor. Our second feature, “Grammar-Translation Method: Still Alive in Arab TEFL Classrooms,” by Ahmed Abdel Raouf, takes a thorough look at GTM and the persistence with which it is still used globally, particularly in Egypt. Whether you are a proponent of this method or someone who wishes it would cease to see the light of day in any classroom, you should read this article.
Advisory Panel Christine Coombe Dubai Men’s College Daniel Mangrum Abu Dhabi Men’s College Fatma Alwan Ministry of Education, UAE Janet Olearski Petroleum University, Abu Dhabi Kourosh Lachini University of Qatar Lynne Ronesi American University of Sharjah Mashael Al-Hamly University of Kuwait Muhammad Abdel Latif Cairo University Nicolas Moore Khalifa University, Sharjah Olivia Riordan American University of Sharjah Paul James Dessoir United Arab Emirates University Peter McLaren Al Ain Women’s College Richard Harrison German University of Technology Oman Saleh S. Al-Busaidi Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
In addition to our feature articles, we also have a Readers Response from Vance Stevens. He is responding to John Allan’s article in June 2009,“Are Language Teachers Suffering from Technology Overload?” In his piece,Vance points out that it is a responsibility of teachers in this digital age to learn new technologies but that administrators should be adjusting their approach so that it nurtures “the shift to a 21st century learning environment.” Furthermore, we have an Emerging Technology article from the renowned author Dave Allan, “Are We Finally Bringing Placement and Practice Testing into the 21st Century?” Dave’s article looks in particular at the Oxford Online Placement Test (OOPT) and how it exemplifies the positive steps that are being made nowadays in online testing. Finally, we have a simple, but enticing lesson plan from Dana Kampman entitled, “Video Recipe Lesson.” All in all, the articles in this issue are quite varied, and yet a number of them do address “change” or “Transformations.” With that being the case, we would like to once again encourage any and all of Perspectives’ readership to head to this year’s TESOL Arabia convention. We hope to see you there as we guarantee it will be a fantastic opportunity to invigorate our teaching practices and meet new colleagues as well as see a few familiar faces!
CREDITS Layout / Artwork Rebecca Woll
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Sudeep Kumar
Melanie Gobert
Co-Editors, Perspectives
Printing International Printing Press Dubai, UAE
The co-editors would like to remind the readers that the views expressed in this periodical are those of the individual authors. These views are not necessarily shared by the other authors in this issue or by TESOL Arabia. Responsibility for the content and opinion of articles and advertisements rests with the authors. TESOL Arabia is a non-profit organisation based in the United Arab Emirates with membership from the Arabian Gulf and beyond. TESOL Arabia does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, gender, national origin, disability, religion, age, or native language. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.tesolarabia.org
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Message from the President
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Dear colleagues, As this is the first issue of Perspectives for 2010, I would like to start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year. This is also the first issue of the new decade, which seems a good time to look at how we have progressed in the ELT field in recent years, and to look forward to what the future may bring. With this idea of change in mind, the theme of our upcoming Conference is “Transformations in TESOL.” We hope this event will provide a forum in which to consider the challenges we face and successes we enjoy both in and outside our classrooms. A new feature for this year’s conference will be the opportunity to interact online. TACON Online 2010 will bring TESOL Arabia to the world, providing English language educators with the chance to join discussion forums, write blogs, watch key presentations and access conference materials. To make the most of this new initiative, visit the site and open an account (http://taconference.org). I am delighted to also announce an addition to the TESOL Arabia family – a Reading Special Interest Group. READ SIG has been established to promote reading throughout the region. Chaired by Tom Le Seelleur, READ SIG will soon be announcing events and activities. Another change will see the creation of the TESOL Arabia Advisory Board.The Executive Council voted to convene the board, which will be chaired by the TESOL Arabia Past President. The purpose of the board is to draw on the expertise of professionals both in and outside the ELT field to further develop our organization, and to plan strategically for the future. The changes involving TESOL Arabia are not limited to the region. In January, longtime TESOL Arabia stalwart Christine Coombe was elected president of TESOL International. This is the highest position anyone from our region has achieved in the international body and reflects both her dedication to English teaching and learning, and TESOL Arabia’s growing profile. We are all very proud of her. Mabrook, Christine! Finally, I feel a small bit of regret when I say that this is my final letter as President. My one-year term will conclude in March, at which time I will take on the position of Past President. Sufian Abu-Rmaileh, this year’s Vice President/President-Elect, will become President. I look forward to working with Sufian and the rest of the Executive Council to provide our members with excellent professional development opportunities. Once again, everyone, I wish you a very happy and healthy 2010. I look forward to seeing you at the conference. With warm regards,
Josephine Clark Kennedy President, TESOL Arabia
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16th Annual TESOL Arabia International Conference and Exhibition
March 11 - 13, 2010 Pre-conference Courses: March 10, 2010 Zayed University, Dubai Academic City Pre-register by February 16, 2010 On-site Registration opens at 8 AM on March 11, 2010 Conference Website: www.tesolarabia.org/conference TESOL Transformations We are looking forward to welcoming you to the 16th Annual International Conference & Exhibition, which will provide a variety of professional development opportunities for delegates. Following are some of the conference highlights:
TESOL ARABIA CONFERENCE ONLINE 2010 This year, we are bringing the TESOL Arabia Conference to the world.Visit TACON Online 2010 to take part in discussion forums before and during the conference, to load your profile, save presentation handouts, and to view key presentations from the conference. Opening an account is very easy, so login and get connected! http://tacononline.org
PLENARY ADDRESSES The theme for this year’s conference is “Transformations in TESOL.” All of our plenary speakers will be addressing the subject of change in English language education from a variety of perspectives. Subjects will include young learners in the classroom, our evolving perspectives on language and learning, and emerging issues in the field.
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Afternoon
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From Playroom to Classroom: Hot Topics around Teaching English to Young Learners, David Nunan
Transformations in TESOL: Change and Innovation, Kathleen Bailey
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What Keeps Teachers Going? What Keeps Teachers Developing? Susan Barduhn
Developing Bilingual and Biliterate Capability: What ESOL Ultimately Should Involve, Joseph LoBianco
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The Transition from Second Language Learner to Second Language Speaker: Understanding the Psychology of Language Learning, Peter Macintyre
And in the End (...the Love you Take) Jeremy Harmer
GUEST SPEAKER PRESENTATIONS & WORKSHOPS We are excited about the excellent lineup of presentations and workshops being offered by our guest presenters. Please visit our website for abstracts and scheduling. Volume 17
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Featured Presentations and Workshops
Bringing Real Conversation Skills to the Classroom, Michael McCarthy & Jeanne McCarten The Centrality of Stories in Society and their Potential Centrality in English Language Teaching, Andrew Wright The Corpus and the Classroom: Making Connections, Jeanne McCarten The Curse of Creativity, Hugh Dellar Dealing with Cross-Cultural Stereotypes in ELT: A Way and Ways, Radmila Popovic Lexis, Speaking and the Non-Native Speaker, Hugh Dellar New Literacies: Teachers & Learners & New Literacies: Some Practical Ideas (follow-up) Gavin Dudeney Pedagogy for Autonomy in Language Education: a Re(ide)alistic Practice, Flavia Vieira Profiling English: What do the Common European Framework Levels really Mean? Michael McCarthy Teaching Peace through English: Charting Pathways and Mapping Blind Alleys, Radmila Popovic Teaching the Vocabulary of Conversation, Jeanne McCarten Writing and Performing Poetry, Andrew Wright
Invited Speaker Workshops
Getting Up to Speed in Reading, Peter Viney Theater through Drama (Presentation followed by practical workshop), Lulu Bordalejo 25 Ways of Using Any Text, Julia Dudas
CONCURRENT SESSIONS & THE IT VILLAGE We have over 150 concurrent sessions for you to choose from this year, which focus on everything from assessing student writing to using drama to captivate and inspire your learners. Coupled with a variety of workshops in the IT Village, we are certain that you will find something guaranteed to stimulate and educate.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSES TESOL Arabia is committed to providing educators with a wide variety of professional development events. The purpose of the development courses is to offer you smaller, more focused sessions led by experts in the field. Courses this year focus on transformation — whether it be from motivation theory to practice, from classroom teacher to researcher, from teacher to teacher-educator or administrator, or, in the case of young learners, from the home to the classroom.
Pre-Conference Courses (March 10, 2010) Pre-conference courses are intensive one-day workshops. They have a maximum of 40 participants, and are held the day before the conference begins. Participants must pre-register for these courses.
Approaches to Teacher Research in Language Classrooms: Getting Started Presented by plenary speakers David Nunan and Kathleen M. Bailey
From Motivation Theory to Motivated Practice: Developing Learner and Teacher Engagement Presented by plenary speaker Peter MacIntyre and featured speaker Flavia Vieira
Certificate Courses (March 11-13, 2010) Certificate courses comprise a variety of workshops, which will run throughout the conference, both during the main schedule and outside the regular hours. Though we recommend pre-registration, we will accept on-site registrations until courses are full.
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From Classroom to Boardroom: Developing Teacher Education and Leadership Skills Presented by plenary, featured and invited speakers, sessions include:
Motivating and the Unmotivated: Advice on the Process of Instilling Motivation in Other People, Peter MacIntyre What Teachers Do Next, Jeremy Harmer Developing Teacher Education & Leadership Skills Through Mentoring, Coaching and Peer Observation, David Nunan Do You Have What It Takes? Assessing your Leadership Potential, Christine Coombe Becoming a Teacher Educator, Susan Barduhn Localising the Global Coursebook, Hugh Dellar Dream Management, Phil Quirke & Steve Allison Giving Feedback – Giving Teachers Ownership of Development, Radmila Popovic Leading with Style, Sufian Abu Rmaileh
From Playroom to Classroom: Teaching Young Learners Presented by plenary, featured and invited speakers, sessions include:
Making Stories with Little Language, Andrew Wright Introducing Vocabulary, Caroline Cameron Multimedia English for Young Learners, Radmila Popovic Literacy and English, Joseph LoBianco Children’s Attention in Today’s World: The Need for Awakening Motivation and Interest in Young Learners, Lulu Bordalejo English Clubs: The Joining Instructions, Stephen Monteith & Caroline Cameron Bilingualism in the Young Learners’ Classroom: Issues, Micheline Habib Using Media Player with YLers, Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop Using Rhymes and Chants, Eilidh Hamilton
COLLOQUIUM: RESEARCH ON TEACHING & LEARNING ENGLISH IN THE ARAB WORLD Friday, March 12, 10:00-11:45 AM In this programme facilitated by Kathleen Bailey and David Nunan, recipients of the Sheikh Nahayan Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship report on original research they have conducted on some aspect of teaching and learning English in the Arab world.There will be time to interact with the presenters to learn about and discuss their research and findings.
DUBAI DEBATES & DISCUSSIONS This year the TESOL Arabia Conference will include two debates and three discussion forums which resonate with the conference theme: Transformations in TESOL. The topics were voted on by TESOL Arabia membership, but the results were not in at the time of printing this issue of Perspectives. Please visit our website (www.tesolarabia.org/conference) to find out what hot topics will be featured in this portion of our conference.
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION For all book lovers and material writers, as well as those looking for the latest teaching aids or edition of their preferred texts, the TESOL Arabia Exhibition will once again host the international exhibition. In addition to major publishers and distributors, many tertiary institutions and other educational organizations from around the globe will take part in the exhibition. As always, delegates will be provided with a wealth of materials and information for consideration.
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INNOVATIVE MATERIAL SHOWCASE Are you interested in the latest English language teaching and learning materials, and in professional development opportunities available through institutions throughout the Gulf? If so, you will enjoy attending our Innovative Material Showcase sessions, which highlight the latest ELT products and programs.
JOB FAIR As in previous years, some 30 institutions are expected to be represented at the conference. If you are seeking employment in the field of ELT, the job fair provides you with great opportunities throughout the conference to learn about the latest openings and to interview for positions.
FOOD & DRINK AT THE CONFERENCE Busy conference delegates need time to take a break and re-energize with good food and conversation. All Zayed University restaurants and cafĂŠs will be open during the conference, along with its popular canteen. Coffee and snacks will also be served throughout the exhibition area. To avoid overcrowding, no specific lunch break has been scheduled during the conference. Delegates can choose to dine whenever they like. Prices are reasonable (approximately 35 AED for a full hot meal with salad and a drink).
PARKING Zayed University has plenty of parking. Please enter through Gate 1 – Entrance B.
MORE INFORMATION Visit our website for more details about the conference: www.tesolarabia.org/conference
Zayed University - Al Ruwayyah Campus, Dubai
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Captioned Video in the Listening Classroom: Some Considerations Introduction In a listening class, teachers have to consider what kind of input is most beneficial in assisting and improving the listening comprehension of their learners, and one of the most effective tools for teaching listening comprehension is video (Ruben, 1995). Through the use of video, not only are students provided with a cultural context for the language being learned, but they are also exposed to “authentic materials and to voices, dialects, and registers other than the teacher’s” (Swaffer & Vlatten, 1997, p. 175). However, teachers are faced with the decision of whether or not to allow the use of captions when viewing video material (Taylor, 2005). This is a decision I have also had to make in my teaching career. In my experience teaching listening, I noticed that some of my colleagues were using captions when showing videos, while others were not. I chose not to use captions because I believed that by using them, students might rely too heavily on them to comprehend videotexts. However, I hadn’t read a lot on the subject supporting either approach. As a result, I decided to investigate this topic further through a review of the literature and what I found is that whether or not teachers use English captions with video material may in fact depend on the objective of the listening activity. According to Mayer (2001), if the goal of the activity is to help learners acquire isolated pieces of information, the use of captions may be appropriate. However, if the goal of the listening activity is to facilitate meaningful learning, captions may not be the best option. This article will begin with a brief overview of multimedia learning and listening comprehension. Next, arguments for and against the use of captions in the listening classroom will be presented. Finally, classroom implications and suggestions for using video without captions will be discussed. Volume 17
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Kelley Fast American University of Sharjah Sharjah, UAE
Multimedia Learning and Listening Comprehension Developments in multimedia technology have resulted in an array of videotexts available for use in language classrooms (Cross, 2009).To see the value of multimedia presentations, it is necessary to consider how people learn from words and pictures. Mayer (2001) presents three assumptions upon which the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML) is built. First, there is an assumption that humans have a processing system for auditory material and another system for visual material. Multimedia presentations make use of both systems, tapping into a person’s full learning potential. His second assumption is that these channels have a limited capacity. Because of these limitations, decisions need to be made “about which pieces of incoming information to pay attention to” (Mayer, 2001, p.50). The final assumption is that active learning involves selecting, organizing, and integrating relevant material with existing knowledge. Thus, learning is active and occurs “when learners are able to build meaningful connections between visual and verbal representations” (Mayer, 2001, p. 5). This fits neatly with a definition of listening comprehension provided by Rubin (1995): Listening consists of processing information which listeners get from visual and auditory clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express. When processing information, listeners are not passive recipients of information, rather, they actively take information they get and match it in some way to the existing information they have in their head. (p. 151)
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Thus, Rubin (1995) and Mayer (2001) agree that learners need to be active participants in processing what they see and hear and in integrating new information with existing knowledge for successful learning to take place.
Reasons for Using Captions with Video Using video in the classroom can be seen as a useful teaching tool in that it allows learners to build connections between verbal and visual representations (Rubin, 1995). Adding captions to video appears to have two distinct advantages. The first advantage is that learners perceive captions as being helpful (Chung & Hsin, 1999; Taylor, 2005). The high-intermediate adult European learners of English in Vanderplank’s (1988) study reported that they felt they could relax while listening because the captions provided assurance that they could check what they heard if they felt they needed to. Furthermore, 93.44% of the lowintermediate Chinese college students in Chung and Hsin’s (1999) study felt that captions helped their understanding of the video. Similarly, many of the second and third year university students of Spanish in Taylor’s (2005) study reported feeling more comfortable watching the video with captions and perceived the captions as being helpful for understanding. The second advantage of using captions is that they are a way of enhancing input. One result of this enhanced input is being able to provide for different learning styles (Mayer, 2001;Vanderplank, 1996). If learners are weak at listening, they can attend to the words on the screen to get the linguistic message (Mayer, 2001;Vanderplank, 1993). Vanderplank (1993, 1996) argues that language learners are “hard of listening” and that receiving the same content from another source is needed. Plass and Jones (2005) add another benefit of enhanced input stating Kelley Fast has an MA in that “any meaningful Applied Linguistics/TESL. Over the last 20 years, she linguistic input has potential has taught in Canada, value for the acquisition of Australia, Japan, and the the language…reading and U.A.E. Her professional interests include vocabulary listening are two building strategies and competencies that both need professional development in the workplace. to be developed and in
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many cases one is used as input enhancement for the other” (p.480). Neuman and Koskinen (1992) found that captions helped language minority junior high school students improve their vocabulary and students with more English acquired more vocabulary from context. Moreover, in their study of Turkish college students studying intermediate English,Yuksel and Tanriverdi (2009) found that students watching video with captions scored slightly higher on a vocabulary knowledge test than those who did not have captions available to them. In fact, Koskinen et al. (1993) argue that captions assist in vocabulary development due to learners’ repeated opportunities to see vocabulary words in print.
Reasons for Not Using Captions Perhaps the biggest criticism of the use of captions is based on the redundancy principle (Mayer, 2001; Schnotz, 2005). According to Mayer (2001), “The case against adding on-screen text is based on the capacity-limitation hypothesis: People have limited capacity to process visually presented material and limited capacity to process auditorily-presented material” (p.152). Presenting pictures and text on screen can lead to visual overload in that the pictures and printed words compete for the eyes’ attention, also referred to as split attention (Mayer, 2001; Schnotz, 2005). This problem of overload was evident in the results of a study conducted by Taylor (2005). The use of captions did not help the firstyear students comprehend the video “and in fact, seem to have been detrimental to their understanding of the video” (p.425). Taylor (2005) concluded that learners with little reading and listening experience in the target language have difficulty attending to three types of input simultaneously. According to Mayer (2001), such cognitive overload is detrimental to the construction of knowledge. Another problem with the use of captions is that they take the learners’ eyes away from the animation. As a result, captions “prevent students from learning to use visual and auditory clues to determine the meaning and hence do not contribute to the development of the listening skill” (Rubin, 1995, p. 155). Mayer (2001) concurs stating that when words are presented both visually and auditorily, learners may be tempted to try to match the two streams of information and this “activity requires cognitive resources that consequently are
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not available for processing the animation and mentally linking it with the narration, an integration process that is essential for meaningful learning” (p.153). Vandergrift (2004) argues that while visual supports, like captions, may help develop word recognition skills, “they do not foster the development of compensatory strategies where listeners take advantage of real-life contextual information and limited word recognition skills to fill gaps in comprehension” (p. 7). Furthermore, natural visual clues “can provide important contextual information to help the listener” (Vandergrift, 2004, p.10). Vandergrift (2004) adds that language learners need to learn to depend on what they hear and on the relevant contextual clues to improve their listening comprehension because written text is not usually available in real-time listening situations. Therefore, it is important for teachers to present video without captions to teach learners how to use the visual context to help understand what the speakers are saying. A third reason for not using captions is that some students simply choose to stop listening in favour of relying on the captions as was the case in Taylor’s (2005) study. Five of 18 first year students and four of 17 third year students reported either not using the sound or ignoring the sound altogether. This is significant because what was intended to be a listening exercise became a reading exercise for almost 1/3 of the learners. Rubin (1995) states “If learners are to learn to listen, they need to exercise their listening skills” (p. 162). By not providing captions, learners have to rely on the sound to understand the message of the video. Finally, some learners find the presence of captions distracting. Schnotz (2005) states, “It is difficult for learners to ignore a simultaneously presented written text. Thus, the presentation of a picture combined with a written text results in the split of visual attention” (p. 62). It is this split attention that makes captions distracting. Thirty five percent of the first year students and 11% of the third year students in Taylor’s (2005) study reported that they found the captions distracting. The Arabic-speaking participants in Vanderplank’s (1988) study also found the captions to be distracting and disturbing adding that “the text changed too rapidly for them to read it with understanding” (p. 276).
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Classroom Implications and Suggestions Vandergrift (2003) believes learners “must be taught how to listen without pressure of ‘getting it right’ so that they can learn to use effective listening strategies that are also applicable outside the classroom” (p. 426). Cross (2009) adds that “without pedagogical direction learners are unlikely to be able to deal with the complexities of this authentic listening resource” (p. 151). Cross argues that many learners think visuals are distracting and instead of using them to make meaning, learners tend to rely more heavily on trying to remember everything they hear, a bottom-up approach to listening comprehension. Furthermore, some teachers exploit videotexts as they would listening materials found in textbooks by creating activities such as cloze exercises that focus on the audio “and possible contextual support provided by accompanying visuals is neglected” (Cross, 2009, p. 152). Instead of relying so heavily on a bottom-up approach to listening, Cross suggests teachers include the value and importance of contextual knowledge and provide learners with opportunities to use both their audio and visual channels to make meaning of listening texts. He adds that this would help learners develop “real world” listening skills, address affective concerns, and from this framework, learners could “build towards more detailed understanding as they are also helped to develop bottom-up processes (e.g. phoneme and word recognition) and linguistic ability” (p. 152). In his study of the effects of listening strategy instruction with advanced-level adult Japanese learners of English, Cross (2009) utilized a pedagogical cycle when conducting lessons using short BBC video news clips. He began with a 30minute pre-listening activity to activate background knowledge. He then told learners that comprehension was considered achieved when the meaning of what they noted matched the information in the videotext. At this point, one group of learners received a lesson on listening strategies, while the other group did not. All learners then viewed the videotext in short segments. They were told not to write while listening, allowing them “to both watch and listen and utilize both auditory and visual channels (reflecting ‘real world’ listening)”
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(p. 159-160). Learners then wrote and checked their notes with peers and repeated the listening exercise a second time. Learners were then given feedback on their work and participated in a post-listening activity (p. 160). While there was no significant difference in the post-test scores of the group that received strategy training and the group that did not, both groups did show significant improvements from their pre-tests to their post-tests using this pedagogical cycle. Swaffer and Vlatten (1997) propose another model for viewing video in the language classroom. Their model “assumes that the first problem that FL learners confront when viewing a foreign program or video segment is cognitive overload, that is, too much new information to process in working memory” (p. 177). There are five stages to the model with the first being silent viewing. This stage allows learners of all language abilities to connect their expectations of a particular genre to what they see in the video and organize what is familiar and unfamiliar. Swaffar and Vlatten (1997) state that “awareness of genre promotes the ability to predict speech acts because the organizational structure of genres is frequently predictable” (p. 179). The second stage is silent viewing where learners look for cultural differences. In stage 3, learners listen and watch the video for global understanding and it is at this point learners “confirm or disconfirm that their visual comprehension corresponds to their understanding of what is actually said” (p. 180). In stage 4, learners view the video again, this time “identifying minimal linguistic differences as difference in meaning” (p. 180). At this stage, learners have viewed the video a number of times and are now better prepared for attending to the details of the listening. The fifth and final stage is an opportunity for a post listening task which may include a role play, written reaction, or discussion based on the information from the video (p. 182). In both models presented, learners partake in pre, while, and post-listening activities. Furthermore, learners watch the videos in segments and there is repeated viewing. Learners move from comprehending main ideas to adding more details with each listening and in both cases, learners’ attentions are drawn to the visuals of the video to support the audio. Neither model promotes the use of captions. Rather, they provide students with
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repeated viewings and encourage learners to actively work at constructing their own meanings.
Conclusion If one sees multimedia learning as informationdelivery, then captions are useful because they provide enhanced input and “if one delivery is blocked-perhaps because the learner does not learn well from that format-then the information still gets through via another route” (Mayer, 2001, p.154). In this case, the learner is a passive recipient of information. However, according to Rubin (1995), “when processing information, listeners are not passive recipients of information, rather, they actively take the information they get and match it in some way to the existing information they have in their head” (p.51). This fits closely with Mayer’s (2001) CTML in which learning is a process of knowledge construction. If one subscribes to this theory, then the use of captions is not an effective way to improve listening comprehension.
References Chung, J. & Hsin, M. (1999). The effects of using videotexts supported with advance organizers and captions on Chinese college students’ listening comprehension: An empirical study. Foreign Language Annals, 32(3), 295-305. Cross, J. (2009). Effects of listening strategy instruction on news videotext comprehension. Language Teaching Research, 13(2), 151-176. Koskinen, P., Wilson, R., Gambrell, L. & S. Neuman (1993). Captioned video and vocabulary learning: An innovative practice in literacy instruction. Reading Teacher, 47(1), 36-43. Mayer, R. (2001). Multimedia learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neuman, S. B. & Koskinen, P. (1992). Captioned television as comprehensible input: Effects of incidental word learning from context for language minority students. Reading Research Quarterly, 27(1), 95-106. Plass, J. & Jones, L. (2005). Multimedia learning in second language acquisition. In R. Mayer (Ed.) The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning, pp. 467-488. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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of L2 listening. Canadian Modern Language Review, 59, 425-440. Vandergrift, L. (2004). Listening to learn or learning to listen. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 3-25. Vanderplank, R. (1988). The value of teletext subtitles in language learning. ELT Journal, 42(4), 272-281. Vanderplank, R. (1993). A very verbal medium: Language learning through closed captions. TESOL Journal, 3(1), 10-14. Vanderplank, R. (1996). Really active viewing with teletext subtitles and closed captions. Modern English Teacher, 5(2), 32-37. Yuksel, D. & B. Tanriverdi (2009). Effects of watching captioned movie clips on vocabulary development of EFL learners. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 8(2), 1-7.
Rubin, J. (1995). The contribution of video to the development of competence in listening. In D. Mendelson & J. Rubin (Eds.) A guide for the teaching of second language listening, pp. 151-165. Carlsbad, California: Dominie Press, Inc. Schnotz, W. (2005). An integrated model of text and picture comprehension. In R. Mayer (Ed.) The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning, pp. 49-69. New York: Cambridge University Press. Swaffar, J. & A.Vlatten (1997). A sequential model for video viewing in the foreign language curriculum. The Modern Language Journal, 81, 175-188. Taylor, G. (2005). Perceived processing strategies of students watching captioned video. Foreign Language Annals, 38(3), 422-427. Vandergrift, L. (2003). From prediction to reflection: Guiding students through the process
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Grammar-Translation Method: Still Alive in Arab TEFL Classrooms Introduction The first decade of the third millennium is about to close its doors leaving behind a number of unresolved issues in applied linguistics and TESL/TEFL, for example, the role of Universal Grammar and the cognitive process involved in Second Language Acquisition, and the efficacy of corrective feedback in improving L2 learner’s linguistic accuracy. One of those unresolved issues is the stubborn, unexplained survival of the GrammarTranslation Method (GTM) in various parts of the world. This article traces its origins, cites its current existence globally, summarizes its basic tenets, addresses its disadvantages and discusses the reasons for its amazing survival in different places worldwide in general, and in Egypt in particular. The article also sheds light on the current TEFL practices in the Middle East and some Asian countries. Then it concludes with recommendations for those who are, against all odds, still using GTM in Egypt and worldwide.
GTM: Origins and Background GTM (the classical method), which was basically improvised to teach dead languages such as Latin and Greek in Prussia, Germany, dates back to the late 18th century where the principle technique among teachers was a combination of grammar rules and translation into the target language (Escher, 1928 cited in Kelly, 1969). Howatt (1984) maintains that the first GTM English teaching course was prepared in 1793 by Johann Christian Fick in Germany which was considered, at that time, the advanced model in educational practice. Ollendorf,
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Ahmed Abdel Raouf College of Languages and Translation Imam Muhammed Bin Saud Islamic University Saudi Arabia
a famous group of language courses appearing in 1840 whose teaching strategy and sequential arrangement were a rule of thumb, applied the GTM approach (Stern, 1993). Dodson (1967) confirmed using the bilingual method that was actually based on GTM teaching techniques. Howatt and Widdowson (2004) quote Poletz (1848) declaring GTM as the principle method for teaching foreign languages at that time. By the end of the 19th century, a severe attack was leveled at GTM, once considered to be "an important advance in the art of teaching languages" (Kroeh, 1887, p. 170-1), and it was blamed for the failure of teaching foreign languages. The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century witnessed, on a wide scale, a sense of opposition against GTM. In spite of having no theoretical assumption underlying it and its failure in its cradle in the west, the method has withstood the test of time and is still firmly entrenched in different countries worldwide. Richards and Rodgers (1986) expressed their wonder about its survival and persistence. Likewise, in his report of the current practices of TEFL, Maleki (2005) called GTM a "sine qua non" method and described its sturdiness and resistance to educational reforms. In Taiwan, both GTM and Audio-lingual Method (ALM) are still predominant (Shannon, 2006). Similarly, in his empirical study on 346 college-EFL learners in Taiwan, Lin (2003) reported the students were found to be displeased and frustrated with GTM. In Japan, where GTM is still the most prevalent method, Ayumi (2004) held GTM responsible for Japanese students’ poorest performance in the TOEFL test in 1999. In her
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pioneering article, Chaudary (2001) mentioned that GTM is still used in some parts of India. An (2002) maintains that GTM centered-methods still heavily affect Vietnamese education. In China, TEFL is test driven and the GTM method is widely used in classrooms (Zhang, 2006). In their report of the Rolling Project, a project conducted in China from 1998 to 2000 in a major provincial university, Wang and Cheng (2005, p. 18) reported that “most senior or middle-aged teachers use GTM in TEFL.” Even in Korea, until recent times, teachers still adopt GTM in many schools (Myoung-woo, 2001). GTM is still widely used in Yemen (Attamimi, 2003). In Egypt, Abuhakema (2004) drew attention to the painful fact that TEFL is still dependant on GTM. It has been found that 94% of Egyptian TEFL teachers use an adaptation of ALM and GTM in class (Monem, El-Sokkary, Haddaway, & Bickel, 2001). Likewise, Abdel Mawgood (1988) maintained that, for a long time in Egypt, knowledge about language form was much more important than the ability to use language meaningfully, or functionally, and expressed the need for qualified teachers who do not "rely on GTM solely" in EFL instruction.
GTM: Approach, Design and Method Richard and Rodgers (1995) maintain that current TESL/TEFL approaches are informed, explicitly or implicitly, by three different theoretical views of language and its nature: the “structural view,” “the functional view” and “the interactional view.” Focusing on analyzing rather than using the language, GTM can be classified under the first view. It views language as a system of related structures observed for coding the meaning and claims that L1 is the reference system in L2 acquisition (Stern, 1993). Being neither a processoriented theory nor a condition-oriented Ahmed Abdel Raouf is an EFL lecturer in the College of theory, GTM is a preLanguages and Translation at Imam theoretical approach, Muhammed Bin Saud Islamic based on faculty University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He has an MA in applied linguistics psychology maintaining (TESL/TEFL) and is a PhD candidate. that the various faculties He has 20-years experience in TEFL in three countries. His basic of the human mind can interests are applications of applied be trained separately linguistics and SLA in TEFL, theories (Stern, 1993). Similarly, and cognitive process involved in SLA and TEFL programs design. GTM is based on traditional linguistics' E-mail: skyflyer1@hotmail.com
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beliefs which assumed the supremacy of the written form over the spoken one and tried to force English into the frame of Latin (Aitchison, 1995). Using grammar as the basis of the syllabus, GTM design has specific features and suppositions. The primary objective of GTM is to help students acquire a reading knowledge in foreign languages and literature which would enable them, by the help of a dictionary, to apply this knowledge in interpreting texts (Larsen-Freeman, 2000). GTM assumes that students are successful if they manage to translate from L2 to L1. Communication in L2 is not a goal (Howatt, 1984). “Each new lesson had a couple of new grammar rules, a short list of the included vocabulary and some examples for translation practice without speaking, listening or pronunciation” (Howatt & Widdowson, 2004, p. 156). The only authority in the classroom is the teacher. L1 vocabulary has its equivalents in L2 and attention to similarities between L1 and L2 facilitates learning (Larsen-Freeman, 2000). Moreover, L2 form is very important. According to GTM, language learning is an intellectual activity that involves rule learning, rule memorization and massive translation practice (Stern, 1993). GTM depends on some basic procedures or techniques such as translating authentic or teachermade reading passages from L1 into L2, which are used later to focus on vocabulary and grammatical structures (Larsen-Freeman, 2000). Both written and/or spoken translation is used (Holliday, 1994) and the reading passage is usually followed by three groups of questions: the first is direct and based on the passage content, the second depends on inferencing and the third asks students to relate the passage content to their own personal experience (Larsen-Freeman, 2000). Finding synonyms, antonyms or definitions for sets of words was a basic practice and memorizing L2 word lists with their L1 equivalents were basic techniques in GTM, too (Allen, 1983). Cognates' recognition is taught to students by “learning how L1 and L2 correspond in terms of sound patterns and spelling” (Huebener, 1965, p. 98). Larsen-Freeman (2000) maintains that, in GTM, grammar is taught deductively and followed by some exercises, and composition, fill-inthe-blanks and put-words-in-sentences exercises were used frequently. Also, grammatical parsing, reading difficult texts at an earlier stage, and TESOL Arabia Perspectives
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translating sentences from L1 into L2 and vice versa were very common GTM techniques (Bachman, 1990; Celce-Murcia, 2001).
GTM: Why NO! It appears clearly that GTM has no significant value in TEFL apart from helping students to develop a solid base of grammar and master L2 structures and their usage (Baw, 2002). It harshly ignores that different learners have different learning styles and language learning involves the mapping of form, meaning and use (Larsen-Freeman, 2001). The most important criticism leveled against GTM is its overestimation of grammar teaching though it is not even one of the basic skills, concentrating on reading and writing and neglecting listening and speaking which are considered to be basic skills (Huang & Xu, 1999; Stern, 1993). It considers language as a group of possible sentences or theoretical grammatical frames filled with vocabulary items (Howatt & Widdowson, 2004). Another major disadvantage of GTM is the use of invented and unauthentic literary texts (LarsenFreeman, 2000). Rather than exposure or experience and interaction, GTM depends only on conscious memorization that is completely against the new evidence provided by SLA (Krashen, 1994). The excessive use of L1 in learning L2 does not give the students any chance to practice the new learnt language (Baw, 2002). This heavy reliance on L1 use has, axiomatically, limited GTM's application to monolingual classes and hindered its application in multicultural ones (Holliday, 1994). Being a teacher-centered approach and an unnatural method (Krashen, 1994) does not give a chance to pair or group work activities. GTM has also overlooked other pedagogic indicators. According to Moore (1999), it has neglected the cultural, sociolinguistic and pragmatic features of the learnt language. Consequently, it has only produced professional mute grammarians.
Still Alive in Egypt! Why? In the report of their study of EFL instruction in Egypt, Monem et al. (2001) referred to some important hindrances: the general trend of education focuses on accuracy, teaching grammar deductively, and intensive drilling rather than pronunciation, fluency or oral communication. Both
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directors and teachers are neither properly trained nor follow the state-of-art in TEFL methodology. Therefore, the former never permit change since this is the way they learnt their EFL and the latter find GTM much more comfortable in many ways. For example, teachers do not spend the required effort or time in lesson planning, presenting the new material to large number classes (Monem et al. 2001 maintained that the class' average size is 43 and one teacher reported having 80 students), improving their teaching skills, fluency or even in polishing their overall performance. Amazingly, against all the bulk of scientific research, students are classified according to age, not language proficiency. Another important factor that has prolonged GTM’s life is the assessment of the National English Examination that completely ignores the aural/oral skills, a practice widely known to have harmful backwash on teaching and learning (Hughes, 2003). Creativity and innovation in TEFL are suppressed and teachers have to stick to the manual verbatim with only one task in mind: make students achieve the best scores on paper.
A Roadmap for TEFL in Egypt Externally, GTM could be the cheapest beneficial method in providing students with a solid grammatical base and controlling the large classes in Egypt. However, the question that remains: Is providing students with the basic structures of the language and controlling large classes the main objectives of TEFL in our country?! These goals, of course, are far from the correct ones. Teaching grammar in itself is not bad, almost all the recent teaching methodologies have to deal with it in one way or another and a good bulk of SLA evidence maintains that teaching should focus on form besides meaning (Ellis, 2006). Here is one recent vote published on the website of the British Council in which non-native speaker teachers voted on how they teach grammar in the classroom (British Council, 2006). Figure 1 shows that 68 % use a mixture of the deductive and inductive approaches. So, grammar, as a language area, is still taught; however, that does not mean using one method taking the extreme end, focusing on grammar and putting basic skills aside. The grammar component is one part of the course’s syllabus and the teacher has to think of presenting it innovatively
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throughout the skills of his or her course. Widdowson (1995), when discussing the syllabus, emphasized that the syllabus is an “inert” and “abstract object” and is not as important as the teacher's realization of it in the classroom. In brief, it is the “teacher's conception” of the EFL instruction that “makes the difference.” Therefore, improvement in the teaching method can significantly lead TEFL practice in Egypt and the Arab World for the better.
Savignon, 2001). Therefore, learners, being key participants and pedagogic indicators, should be given a role in pedagogy decisions rather than ignored, helped to identify their styles and learning strategies, taught how to learn and use the appropriate strategy that suits them rather than imposing one single method that harshly ignores their unique social and cultural realities (Kumaravadivelu, 2006b).
Figure 1 How non-native speaker teachers approach grammar teaching 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 I prefer a deductive approach 10%
I prefer an inductive approach 18%
I use a mixture of both 68%
I use another approach 4%
Howatt and Widdowson (2004) argued that a historical account is never just the recording of events, that is we should think of it and learn. Each teaching approach has been presented in reaction to the inadequacy of the previous one, but unfortunately each one has brought with it its own disadvantages and some of them are designed for completely different social and cultural contexts. In their brief survey of the nature of approaches and methods, Richards and Rodgers (1995) concluded that not a single method is flawless; they all have problems with either their approach, design or procedures. Combined with the awareness of our different educational TEFL settings, this realization of the current teaching approaches and the theories underlying them, we could lead EFL instruction to creativity in Arab countries. GTM is outdated, obsolete and no longer valid for the age of globalization where English has become the only language of global business (Davies, 2003) and is spoken by more than 2 billion people worldwide (Graddol, 2006). We should provide opportunities for EFL experience and communication and get our learners to learn and practice both the use and the usage of the language (Celce-Murcia, 2001;
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Kumaravadivelu (2006b) argued that the new millennium, with the current thinking of English as an International Language, has brought with it new TEFL challenges and cautions not to think of new methods. He (2006a) drew attention to the vagueness of the term “method” and its relative unhelpfulness. Similarly, Pennycook (1989) maintained that the concept of method confused rather than improved our understanding of TEFL/TESL teaching. Prabhu (1990) maintained that the best method is a phantom. A number of other scholars doubted finding a new method that can be a single panacea for all social and cultural contexts. Celce-Murcia (2001, p. 10) summed up the essence of her professional expertise in one sentence reflecting her awareness of the profession's history and its current state-of-art: "Adapt; do not adopt." Likewise, Kumaravadivelu (2006a) proposed three parameters in the pedagogy of the postmethod era: “particularity" which means critical awareness of the learner, the teacher and the context of learning, "practicality" which focuses on teacher's reflections and actions that are based on his intuition and insights, and "possibility" which stresses both the student's and the teacher's individual identity and how students' experiences can alter the classroom's activities. Departing from this threepedagogic-parameter framework, adept teachers should adopt an eclectic approach incorporating elements from the wide range of available methods. It is time for a “theory of practice” proposed by the teacher himself (Kumaravadivelu, 2001). In conclusion, had Palmer (1922) been alive, we would have told him that his dream of the best method will not come true; the best teaching method is just a myth and neverland. As TESL/TEFL practitioners, we should believe in that and be winds of change in our countries. From now on, we should think of the qualified, innovative and autonomous teacher that has Prabhu’s (1990) “sense TESOL Arabia Perspectives
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of plausibility,” Kumaravadivelu's (2006a) ability to apply his principles in constructing a contextsensitive pedagogical framework and Celce-Murcia's (2001) talent to adapt not adopt.
References Abdel Mawgood, E. (1988). A strategy for educational reform. Paper presented at the 8th CDELT National Symposium on English Language Teaching, Cairo. Abuhakema, G. M. A. (2004). The cultural component of the Arabic summer program at Middlebury College: Fulfillment of students' needs and expectations. Unpublished dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD degree, The University of Texas at Austin, Middlebury. Aitchison, J. (1995). Linguistics: An introduction. London: Penguin. Allen, V. F. (1983). Techniques in teaching vocabulary. New York: Oxford University Press. An, N. T. H. (2002). Cultural effects on learning and teaching English in Vietnam: Studies of South East Asian ministers of education organisation The Language Teacher [Online] (26.01). Attamimi, N. O. (2003, August 7-10). Grammar Translation: The dominant method in many ELT classrooms. Retrieved September 20, 2006 from http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=6 57&p=education&a=2 Ayumi. (2004). The best way to teach English to teenagers. Retrieved September 20, 2006, from http://www.b5notebook.org/story/2004/1/14/ 204116/177 Bachman, L. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baw, S. S. (2002). A Brief examination of some earlier grammar-based methods through Brown’s twelve principles of language teaching. [pdf]. ABAC Journal [Online], 22(1). Retrieved October 1, 2006, from http://www.journal.au.edu/abac_journal/2002/ jan2002/. British Council. (2006). Grammar teaching approaches. Retrieved Septemper 29, 2006, from http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/talk/vote/v ote9_gramteach.shtml
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Celce-Murcia, M. (2001). Language teaching approaches: An overview. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp.3-11). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Chaudary, S. (2001). ELT in India: 400 years and still going strong. Retrieved October 4, 2006, from http://www.iatefl.org/archives/Texts/162Chau dary.html Davies, A. (2003). The native speaker in applied linguistics: Myth and reality. Sydney: Multilingual matters Ltd. Dodson, C. J. (1967). Language teaching and the bilingual method. London: Pitman. Ellis, R. (2006). Current issues in the teaching of grammar: An SLA perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 109-131. Graddol, D. (2006). English next: Why global English may mean the end of "English as a foreign language." Plymouth: Latimer Trend & Company Ltd. Holliday, A. (1994). Appropriate methodology and social context. New York: Cambridge University Press. Howatt, A.P.R. (1984). A history of English language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Howatt, A. P. R., & Widdowson, H. G. (2004). A history of English language Teaching (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Huang, Y., & Xu, H. (1999). Trends in English language education in China. ESL Magazine, 39(6). Huebener, T. (1965). How to teach foreign languages effectively (Revised ed.). New York: New York University Press. Hughes, A. (2003). Testing for language teachers (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kelly, L. G. (1969). Centuries of language teaching. Rowely, MA: Newbury House. Krashen, S. (1994). The input hypothesis and its rivals. In N. Ellis (Ed.), Implicit and explicit learning of languages (pp. 45-77). New York: Academic Press. Kroeh, C. F. (1887). Methods of teaching modern languages. Paper presented at the Transactions and proceedings of the modern language association of America III, New York. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2001). Toward a postmethod pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly, 35, 537–560.
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Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006a). TESOL methods: Changing tracks, challenging trends. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 59-81. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006b). Understanding language teaching: From method to postmethod (Vol. 161184). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawerence Erlbaum Associates. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching. New York: Oxford University Press. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2001). Teaching grammar In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp.251-266). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Maleki, A. (2005). A new approach to teaching English as a foreign language: The bottom-up approach. Asian EFL Journal, 3 (2). Monem, D. A., El-Sokkary, W., Haddaway, C. & Bickel, B. (2001). Teaching English in Egypt at the crossroads of global communication. [PDF]. ESL Magazine, 4(1-6), 189-193. Moore, Z. (1999). Reorganizing the foreign language program: Challenges for the 21st century. In V. P. James (Ed.), Challenges and opportunities for education in the 21st century (pp. 53-70). Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press. Myoung-woo, R. (2001). The fifth skill: Translating is another major goal of English education. Paper presented at the KATE annual international conference Korea. Palmer, H. E. (1922). The principles of language-study. London: Harrap.
Pennycook, A. (1989). The concept of method, interested knowledge, and the politics of language. TESOL Quarterly, 23, 589-618. Prabhu, N. S. (1990). There is no best method-why? TESOL Quarterly, 24, 161-176. Richards, J., & Rodgers, T. (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J., & Rodgers, T. (1995). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Savignon, S. J. (2001). Communicative language teaching for the twenty-first century. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp.13-28). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Shannon, F. (2006, September 20). EFL pedagogy in Taiwan. Retrieved September 23, 2006,from http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/a rchives/2006/08/20/2003323973 Stern, H. (1993). Fundamental concepts of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wang, H., & Cheng, L. (2005). The impact of curriculum innovation on the cultures of teaching. The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly, 7(4), 7-32. Widdowson, H. G. (1995). Aspects of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zhang, Z. (2006). The application of task-based instruction in Chinese EFL classroom. [html]. The International Journal of Language, Society and Culture, 18(2).
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Video Recipe Lesson Using the content of cooking and following recipes, this lesson highlights the use of the imperative and sequence words. It integrates the four skills, but focuses more heavily on speaking and listening. This lesson is ideal for a high beginner class of any age group. The opening of the lesson works to build vocabulary. In two teams, students will be asked to brainstorm as many words as they can around cooking and recipes. Each team will be asked to stand in a line at the board. One by one each student should write a word on the board. This should be done as quickly as possible until the designated time is up. The lists will be counted and a winner awarded. The teacher can then expand upon the vocabulary that the students already know.
Dana Kampman Al Yamamah University Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Thai food. As the students listen to the video for the first time, they should be directed to write down any ingredients that they hear. During the second time listening, students should listen for the cooking instructions. They may write down key verbs or words, as they like. During the third and final listening, students should be given the following recipe for pad thai. It should be cut up and students need to listen and put it in the proper sequence. First add 2 tablespoons of oil to the wok. Turn on gas to low heat. Add pickled white radish and garlic. Stir until you smell the garlic. Add chicken and tofu and stir. Turn them over. Leave everything on the side. Crack the egg. Break the yolk and scramble. Add 3 tablespoons of water. Put the noodles in the water and stir them together. Add fish sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce, 1 teaspoon of sugar and vegetables. Turn the heat to medium. Mix everything and chop the noodles. Serve.
Need Funding? Assembling the ingredients for pad thai.
The heart of this lesson lies in watching a video on how to make pad thai, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS1Ex0oldRY&featu re=related. First, the teacher should ask the students various questions regarding their experience with
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For a fun and interactive wrap-up activity, students should write the names of popular local dishes on slips of paper. One student will then pick a piece of paper and will list the ingredients. The class should try to guess what dish is being described. As an extra challenge, the student could describe how to make the dish.
Cooking Sequence Strips First add 2 tablespoons of oil to the wok. Turn on gas to low heat. Add pickled white radish and garlic. Add chicken and tofu and stir. Turn them over. Leave everything on the side. Crack the egg. Break the yolk and scramble. Add 3 tablespoons of water. Put the noodles in the water and stir them together. Add fish sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce, 1 teaspoon of sugar and vegetables. Turn the heat to medium. Mix everything and chop the noodles. Serve.
In the video, students will watch as pad thai is prepared.
Dana Kampman teaches at Al Yamamah University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She is also completing her MA in TESOL from the School for International Training. Dana is interested in intercultural communication competence and learner autonomy.
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How Can Teachers Deal with Technology Overload? Reader Response to: Allan, J. (2009). Are language teachers suffering from technology overload? TESOL Arabia Perspectives, 16(2), 22-23. In his recent article in Perspectives, John Allan reported giving staff development sessions on Web 2.0 to colleagues in Qatar where only ten percent attended. Speculating that this might be due in part to technology overload, Allan inventoried the technology competencies that teachers need in order to cope in the modern workplace. These include familiarity with CALL, Office applications, accessibility tools for special needs students, Internet resources, data storage, virtual learning environments, media editors and manipulation tools, learning management systems, security systems, a range of administrative software including gradebooks, virtual private networks (VPNs), software for human resources, and modern AV equipment such as interactive whiteboards and mobile communications devices. I agree that teachers are challenged by a need to master so many new skills, but these competencies have been needed since the turn of the century, and the skill set has enlarged further in the first decade of the 21st century. Now, in order to do the job even better or possibly even move to another in the future, teachers also need to be familiar with some of the following skills and concepts (adapted from Stevens, 2008): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
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7. Digital storytelling and applications of multimedia to new literacies 8. Communities of practice and connectivism 9. Informal / just-in-time (JIT) learning 10. Synchronous communication tools such as: instant messaging, online presentation venues incorporating interactive whiteboards, voice, and video 11. Asynchronous collaboration tools such as: blogs, wikis, Voicethread, Slideshare, Google docs, etc. Allan suggests that technology competencies impose a burden, but isn’t learning new technologies a responsibility? Many educators (Warlick, 2007) have made the point that it’s no longer possible to learn in school skills that will sustain knowledge workers throughout their careers, nor to even assume that their profession will exist at the end of the next decade. In listing several college majors that didn’t exist ten years ago, Fisch and McCleod (2007) point out that we are training students now for jobs that haven’t been invented yet. Prensky (2005) called on teachers to use technology in ways that would engage students, not enrage them and turn them off to learning. Prensky caused a stir when he said recently that teachers should not be allowed to use interactive whiteboards, whereas their students should (Stevens, 2009). An understanding of why he said that lies at the heart of what teachers need to know about technology. Prensky’s comments were prompted by his belief that the use of technology by many teachers tends toward the low end of a scale ranging from functional to transformational. In Selber’s (2004) characterization of multiliteracies in the 21st century, functional literacy means basically coping
Web 2.0 and social networking RSS and feed readers Podcasts (harvesting and producing them) Microblogging (e.g., Twitter, Edmodo) Distributed and personal learning networks Aggregation and tagging Volume 17
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with the technology to meet current demands (and whether you regard technology as being one of those demands or as helping you meet those demands would place you somewhere on an attitudinal curve). The higher skills, critical and rhetorical, refer more to your ability to see where this is taking you and your students, and being able to manage that direction wisely, to understand the issues and then articulate them in discourse with others in your profession or network. Bloom’s taxonomy has been revisited to incorporate digital skills (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001 from Forehand, 2005). Allan’s listed competencies fall midway up that taxonomy (remembering, understanding, applying) whereas reaching the top of the taxonomy requires analyzing, evaluating, and creating.
Teachers might wish to avoid workshops when they sense that their participation is directed top-down, as prescribed by administrators who may not fully understand staff needs with regard to professional development. One solution is to offer workshops bottom-up, as something staff organize themselves. Ideally there are staff who feel themselves as part of a community of practice and who engage other members of the community in activities and discourse which would improve the practice of all participants. Wenger’s studies (Wenger, 2004) suggest that it is not possible for employers to jumpstart communities of practice rather they must create an environment encouraging their growth.
All professionals suffer from technology overload. This load is not as heavy for teachers as it is in other professions (e.g., medical, engineering, chemistry, physics). Yet, teachers of students going into these professions are responsible for training students how to learn. Students need autonomous learning skills in order to keep on top of their professions when they get out in the real world. Since teachers are expected to model the adaptive skills needed, no teacher can rest on a static skill set (Stevens, 2007).
Cofino (2008) lists conditions for getting an institution to make "the shift to a 21st century learning environment." While recognizing the importance of management providing “official acknowledgment of the vision and philosophy and clear expectations that change will happen,” Cofino sees the need for officially designated change agents ensuring that infrastructure is in place, making clear why change is needed, helping formulate a framework for change, and seeing that models for change are translated into curriculum.
In our era, knowledge is no longer so much a matter of internalization of facts as it is the ability to locate facts when needed, utilizing a network of peers who can help you access information. The job of a teacher is in some respects to learn along with the students, partly by connecting with other teachers but also learning how to use technology to re-learn how to learn.
Once an institution grasps the need for a paradigm shift, then those farthest along in making that shift can help others transition to the other side. Because it is a paradigm shift, the old ways of managing this transition may not be the most effective. Part of the shift is encouraging networking through the use of “social media,” thus enabling individuals to collectively take responsibility for their own learning in ways that management might upset if operating in more traditional top-down ways. In other words, rather than set up a series of professional development workshops taking place at times that might not suit everyone’s schedule, teachers might be encouraged to organize training sessions themselves that would utilize synchronous and non-synchronous social media tools (perhaps not called “training” sessions outright). There are many models that might seed development through communities of practice: use of Nings, for example, or spontaneous un-conferences. Bar camps, LAN parties, and speed-geeking are all formats that focus
People entering the workplace now are deluding themselves if they think they can stay current in their field based on what they learned in college. Vance Stevens lectures in Fortunately, teachers tend computing at Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, but spends much to constantly improve time online networking with their skill sets through Webheads in Action. He frequently presents and publishes online, attendance at conferences teaches multiliteracies in Electronic and workshops and Village Online, and edits E-Sphere participation in online and On the Internet in the journals Writing & Pedagogy and TESL-EJ, communities of practice, respectively. and administrators should Email: vstevens@pi.ac.ae be encouraging this
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through reduced teaching loads and allocation of other resources.
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spontaneity, informal learning, and class-roots energy into positive learning outcomes for those who participate (See http://classroots.org/; the other concepts are all covered in Wikipedia.)
http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title =Bloom%27s_Taxonomy#Revised_Bloom.27s_ Taxonomy_.28RBT.29 Prensky, M. (2005). Engage me or enrage me: What today's learners demand. EDUCAUSE Review. Retrieved January 7, 2010, from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm05 53.pdf Selber, S. (2004). Multiliteracies for a digital age. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Stevens, V. (2009). Prensky on interactive whiteboards, should teachers be “allowed� to use them? Message posted to AdVancEducation electronic blog archived at http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2009/04/ prensky-on-interactive-whiteboards.html Stevens, V. (2008). New millenium professional development. Message posted to AdVancEducation electronic blog archived at http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/2008/03/ ive-been-asked-to-propose-task-force-to.html Stevens, V. (2007, Winter). The multiliterate autonomous learner: Teacher attitudes and the inculcation of strategies for lifelong learning. [Electronic version.] Independence IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG Newsletter, 42, 27-29. Retrieved January 7, 2010, from http://www.learnerautonomy.org/VanceStevens.pdf Warlick, D. (2007). Inventing the new boundaries. Paper presented at the K12 Online Conference 2007. Retrieved January 7, 2010, from http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=144 Wenger, E. (2004). Communities of practice: A brief introduction. Retrieved January 7, 2010, from http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm
Such initiatives reverse the directionality of the impetus to learn. Rather than the onus being on teachers to learn prescribed technologies, such events encourage teachers to scaffold one another as they might ideally interact with students, and when they do this using social media, they learn about the next generation of educational technologies while working together. In other words, rather than considering technology a burden, teachers should use it in ways seen to be effective with anyone assuming the role of student. But in order for this to happen, teachers need to be encouraged through sufficient time relieved from teaching and marking to develop productive professional networks and interact with them.
References Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman. Cofino, K. (2008). Making the shift happen. Message posted to Always Learning electronic blog archived at http://mscofino.edublogs.org/2008/02/24/maki ng-the-shift-happen/ Fisch, K. & McCleod, S. (2007). Did you know 2.0. Retrieved January 7, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U Forehand, M. (2005). Bloom's taxonomy: Original and revised. Retrieved January 7, 2010, from Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology M.Orey (Ed.) (Wiki). Web site:
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TESOL Arabia would like to announce the publication of a new book titled Developing Oral Skills in English edited by Adel Jendli, Christine Coombe and Neila Miled. Get your copy at TACON or contact mashael2@hotmail.com. Volume 17
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Are We Finally Bringing Placement and Practice Testing into the 21st Century? 2009 has proved to be the year when long periods of investment by a number of publishers and exam boards in the application of new technology to language testing have finally come to fruition and resulted in a range of significant new additions to the repertoire of resources available to those involved in ELT. In particular, the new OUP website, oxfordenglishtesting.com, represents a remarkable step forward in the online provision available to learners, teachers and language teaching institutions in two key areas, placement testing and practice testing. As someone who has been involved for many years both in test design and as a test user, my initial professional interest in the site was primarily in the new placement testing facility developed by OUP, where the benefits of what can be achieved with the latest “custom built” software can be seen not only in the learning management system (LMS), which allows for efficient and flexible administration of the test, but most crucially in the design of the placement test itself.The Oxford Online Placement Test is a CAT, a computer adaptive test, “the test you do with a mouse.” CATs are very difficult and expensive to produce, but when a CAT approach is taken to placement testing, it brings huge benefits, because of the very nature of placement testing and the fact that it involves the need to determine the language levels (and ideally the language profiles) of learners of unknown levels.Traditional placement tests, even the best of them, are unavoidably inefficient in the sense that a proportion of the items will always be wasted, either being far too difficult and/or far too easy for a learner at a given level. CATs, because they are based on item banks from which items are chosen based on the testee’s previous responses, tailor the test to each test taker.
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Dave Allan Director Norwich Institute for Language Education Norwich, UK
They are thus able to achieve the holy grail of placement testing, in that they can be quick and accurate, as well as being far more secure than their pen and paper cousins. The OOPT works really well in terms of its prime function, defining each learner’s level in Common European Framework Reference (CEFR) terms and with a score. I have used it in my own institution. I have also explored its accuracy in concurrent validity trials with other tests and it produces consistently accurate results. It also produces those results immediately, with very useful underlying detail, and, through the LMS, in ways which allow for efficient integration into a range of possible school management systems. While, like any objectively scorable test so far available, the OOPT’s measurement of the learner’s English language knowledge and skills does not include the productive skills of writing and speaking, the OOPT is based on constructs of language learning and testing which are explicitly documented and the description of the test is refreshingly honest in terms of what it can and cannot do. The test is divided into two main sections, “Use of English” and “Listening,” the results of which are reported separately and as a total score, but the LMS allows for the integration of a range of other kinds of information into the final report, including both locally administered writing and speaking test scores and whatever general candidate information is required, age, gender, first language existing certification and the like. What I also really liked about the OOPT was what I can do with the detailed results from each testee. At NILE (the Norwich Institute for Language
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Education, where I work) we run professional development courses for language teachers and teacher trainers. All of these include a significant component of language work for non-native speaker teachers. With really advanced users of English it is often difficult to know what to focus on in language classes. The level of question by question detail available from going into each testee’s OOPT results allows anyone with access to those individual test results to see exactly what patterns of error each testee has. I was able to build a sequence of highly effective language lessons based on both the common areas of weakness of the group as a whole and the individual-specific points I wanted to touch on. Some of those areas were things I could never have predicted in advance, but the OOPT gave me hard diagnostic evidence. As someone who has been very closely involved in placement test design for some 30 years I would expect to be highly critical of test instruments which on close examination were not up to the job or for which exaggerated claims were made. As with any innovative design when it is first in the public domain, the OOPT had some early flaws, difficulties with the delivery of the sound files in certain contexts and problems with some of the emailing functions, but these seem to have been very effectively (and pleasingly promptly) solved. I am continuing to use the OOPT across a range of contexts, in my own institution and in a number of international projects in which NILE is involved and I regard it as one of the most significant advances in placement testing in a generation. When I first went to the oxfordenglishtesting website, my professional interest in placement testing meant that my initial focus was very much on the OOPT and the LMS through which it can be so effectively managed, with my first reaction to the Dave Allan is Director of NILE, the Norwich Institute for Language Education, which provides training and development for thousands of teachers each year from CELTA and DELTA to an MA. Dave has been involved in test design and development and in training in assessment issues for over 30 years, working as a guest lecturer, conference speaker and seminar leader in more than 40 countries. He is the author of the Oxford Placement Tests, Chair of MATSDA, a consultant to the EU, the Council of Europe, DfID and the British Council and an adviser to a number of ministries on TEA issues. He was a founding member of the IATEFL TEASIG, its Chair for 9 years and remains on the TEASIG Committee.
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practice tests also offered there being something like “More Cambridge main suite practice tests – haven’t we got enough already?” However, my increasing interest in the flexibility of the LMS and its ability to integrate an important range of learning tasks and management information systems made me look more closely at the other side of the package. I was surprised to find out how much more was on offer to learners and teachers than just the traditional range of practice tasks. The combination of tips and question-specific feedback available to learners working autonomously provides a sequence of learning loops which different learners could quickly learn to use according to their particular learning style. The practice test design provides learners with a very helpful repertoire of learning supports across all the skills and exam paper types: automatic and immediately available marking of each item; instant feedback on each item (or you can go back to them all at the end); exam tips for each question; a double-click facility for any word to see an online dictionary (this facility hasn’t always worked for me); audio scripts to check for yourself on the listening questions; textual and visual stimuli for the speaking questions, plus useful phrases for the speaking sections of the tests; and a range of other pedagogic support features, among which the one I liked the best was the ability for learners and teachers to engage in an online dialogue about written scripts, a kind of online “process writing,” involving the learner’s own script, the model answers provided, and the teacher’s ability to develop the learner’s writing skills through the facility available to the teacher to provide not just corrections but reformulations using a sort of “track changes” feature. This is an aspect I want to explore a lot further and I am now wondering if the LMS is something that NILE could adopt and perhaps adapt to facilitate one part of the tutorial supervision that is an important part of our MA programme. What keeps striking me about the LMS is how much more it could do than it is presently being used for. So, this year I’ve found something that has opened up all sorts of new ways of doing some of the things we all need to do. If you haven’t yet had the chance to find what I have, I suggest you go to the oxfordenglishtesting site and start exploring.
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Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methodology Zoltán Dörnyei Oxford University Press, 2007 ISBN-13: 978-0194422581 336 pages
Fortunately we have seen a special attention on the part of applied linguists on research methods over the last few decades with very useful publications in the form of journal articles and books. Dörnyei’s Research Methods in Applied Linguistics is a timely publication along with other valuable research methods papers and books by other scholars given the significance of research methods both in TESOL graduate programs and in professional research centers.The book is the result of Dörnyei’s prolific publications—academic papers and books—on various aspects of second language acquisition. It is this strong background that puts Dörnyei in a good position to author a book on research methods in applied linguistics.The book is organized in five parts, 14 chapters, and 336 pages including bibliography and index.The five parts address the following topics:
Key issues in research methodology Data collection Data analysis Reporting research results Summing up
Among the worthwhile publications on research methods in applied linguistics (see the end of the first chapter of Dörnyei’s book), some have focused on quantitative and some on qualitative methods. The present book offers a comprehensive and rather detailed overview of research methodology in applied linguistics covering quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods.The book is written in a plain language and describes the steps needed to be followed to carry out any of the three types of
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research methods from collecting the data to reporting the results. In the mixed methods section (chapter 7), the author discusses various combinations of quantitative and qualitative methods.This is one of the major advantages of the book as we have rarely seen a clear discussion of mixed methods in other books on research methods.The other advantage of the book, as the author mentions in the preface, is that the author takes a “pragmatic” rather than a “philosophical” or “ideological” stance in discussing research methods although chapter 2 briefly addresses some of the ideological differences of the two research paradigms.This is especially good for less professional researchers in the field who are more interested in the practical aspects of the design of the research projects with less intention to be concerned about the philosophical underpinnings of the methods.The inclusion of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods is, in fact, the result of the author’s journey into research methodology. He started with pure quantitative methods (positivist) with research on attitude and motivation surveys early in the 1990s, and came to appreciate the potentials of qualitative methods in the mid-1990s. Finally he developed the belief that “in most cases a mixed methods approach can offer additional benefits for the understanding of the phenomenon in question” (p. 47). Compared to other research methods textbooks, I found some features in the present textbook that distinguish it from others.The first is the organization of the topics and chapters. Related topics are nicely put together in different sections
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and chapters of the book, and the reader feels at ease in finding and reading the topics of interest. For example, chapter 5 of the book is devoted to quantitative data collection procedures which discuss correlational, survey, experimental and quasiexperimental studies; while the next chapter introduces qualitative data collection procedures including ethnography, focus group interviews, introspective methods, case studies, and diary studies. The second feature of the book is that it addresses mixed methods research in a way which makes it rather easy to conceptualize and understand as compared to quantitative and qualitative approaches. There is a comparison of mixed methods with the two dominant strands in chapter 2 of the book and a whole chapter (chapter 7) is devoted to the discussion of mixed methods research. Researchers and graduate students have been dealing with mixed methods; however, their discussion of mixed methods is usually limited to naming it and not defining it functionally. In chapter 7, the main types of mixed methods designs are introduced formulaically and so it provides a very good guide and framework for those who want to use mixed methods which allow them to communicate with their readers what type of mixed method design they are using and talking about. The third advantage of this book over similar ones is that specific chapters in part three of the book are devoted to quantitative (chapter 9), qualitative (chapter 10), and mixed methods (chapter11) data analysis along with the introduction of appropriate computer programs for data analysis. This helps the reader in terms of cognitive mapping of different types of data analysis. The last chapter of the book (chapter 14) entitled “How to Choose the Appropriate Research Method” is a good companion for the previous parts and chapters to help readers and researchers decide what type of research method they need for the specific situation they are conducting their research in. Finally, the plain and lucid language and diction of the book make it easy to read, accessible, and user friendly. One problem I found with the book, however, is that of the organization of the chapters. The title of the book reads Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods and one expects to see parts and chapters in the same order. This is especially important from a cognitive mapping point of view. As such, if the first part of the book had
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concentrated on quantitative methods explaining all issues related to them; then the second part on the qualitative methods, and finally the third part on the mixed methods, readers would have been able to proceed in a more logical order. Topics such as quality criteria and research ethics (chapter 3); longitudinal vs. cross sectional research (chapter 4), and classroom research (chapter 8) could follow the major parts. I am stating this point out of my experience in using this book in my courses where we need to go back and forth among chapters to cover necessary topics and issues related to each research approach. The author and the publisher might consider this point in future versions and revisions of the book. Another point which could have added more value to the book and was not considered is the practical samples of the research methods as used by published papers. The chapters of the book are mostly descriptions of different types of research methods and less examples of such methods. One question which always occupies especially graduate students is how the methods we are discussing are operationalized in real life when we address specific research problems. As such, one good thing the author could have done was to bring a summary of specific published papers which have used certain methods in appropriate parts of the book. I hope this will draw the author’s attention for future editions of the book. Overall the book is a useful one in research methods and I recommend it as one of the sources for the “research methods” course in MA programs in TESOL and Applied Linguistics along with other useful texts and papers. I have personally included this text as one of the references on my MA “research methods” course syllabus and have found it interesting and easy to read for students. However, the scope of the topics discussed in the book makes the book more suitable for graduate students than undergraduate students.
Reviewed by: A. Mehdi Riazi, PhD Macquarie University, Australia
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Cultivating Real Readers: Emerging Theory and Practice for Adult Arab Learners David Anderson & Maria McGuire (Eds) Higher Colleges of Technology Press, 2009 ISBN: 978-9984-15-155-5 169 pages
This is a collection of 15 papers which will be of immediate interest to any TESOL Arabia members who are in any way concerned with the development of reading skills. I would suggest, however, that the reference in the sub-title to “Adult Arab Learners” may do the book a disservice. Several of the papers presented here could inform teaching at school level, and McTaggert and Beatty’s paper, in particular, is applicable to all levels. In “Hidden Dyslexia in Second Language Learners: A Case Study” (pp. 137-146) McTaggert and Beatty actually examine the case of an Austrian male taking an English course, but their exploration of different forms and degrees of dyslexia, together with their suggestions for remediation, raise important questions for teachers in the Arab Gulf.
the Classroom” (pp. 65-78) and Gary Pathare’s “Ten Essential Elements for Reading Programs in Arabic L1 Contexts” (pp. 79-88). Gobert examines Home Literacy Practices, Students’ Reading Preferences, Reading in Arabic, and Word Recognition in English and Arabic. Several interesting factors emerge, such as the fact that reading of Arabic texts tends to be intensive and detailed, with the readers studying a text in the knowledge that any questions about it will probably attempt to catch them out. This finding may go part way to explaining why Celine Kahieh’s students “Becoming Readers: Our Stories” (pp. 35-41) are so enthusiastic about an extensive reading programme. This may be the first time that they have been allowed to read simply for pleasure.
Put simply, with Arabic speaking learners of English it is difficult to determine whether reading problems are caused by the reversal of left-to-right, right-to-left reading systems, or whether low literacy levels, poor motivation or various levels of genuine dyslexia are to blame. The fact is that we do not know. And “until the primary and secondary schools can implement blanket entry screenings, it may well fall to the HCT to screen them” (p. 145). By which time, of course, many potential students will have already dropped out, and they will be lost to the education system.
Gobert also suggests that “some researchers (see Randall and Meara 1988; Ryan & Meara 1991)” (p. 58) may be incorrect in their claim that Arabic is an orthographically shallow language. She points out that adult readers of Arabic decode “Arabic written without the diacritics that indicate the short vowels” (pp. 58). This makes Arabic an orthographically deep language, and successful readers of Arabic therefore employ strategies that are different from those that are required to process English text.
Two other remarkable papers are Melanie Gobert’s “Key Findings from Research and Implications for
Gobert’s conclusion leads her to suggest that “L1 Arabic adult Emirati students” (p. 60) – but, by
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extension, Gulf Arab English learners in general – should read aloud, should be read to aloud, and should be given explicit phonics instruction. She offers a comprehensive bibliography and website advice, and this is an extremely important paper.
This is a collection that repays reading, and which will serve as an important reference text To obtain a copy of Cultivating Real Readers contact danderson12@hct.ac.ae or pbarr@hct.ac.ae.
Gary Pathare picks up some of what Gobert has said, particularly her points on the “distance” between English and Arabic, and the problem of students who come from a culture where few read for pleasure. He then offers ten essential points for a reading programme, although he admits that his list is open to the charge that some elements have been artificially separated. Most teachers who have worked with Gulf Arab students would probably agree with the inclusion of high frequency vocabulary, intensive reading, extensive reading, speed and fluency development, spelling and literacy development and reading mentoring and guidance. This last point, however, may be particularly important. Al Falasi (2008; 2009) working with Young Learners in Fujairah, implemented an extremely successful “reading buddies” programme. This involved older girls mentoring younger learners, with the result that both groups gained in both confidence and fluency. Her accounts reinforce Gobert’s earlier point about the importance of reading aloud, but what is particularly important is that Al Falasi’s approach seems to have encouraged reading for pleasure at an impressionable age, before the distractions of the teenage years. She may, therefore, have fostered a habit that will last for life. Pathare’s endorsement of world-knowledge development, however, might actually be less important than he believes, particularly in the light of Ostrowska and Ryan’s rather surprising finding that familiar content does not, automatically, transfer into higher test scores. Their chapter “World Knowledge or Word Knowledge: The Influence of Content Schemata on the Formal Assessment of Reading Skills” (pp. 121-136) is interesting for that finding alone. On balance, therefore, this is a valuable collection of papers, which raises important points and which also opens the door for further research. Not all the bibliographies are complete, with citations in the text not being listed at the end of the paper, and there is an egregious mis-translation from Arabic on page 20, but it would be unfair to cavil over details.
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References Alfalasi, Hessa Ghanem. (2008). Big sisters: A buddy reading project. TESOL Arabia Perspectives 15(3), 6-10. Al Falasi, Hessa. (2009). Big sisters, reading buddies. In Cindy Gunn (Ed.) Exploring TESOL practices in the Arabian Gulf (pp.32-36). Dubai, UAE: TESOL Arabia. Randall, M. & Meara, P. (1988). How Arabs read Roman letters. Reading in a Foreign Language, 4(2), 133-145. Ryan, A & Meara, P. (1991). The case of the invisible vowels: Arabic speakers reading English words. Reading in a Foreign Language, 7(2), 531-540.
Reviewed by: Neil McBeath Sultan Qaboos University Sultanate of Oman
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Basic Spelling Tutorial www.eSpindle.org
eSpindle.org is a non-profit organization based in the United States which affirms that “success in life is directly related to the size of your vocabulary and your confidence with words.” To help people succeed, eSpindle offers “individualized online vocabulary and spelling practice for all ages and skill levels.” This review describes eSpindle’s Basic Spelling Tutorial, identifies its strengths, raises some concerns, and finally, offers an opinion on its suitability for students in the Gulf.
buttons on the right side of the screen which open different external reference sites. Next, students type the word and click submit. When a word is spelled incorrectly, any correct letters are displayed in the appropriate sequence and students are allowed a second attempt. When a word is misspelled the second time, the quiz pauses and the correct spelling is displayed one letter at a time. Students are then prompted to spell the word again, and then the quiz resumes. This sequence repeats until the end of the quiz. Students may see their misspelled words in a report available in their profiles. eSpindle recommends taking three short quizzes a day.
eSpindle’s Basic Spelling Tutorial uses a “test-study approach” to instruction. This means that a list of words isn’t provided for study or practice prior to assessment. In fact, the quiz is all there is. Words are simply presented for spelling. Words that are spelled correctly are not assessed again in future quizzes. Words that are spelled incorrectly appear in subsequent quizzes until the student spells them correctly three times in separate, consecutive quizzes. eSpindle asserts that this approach “ensures that students get the most out of time and learning effort.” New students must create a profile. In their profile, they adopt one of six learning goals. Depending on the goal, they may also need to select a U.S. equivalent grade level. According to the goal and the grade level, the service compiles words from its database of more than 100,000 words for practice. A quiz begins when the page loads and students hear the pronunciation of the first word. On the screen, students see a large space for typing the target word, a button which repeats the pronunciation, a definition, an example sentence and, sometimes, a button which opens a photographic example. Additionally, there are four
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The Basic Spelling Tutorial has three main strengths to commend it. First is its use of auditory, visual and kinesthetic “channels” for learning. (eSpindle considers typing the target words to be kinesthetic learning and more beneficial than merely selecting or clicking on correctly spelled words.) Second is the facility for users to create their own word lists for greater individualized study. Third is the program’s ability to “remember” and recycle misspelled words for every user. Taken together, these features make this tutorial an attractive learning tool; however there are three causes for concern. The first concern is the quality of the auditory elements. The pronunciation of the words on the
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quizzes comes from either a digitized voice or a sound file of a recorded human. While the sound files of the humans tend to be acceptable, the digitized voices tend to be problematic. First, the pronunciation is fast. This is especially troublesome when students hear unfamiliar words pronounced for the first time. Second, the articulation of the digitized voices is frequently weak. Specifically, final consonants are not always perceptible. Consequently, students may leave off the final s on plural nouns. They may also have trouble discerning between final p and b or t and d. During my trial period, I misspelled familiar words because I didn’t detect the final s. These mistakes would lead to unnecessary repetition of target words which in turn could frustrate students to the point of abandoning the service. The second concern is the quality of the definitions and example sentences. eSpindle claims to provide “easy definitions;” however I found that the definitions were often too academic. Consider the following: “carrot: n -A biennial Eurasian plant in the parsley family, widely cultivated as an annual for its edible taproot.” Only one word in this definition appears on the 1000 Most Commonly Used Words List. One word appears on the Academic Word List and six don’t appear on any list. (The definition was analyzed using the VocabProfiler at www.lextutor.ca). Obviously, this definition is incomprehensible to most language learners. Regarding example sentences, consider this quotation from Shakespeare which accompanied the word “salad”: “My salad days, when I was green in judgment: cold in blood, To say as I said then!” This sentence fails to illuminate the meaning of “salad” because the phrase “salad days” is an idiom. The third concern is cost. Even though eSpindle is a non-profit organization, it charges for its service. According to the website, the fees are: Monthly self-renewing membership Annual self-renewing membership Annual non-renewing membership Lifetime membership
$9.50 per month $79.80 per year $99.80 per year $599
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My initial impression of eSpindle.org’s Basic Spelling Tutorial, based on my first ten-day free trial, was that (my) students would find the problems with the digitized voices, the definitions and the example sentences insurmountable. I expected these issues to frustrate them and rapidly discourage them from continuing to use the service. Yet, its strengths captured my imagination, so I signed up for another free trial. After the second trial, my first impression remained, but I began to imagine how useful this service could be. If the digitized voices were replaced by good quality recordings; if the definitions were simplified; if the example sentences were revised, then I could confidently introduce the service to my students and recommend that others do the same. Sadly, until these improvements are made, I can’t. NB: After this review was written and submitted for publication, I learned in an update from eSpindle.org that they are working to “replace 3,000 Text-To-Speech audio files per week with Melissa's charming live voice!” This is encouraging news and I look forward to more improvements in the future.
Reviewed by: Daniel Mangrum Abu Dhabi Men’s College Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE
The cost of site licenses is available upon request. While waiting for a quotation, teachers/schools receive a free 30-day trial to use with their
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students. According to eSpindle, “Many of our members stay enrolled free by enrolling in eScrip and visiting eSpindle's ‘mall’ when shopping online. This causes vendors to donate some of your purchase amount to eSpindle, and we in turn can keep your membership live.” About a month after my first ten-day trial expired, I received an e-mail offering thirty percent off the standard fees. In light of this, and eSpindle’s “100% no-hassle, satisfaction guarantee,” the cost of the service may only be a minor concern.
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Spotlight on CAE Francesca Mansfield & Carol Nuttall ISBN: 1424016762 Heinle, Cengage Learning, 1st Edition, 2010 224 pages
Spotlight on CAE, an examination preparation textbook for the Cambridge ESOL “Certificate in Advanced English” examination, by Francesca Mansfield and Carol Nuttall, is a completely fresh new approach designed to take into account changes to the CAE examination instituted from 2008 onwards. It is a task that the authors pull off with considerable aplomb: producing an interesting and stimulating textbook, full of highly relevant, examination-focused, materials presented in a colorful, easy to use format. As the title suggests, it is not a book that will appeal to learners (and their teachers), other than those who already have a firm grasp of English and are seeking to make the breakthrough into a higher level of fluency and idiomatic usage. However, the authors would have been working under the assumption that only reasonably “advanced” students (Upper-intermediate and above) would be making use of this text, and thus, appear to have pitched the level of language just about right. The student’s book (supplemented by an Exam Booster workbook) follows the obligatory and useful “map of the book” and a short introduction with a very thorough and comprehensive overview of the CAE examination: Reading, Writing, Use of English, Listening & Speaking— a whopping 4 hours and 25 minutes excluding the 15 minute oral test. There is also a separate page (XI) highlighting the changes made from the 2008 examination onwards. It is a format largely replicated, although not in exactly examination order, throughout the 16 units of the student’s book. Each thematic unit follows a similar progression from a “getting started” section Volume 17
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through reading exercises, a language development and key word segment, a concentration on grammar, listening and speaking, before finishing off with a use of English focus and a final emphasis on writing. Every unit also incorporates a final vocabulary organiser page which will please all those teachers out there frustrated by teaching reading and writing skills to students who often lack the vocabulary to put all these vital skills and strategies to effective use. Although predictable and thus running the risk of being less stimulating as a result, this formulaic approach to the teaching of both language and examination skills is perhaps less of an issue with relatively high level, and thus one assumes, highly motivated learners. It also appears that there is little, if anything, in the way of gradation, or an increase, in language difficulty as students progress through the book/course, with unit 16 seemingly offering nothing much more difficult in terms of reading level, grammatical complexity and such like, than that offered in unit 1. That, however, is quite possibly deliberate as with many other examination preparation texts, Spotlight on CAE serves primarily as a resource for teachers and students to dip into where and when they feel there is a perceived weakness or aspect of language (linguistic skills) that they need to work on. This is at its most apparent with the writing segments, none of which display much increase in difficulty, but, instead deal with a variety of different genres. Students are asked, TESOL Arabia Perspectives
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throughout the course, to deal with such varied aspects of English writing as narrative, description, writing a report, a proposal, or a letter, amongst other similar tasks. The themes introduced at the beginning of each module/unit hold no surprises in that they conform to the standard topics now ubiquitous across the globalised EFL/ESL world. Travel, sports, the environment, money and so on make for typical and unsurprising topics. That said, by the time a student reaches a level of English considered appropriate to taking a CAE examination and following a course/text such as that offered by Mansfield and Nuttall, it is perhaps not unreasonable to expect a degree of internationalized exophoric knowledge commensurate with that expected of users of this book. At lower levels, we might find our students can sometimes be “frozen out” by not sharing the assumptions and knowledge of the textbook writers. However, at a more advanced level such as this, a grasp of current affairs and an awareness of the potential flexibility of English phraseology and the richness of idiomatic language should certainly be, at the very least, an aspiration. The authors cater to just such aspirations with quite dense text, a heavy focus on reading and writing skills (and genres) and the aforementioned spotlights on both grammar and vocabulary. Interestingly, and at this level of English, appropriately, whilst the grammar follows a relatively predictable, but no less useful, pattern (modal auxiliaries, relative clauses both defining and non-defining, inversion and adverbial phrases, amongst many others) the vocabulary and language development deals very well with the flexibility of English words, their uses, collocations and idiomatic values. For example, the language development section as early as unit 1 introduces collocations and phrases such as square one, making a fresh start and deals with the concept of a film star making his debut. All of which show quite simple words operating differently due to common combinations with others: not something for a lower level student to be struggling with. All of this, in short a well thought out, appropriately leveled course-book with an overt examination preparation focus is supported throughout by a very
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colorful and stimulating layout. That is, assuming a degree of exophoric, world knowledge and high motivation from the users/learners. Despite the interesting, international topics and well chosen, thoughtfully presented colored pictures (the usual topics, naturally enough: The Taj Mahal, fit, healthy, young people working, playing and shopping, etc.), this is still a book heavy on text that would daunt anyone not up to a suitably comfortable reading level. A final factor in favor of this generally excellent textbook is the very useful supplementary material, whether in the additional workbook, or the periodic review exercises, grammar reference sections or colorful speaking files. With, perhaps the guide to genre specific writing preparation (the Writing Guide) one of the more useful supplementary references one could hope to come across in a textbook of this type.
Reviewed by: Peter B. McLaren Al Ain Women’s College, Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE
Interested in Volunteering? Contact your local chapter rep or Jo Kennedy at jkennedy@hct.ac.ae
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Reading Explorer 1 Nancy Douglas Heinle, Cengage Learning, 2009 ISBN: 1424037271 160 pages
Does the ESL world really need another reading skills book? The publisher’s website (http://elt.heinle.com) tells us that “Reading Explorer is a four-level reading series which uses carefully adapted National Geographic text, images and video to develop reading and vocabulary skills for learners of English.” The series starts with Reading Explorer 1 which is aimed at students whose language level is around A2 –B1 (800-1300 Headwords) based on the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages. The series ends with Reading Explorer 4 benchmarked at CEFR C1-C2 (2600-3000 Headwords). Each unit in the Reading Explorer series has two reading passages on a central topic and an optional video activity, which can be done in class or at home using the Student CDROM. This CD-ROM contains all 12 video clips, 24 reading passages and 48 vocabulary activities with additional self-scoring exercises. There is also a Teacher’s Book and a website with additional resources.
USP 2 The ExamView® Assessment CD-ROM “is a testgenerating software with a data-bank of ready-made questions designed to allow teachers to carry out assessment quickly and conveniently” (http://elt.heinle.com). It also claims that you can create “five tests in five minutes” in a variety of formats, for example, SAT 1, TOEFL, IELTS, etc. I tested out this claim and confirm that the correct answer is “TRUE”. Now whatever you think about the relationship between testing and teaching, that’s a pretty impressive piece of software; especially if you are expected to produce your own in-house assessments. The tests can be printed out, hosted online via Heinle Cengage Learning’s own learning management system (LMS) or, exported to your own institution’s LMS.
So what are this series’ Unique Selling Points (USP)?
USP 3 The Footprint Reading Library series of non-fiction graded readers, also published by Heinle Cengage Learning, supports each unit in the Reading Explorer series thus allowing students to develop their extensive reading skills whilst exercising a small degree of choice. So in the first unit of Reading Explorer 1 for example, we learn about dolphins, monkeys and elephants. Students could then read graded readers entitled, Arctic Whale Danger! Happy Elephants and/or Monkey Party, all at the appropriate level with video and audio material courtesy of National Geographic! This whole series of graded
USP 1 Heinle Cengage Learning has linked up with National Geographic which provides high quality video clips and audio for each unit. The clips have been adapted but are taken from original National Geographic programs so there is the obvious possibility of easily supplementing lessons. Excellent for our visual and auditory learners, as well as for project work.
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readers is also online with accompanying tests; imagine a world where students never lost their books!
skills book? Well, the answer in this case is, I think, “Yes,” provided you buy all the other stuff, too.
Those then are the series’ three USPs. Now, no one can guarantee that its content will appeal to everybody all the time. Believe it or not there are some students who will tell you that reading about culture, natural science, social issues, the humanities, travel and adventure, “Is boring!” Sadly, there’s not a lot left for your really discerning reader, is there? So does the world actually need another ESL reading
Reviewed by: Mark Vevers Abu Dhabi Men’s College, Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE
Passages Jack C. Richards & Chuck Sandy Cambridge University Press, 2008 ISBN: 978-0-521-68386-9 160 pages
A great number of people from various countries all over the world such as Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Peru, Taiwan, and the USA contributed to the development of Passages, Second Edition Students’ Book 1 & 2. This is a two-level, multi-skills course for High-Intermediate to Advanced learners of American English that can be used as a sequel to Interchange, Third edition. Here we will be referring to the High-Intermediate Students’ Book 1 only. The first part of this review will deal with what the book includes and the second part will deal with some general comments on the book. This book comes with an Audio CD which contains the listening exercises which accompany the Self-study Section at the back of the book. There is also a Self-study Answer Key. This learner-focused Self-study Section includes various listening, vocabulary, and dictionary skills. Each unit also includes individual, pair and group work activities/tasks. With this Self-study Audio CD, students can do the listening exercises to learn more
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about each topic in the unit. They can also practice listening to lectures, training seminars, campus conversations, radio programs, news reports, and more. There are also Self-study Audio Scripts. In addition to the Selfstudy, upon availability of the book, there is also the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary on CDROM. The tone of the book is lively, conversational and sometimes humorous, thereby holding the user’s attention. It also includes varied grammar, vocabulary, listening and reading texts on various topics in 12 units. Some examples of topics are: Friends & Family, Mistakes & Mysteries, Exploring New Cities, Early Birds & Night Owls, and Communication. These topics indicate the downto-earth-style and quality of the text. Each unit
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gives ample opportunity for active interaction between teacher and student and among class members. Each of the twelve units consists of 2 Lessons: Lesson A and Lesson B which consist of 4 pages each which complement each other. Lesson A has a starting point which presents new information as well as gets students thinking and working in pairs. The grammar activities help students use the grammar in formal and conversational contexts. The vocabulary focuses on various things like looking at various phrasal verbs, prefixes and suffixes, and collocation. The speaking activities include discussions, surveys, personality quizzes, role plays, and so on. An example of a good topic is in unit 7: “A Weird, Wired World” which looks at the internet trends and even introduces students to updated information like writing a blog post! These also include colorful illustrations that attract students’ attention. There is also a vocabulary and speaking or discussion part which includes advice to help students use the new words in immediate conversations and an internet debate. There are also useful expressions in boxes which help students manage conversations like conversation openers and closers, expressing opinions, disagreeing, and giving reasons. The writing part is meant to build academic writing skills step by step where students identify topic sentences, think about their own personal qualities, write effective complaint letters, and much more. Students can also write paragraphs and exchange their paragraphs with their partners. Lesson B also consists of a complete four-page lesson, with new grammar and vocabulary parts and a new twist on each unit topic, so students always have something different and new to look forward to. The reading part presents a variety of text types, practices a range of skills and promotes discussion and critical thinking. One example of a very lively topic is “Cell Phone Personality Types” in unit 5. The listening activities develop skills in listening for main ideas, making inferences and note taking. In the back of the book there is a Grammar plus section with explanations and practice. There is also a self study section. The title of the book is very inviting and the book is colorful, multicultural, interactive, relevant to Volume 17
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ESL/EFL students and easy to use. Pair and group work discussions are encouraged throughout the book. This is an excellent concept since students can learn a great deal from each other. The print on the page is also easy to read. The goals and objectives are clearly identified and self-assessment of student achievement is included with the communicative review at the end of every three units. The content is directed to the stated goals and objectives. With regards to the content of materials, the concepts are well developed and sequential and there are no confusing and/or conflicting concepts. The skills are sequenced, introduced and reviewed with the major points clearly identified. The audio-visual elements are also integrated and the reading level seems appropriate for students in the ESL HighIntermediate level. The self-study part in the end makes it easy to use independently or with some help and the content will stimulate and challenge students to put the disc in a CD player to practice the listening. With regards to validity, the authors are quite qualified but the material has not been field tested yet here in the UAE, to the best of my knowledge, so no evaluation has been made of the materials used, though I would love to test it. There are references to various cultures and this provides opportunities for discussion and cross-cultural exchange of ideas. The stories in the reading section are very entertaining and would be of great interest to students. The pages are not cluttered and the color illustrations are inviting to readers. The focus of the book is to help students communicate both accurately and fluently. This book would make a significant addition to the classroom because the materials do what they are intended to do and the format is appealing too. I highly recommend it.
Reviewed By Sally Ali United Arab Emirates University Al-Ain, UAE
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Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab http://www.esl-lab.com/
Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab website aims at helping ESL students who want to improve their listening skills inside and outside the classroom. Moreover, Randall, who is an American ESL teacher, states that his specific goal is to provide “easy-to-use listening activities that can be used on almost any Internet connection” (http://www.esllab.com/faq.htm). The free website offers a user friendly and well organized format. The homepage offers ESL learners forty listening topics ranging from easy to medium to difficult. These wide topics include family activities, college textbooks and movie reviews. There are also basic listening quizzes and listening exercises for academic purposes, as well as a 20 minute vocabulary quiz, language and life tips, and long conversations. Moreover, all listening topics are accompanied with pre-listening exercises and post listening comprehension questions. With easy to use instructions and well organized sections the website avoids being overwhelming for the user. The language used is appropriate to the level of ESL learners who will easily be able to follow the simple instructions. There is also a quick facts
section, which provides answers to common questions about the site. For example, what software is needed to listen to the topics? It then provides direct links to free download sites including Windows Media Player or RealOne. Also, Randall has also designed the tracks to play even on slow dial up connections, which provides flexibility for its users. As the topics and themes are varied in my own teaching practice I can differentiate material with my learners and they can select what topics they are interested in, rather than have topics dictated by me. In addition, as the time for each task ranges from approximately 1 to 2 minutes each lesson can include ample listening contexts and practice.
Is there a new book or a piece of software you really enjoy using with students or one that has helped you in your teaching? Consider writing a review for Perspectives. Contact our Reviews Editor, Cindy Gunn, for more information. cgunn@aus.edu
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Teachers can also monitor progress, as the comprehension sections come with feedback and instant final results. Furthermore, key topic vocabulary or phrases are also introduced in each section, with definitions and example sentences. There is also a visual which defines the listening context, which could help visual learners activate schemata before they listen. In addition to vocabulary tips and hints to context, there are also listening scripts. This means that each student is provided with an important foundation to improve listening and at the same time follow dialogues and identify key words or idioms which are being used in context. This can also provide teachers a bridge to recycle future vocabulary. Additionally, apart from listening there is also a topic guide for teachers, which can easily categorize each listening topic or theme. An example of theme development is illustrated through the themes of education, work, and living. This can help teachers when designing a curriculum and as these common themes appear in most ESL materials they can be integrated in most ESL courses.
As an ESL teacher I find setting listening homework quite difficult on a practical level, as I often have to spend a lot of time searching, preparing, or adapting authentic listening material that the students can take home. However, on this website this is easily accessible and usefully already prepared. In addition, there is a useful handout, with information on other listening websites to encourage students to practice more and teachers to try out those web sites. In addition, as the listening scripts are short I also use extracts as a warm up activity to elicit ideas for the topic or context that I am about to teach. Moreover, I hope by exposing students to a variety of different contexts it can improve their understanding of following a conversation in English. Overall, Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab is an easy website to incorporate into lessons. It has plenty of listening exercises and complementary material. Hopefully, these can keep inspiring and motivating other Arabic teenagers, like my students, to improve their listening skills within and outside the classroom. To conclude, I hope that by exposing this little listening gem, teachers can view, select, and use what they feel is suitable for their own students and contexts. I highly recommend visiting and using this free service.
One concern regarding the themes is the cultural appropriateness for the Islamic Gulf region. An example of this is illustrated through a discussion about using the internet for dating purposes and dating tips. However, taking into consideration the huge list of topics that are offered, these areas are just a very small minority. Another consideration to highlight is that all listening is through American English, and therefore this can narrow the exposure towards other kinds of English accents for ESL learners.
Reviewed by Christopher Blake Fujairah Private Academy, UAE
Have you been to a professional development event or conference lately that you think TESOL Arabia members might benefit from? Consider writing a review of the event. Contact the editors for more information. Volume 17
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Calendar of Upcoming Events March 11-13, 2010
16th Annual TESOL Arabia Conference, "Transformations in TESOL," Zayed University Convention Center, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. E-mail jkennedy@hct.ac.ae. Web site: http://www.tesolarabia.org/conference/
March 12-14, 2010
TESOL-Spain, "Building Bridges: New Competences in the EFL Classroom," Universitat de Lleida, Campus de Cappont, Edifici Polivalent. E-mail: convention2010@tesol-spain.org. Website: http://www.tesol-spain.org/convention2010
March 13-14, 2010
TESOL Greece, "Living and Learning in a Brave New World," Hellenic American Union, Athens, Attika, Greece. E-mail: chair@tesolgreece.org. Website: http://www.tesolgreece.org
March 24-27, 2010
44th Annual TESOL International Conference, “Re-Imagining TESOL,” Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston, MA, USA. E-mail: conventions@tesol.org Website: www.tesol.org/register
April 6, 2010
2nd Sharjah Colloquium, “Test to Teach or Teach to Test? Unpacking an Awkward Compromise,” University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE. Email: pdcuos@gmail.com
April 7-11, 2010
44th IATEFL Annual International Conference and Exhibition, Harrogate International Centre, Harrogate, UK. E-mail: generalenquiries@iatefl.org Website: http://www.iatefl.org/events/iatefl-annual-conference-and-exhibition
April 24, 2010
Franklin Global SpellEvent, TESOL Arabia/International and Franklin Electronic Publishers, Dubai Men’s College, Dubai, UAE. Email: jkennedy@hct.ac.ae
May 6, 2010
3rd Annual Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Association of Language Teachers (KSAALT) Conference, “The Evolving Classroom,” Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Email: conference@saudiarabianksaalt.org
May 7-8, 2010
2nd International ELT Conference, Maltepe University, Istanbul, Turkey. E-mail: elt@maltepe.edu.tr
May 29, 2010
The Ninth Annual Wenshan International Conference, "Meeting the Challenges of Serving the New Generation," Taipei, Taiwan. E-mail: wsconf@nccu.edu.tw. Website: http://www.english.nccu.edu.tw/seminar/actnews.php?sn=9
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Testing SIG on the Move: FLAs in Bangladesh and Ukraine Christine Coombe, Testing Assessment and Evaluation SIG Co-Chair
On November 12,TESOL Arabia Testing, Assessment and Evaluation SIG co-chairs, Dr Christine Coombe and Peter Davidson, traveled to Dhaka, Bangladesh, to conduct a two-day Fundamentals of Language Assessment (FLA) workshop. Sponsored by a TOEFL Board Grant from Educational Testing Services (ETS), the trainers delivered 11 hours of basic level assessment training to approximately 65 Bangladeshi teachers. The two co-chairs were accompanied by Annie Brown of the UAE Ministry of Education and Paul Jaquith of National Admissions and Placement Office (NAPO). Ukrainian teachers busy at work during FLA.
The mission of the TAE SIG is to provide assessment training to English language teaching professionals, with the goal of helping teachers in the region develop assessment literacy.To date, FLAs have been held in every emirate and in such countries as Egypt, Nepal, Bahrain, Armenia and Thailand.
Christine with the Ukraine National Testing Team.
Christine Coombe then spent her Eid and National Day holidays in Kiev, Ukraine, delivering assessment training to the Ukraine National Testing Team and to 75 TESOL Ukraine members.This FLA was also sponsored by a TOEFL Board Grant from ETS, and by the US Department of State. Both FLAs were very well received. Another was held in Guatemala. Sightseeing in Dhaka with students.
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FLA in Guatemala Christine Coombe, Testing Assessment and Evaluation SIG Co-Chair
The TESOL Arabia Testing SIG co-chair, Dr Christine Coombe, spent her midyear break conducting a Fundamentals of Language Assessment (FLA) conference in Guatemala City. Sponsored in part by a TOEFL Board Grant from Educational Testing Services (ETS) and the US Department of State, Christine and her fellow co-presenters Drs Liz England, John Schmidt and Neil Anderson delivered eleven hours of basic level assessment training to approximately 80 teachers at the Instituto
Guatemalteco Americano (IGA) in Guatemala City. These workshops were very well received and plans are underway for more FLAs in neighboring countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua. Thanks go to Ana Sylvia Ramirez, Rina de Gongora and Neil Anderson without whom this event would not have been possible. The next FLA is currently being scheduled for teachers in the Center for English Teaching Excellence at Tbilisi State University in Georgia.
Guatemala FLA Presenters, John Schmidt, Liz England, Neil Anderson and Christine Coombe
Guatemala FLA Organizers and Presenters enjoy a trip to Antigua.
To purchase a copy of Fundamentals of Language Assessment, 2nd edition, contact mashael2@hotmail.com Volume 17
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TESOL Arabia Book Drive: Back in Action The Book Drive is getting back into action this year, with plans to donate to needy students in the UAE as well as continue to seek ways to ship books to universities and schools overseas. The Book Drive is an effort by UAE teachers to support colleagues in under-resourced countries by collecting and shipping used and new textbooks (any level, age-group or subject). It is staffed by volunteers and supported by the generosity of local education institutions, teachers and shipping companies. The main collection takes place during the annual TESOL Arabia Conference. Zayed University kindly donated approximately 8,500 books (more than 5 metric tons) for distribution to needy universities via the TESOL Arabia Book Drive in 2004. Kathy Bird and Paul de Jong organized the distribution of these books. The first consignment of approximately 1,000 books was boxed and taken to Kabul University, Afghanistan by Paul. Grateful thanks must be extended to the Sharjah manager of Ariana Airlines, Mr. Haji Daud Khan, who sponsored 500 kg of excess baggage. A second shipment to Sudan was distributed among several university language teaching departments. It was arranged with the help of Khalid Abdulla at the Dubai British Council and with Mr. Hatim and Mr. Abdul Monim of Al Suweidi Cargo and Travel Company in Dubai. Zayed University offered the services of a driver to deliver the books to the cargo company. Dr Mohammed Hamdan Al Shamsi of Thuraya Marine Shipping services collected 82 boxes for Basrah University. Dr Hamdan arranged for these books to be delivered to Mr Adil Hameed Raheem, Deputy Director, Cultural and Public Relations and Information Department, College of Arts, Basrah University.
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The Book Drive is still based at Zayed University in Dubai’s Academic City. Zayed University continues to be very supportive of the book drive and has donated hundreds of boxes of good quality English language course books during the past few years. Last spring, it outfitted our storage space with tables, shelves and other supplies. If you or your institution has books it could donate, please let us know and we’ll help you arrange getting them to our new storage and sorting facility. You are encouraged to bring books to the 2010 TESOL Arabia Conference where there will be a booth set up to receive them. If you have a large number of boxes, consider sending them before the conference. Whilst the main collection takes place during the annual TESOL Arabia Conference, efforts are year round, organized by a volunteer network throughout the UAE. We're also looking for people to be contact persons for the campuses they work on in the UAE. A contact person would publicize book drive activities and help out with any donations from their institutions. For more information, suggestions, etc., contact Paul de Jong (paul.dejong@zu.ac.ae) or Beth Wiens (beth.wiens@zu.ac.ae). Consider becoming a regular volunteer for the Book Drive. We look forward to hearing from you!
Donate to the TESOL Arabia Book Drive at
TACON 2010! TESOL Arabia Perspectives
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Professional Development Course Grant Report
Discourse, Pedagogy & Identity: The Sociology of Basil Bernstein Grant Recipient: Peter B. McLaren, Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE
The Discourse, Pedagogy and Identity (DPI) unit invited the course participants to either conduct a small-scale piece of research looking at aspects of the three factors cited above or to explore more thoroughly the work of a major theorist in one of these areas. Initially, weekend classes on the various facets of DPI were held in Dubai, with tutors coming out from the United Kingdom to deliver lectures and workshops. Given the very theoretical nature of much of the literature in this area, and in an attempt to “boil down” such a potentially vast area to something manageable in the 6,000-word submission limit, I opted for the latter theory-based approach and decided to follow up an initial interest in the insightful work of Britishbased educational theorist and sociologist Basil Bernstein.
I am very grateful to TESOL Arabia for a study grant towards the cost of module 5 (entitled Discourse, Pedagogy and Identity) of my ongoing Doctor of Education (EdD) course conducted through the University of Exeter’s Dubai-based cohort.
Bernstein is best known for his five volumes of Class, Codes and Control (1971, 1973, 1975, 1990 and 1996), a body of work that, according to Sadovnik (2001), “illuminated our understanding of the relationship between political economy, family, language and schooling.” His work has direct resonance for L1 state schooling in the U.K., where his ideas were first formulated, and also further afield, yet the application of Bernstein’s seminal theories – restricted and elaborated linguistic and social codes, the classification and framing of language and knowledge, and the formulation of what he termed the Pedagogic Device – to the field of applied linguistics and TESOL was not immediately apparent. Volume 17
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That being said, it was incumbent upon the student to mine Bernstein’s rich analytical seam for theoretical standpoints and approaches of interest and use to EFL/ESL practitioners. Bernstein’s distinction between market-oriented approaches to education, as compared to more therapeutic approaches that allow knowledge to be valued for its own sake; his Durkheimian analysis of the curricular shift from what he called “mechanical to organic solidarity” (e.g. from traditional to modern societies) and the distinction between competence and performance-based pedagogies all appear to have much to offer TESOL. Indeed, Cummins’s (1979, 1981) Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills/Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (BICS/CALP) distinction mirrors, to a degree, Bernstein’s restricted and elaborated codes and his identification of “imaginary” pedagogic practices, in short, where students learn to pass exams within an imaginary, recontextualised pedagogic area, such as SLA, but may still not be learning useful “worldly” knowledge. These key distinctions suggest several ways in which both Bernstein’s “code theory” and “pedagogic device” can help analyse and redefine the way in which TESOL is managed and also interpreted at classroom level. One area of potential conflict is the seemingly untenable position where the majority of practitioners, materials, technologies (as defined by Holliday, 1994, as teaching techniques and perceived learner strategies) and curriculum planners tend to come from certain parts of the globe, Kachru’s (1985) “centre communities,” while those they are teaching, or teaching how to teach, come from very
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different socio-political backgrounds. This could well be the seat of much potential tension, where, to use Bernstein’s own terms, the Official Recontextualising Field (ORF) is dominated by what might be seen as outside forces, and the Pedagogic Recontextualising Field (PRF) has either been infiltrated by these same influences or is largely ignored. This can lead to a huge chasm between what we believe we are doing in the classroom and what actually takes place. This in turn raises questions vis-à-vis the political will and regulative message contained within the decision to teach English as a second or other language in nonEnglish speaking countries. Bernstein (1996) refers to “invisible” pedagogies, which may not be as crude as a classic hidden agenda, but still raises important research questions with regard to what the English teacher is really teaching. If the rules of the “pedagogic device” dictate that instructional discourse is contained within a regulative framework, then ELT teachers can no longer hide behind the discredited notion of value-free, neutral dissemination of linguistic content knowledge. Kress et al. (2000) also remind us that theories such as Bernstein’s are far from static. They ask questions as to how a pedagogic framework can help to enlighten and shape future education in a world of rapid technological change. If such changes are social in nature, then they must interact with pedagogic curricula that seek to shape, control and reproduce social conditions. These are concerns that affect every one of us teaching EFL in the Gulf region and further afield.
Bernstein, B. (1996, 2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Cummins, J. (1979). Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimal age question, and some other matters. Working Papers on Bilingualism, 19, 197-205. Cummins, J. (1981a). Bilingualism and minoritylanguage children. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Press. Cummins, J. (1981b). The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In Schooling and language minority students. Sacramento, CA: California Department of Education. Holliday, A. (1994). Appropriate methodology and social context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kachru, B. B. (1985). Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle. In Quirk and Widdowson (Eds.). English in the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kress, G., C. Jewitt & C. Tsatsarelis (2000). Knowledge, identity, pedagogy: Pedagogic discourse and the representational environments of education in late modernity. Linguistics and Education. 11(1), 7-30. Sadovnik, A. R. (2001). Basil Bernstein (1924-2000). Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, 31(4), 687-703.
References
Apply for a TESOL Arabia Course Grant today!
Bernstein, B. (1971). Class, codes and control: Vol. 1. Theoretical studies towards a sociology of language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bernstein, B. (1973). Class, codes and control: Vol. 2. Applied studies towards a sociology of language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bernstein, B. (1975). Class, codes and control: Vol. 3. Towards a theory of educational transmissions. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bernstein, B. (1990). Class, codes and control: Vol. 4. The structuring of pedagogic discourse. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
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Contact
sandra.oddy@hct.ac.ae
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TESOL Arabia Has a New Special Interest Group: READ SIG Tom Le Seeleur
Vision of Read SIG:
Proposed Schedule of Events:
Create a reading culture in the UAE and Middle East through the power of one: One in every Emirate One in every major city One in every town and village One in every community and library One in every nursery, school, college and university One in every classroom One in every home Everyone
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To build lasting local relationships between schools, colleges, libraries and communities To reach out to students, educators, parents, mentors, librarians and local leaders To engage reluctant readers, parents who don’t read, schools that have no libraries
To gain independent sponsorship from education, business and publishing To promote and publicize the initiatives through workshops, fairs, exhibitions and a magazine To set up a network of members to administer and promote the campaign To promote reading habits by emphasizing the reading habits of the people who are role models
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Publish Bi-Annual Magazine Create Website Contribute to Wikireadia Produce Monthly Newsletters Start Reading Clubs Publicize through Media Support Community Libraries Partner Publishers
Publishers’ Events EAIFL (Emirates Airlines International Literature Festival) Author Visits / Celebrity Visits Workshops / Mini Conferences Parent/Teacher Clubs Arabic Reading Events National Reading Campaign National Year of Reading International Reading Conference
Sharjah: Schools/Libraries Ajman: Al Jouf School and Al Numan Bin Basheer - Schools Al Ain: Schools/Library Abu Dhabi: Schools/Library Dubai: Schools/Library MZ: Schools/Library RAK: Schools/Library Fujairah: Schools/Library TACON Conference
If you would like to see how reading is celebrated in the UK and how reading campaigns have evolved please look at the following sites. http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/nltprojects/index.html http://www.wikireadia.org.uk/index.php?title=Teachers
Conferences and Campaigns N One Day Mini-Conference in the UAE in May or June 2010 N Start Reading Initiatives in every cycle, in every Emirate, in every city in 2010 N Start Year of Reading Campaign 2011 N International Reading Conference in 2012 Please contact Tom Le Seelleur at: readingchampions@yahoo.co.uk if you would like to join our team. We need to establish event organizers in all the Emirates, in every city and in every cycle both male and female schools to ensure that this campaign is truly national. We need people in all schools, colleges, universities, libraries and ILCs.
To develop a network of volunteers who promote a culture and habit of reading in all communities
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To activate reading circles, clubs, mentoring, role models, reading heroes, local library activities
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Abu Dhabi Events Organizers for Cycles 1, 2 and 3 Al Ain Events Organizers for Cycles 1, 2 and 3 Madinet Zayed Events Organizers for Cycles 1, 2 and 3 Dubai Events Organizers for Cycles 1, 2 and 3 Sharjah Events Organizers for Cycles 1, 2 and 3 RAK Events Organizers for Cycles 1, 2 and 3
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Ajman Events Organizers for Cycles 1 and 2 UAQ Events Organizers for Cycles 1, 2 and 3 Fujairah Events Organizers for Cycles 1, 2 and 3 Each organizer will be responsible for creating a reading culture in their schools and forming lasting relationships with parents, teachers, librarians and local leaders in order to achieve this. This environment may already exist in many schools making them role models for other schools. They will have complete autonomy to plan, organize and hold events and run activities. These may range from creating a reading friendly classroom to building a community library. The Read SIG Newsletters,Wikireadia, and the Read magazine will be used to highlight these achievements,
share the successes and demonstrate the variety and depth of reading projects, schemes, initiatives and activities happening throughout the UAE. The pooling of ideas and resources and the ability to publicize and advertise our triumphs is essential. Everyone needs to know that the UAE is reading. We can learn from each other and sow the seeds. Read SIG will present at as many chapter meetings and workshops as possible. We will be at the TESOL Arabia Conference. We need to appoint a Secretary and Events Co-ordinator. We would also welcome Event Co-ordinators for KSA, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Yemen and Kuwait. We intend to be an active Special Interest Group that will grow and develop and learn.
Learner Independence SIG Report Phil Cozens November was a busy month for the Learner Independence SIG, with co-chairs Phil Cozens and Jeff Knowling first traveling to Sharjah for our joint event on November 7 and then a week later supporting students at the “Voices From The Other Side of The Desk” event, held in conjunction with the Abu Dhabi Chapter. The Sharjah event was held at the Intensive English Program (IEP) building at the American University of Sharjah and was well attended. It consisted of six sessions under the theme of independent learning. Lauriel Mehdi from the American University of Sharjah and Dr Maher Ben Moussa from the University of Sharjah started things off with sessions respectively on how we can make students independent and just how lonely a process independent reading can be. Jeff Knowling and Phil Cozens from the Petroleum Institute followed with sessions on the use of material from Voice of America and National Public Radio to produce listening tasks and practical tasks to help improve writing. In the final sessions, Samar Elshal of Madares Aighad School in Sharjah discussed the setting-up of independent learning centers in local schools, and a group of teachers from AUS consisting of Leslie Glessen, Amanda Ward, Olivia Riordan and Kelley Fast presented on an extensive reading program being piloted by the university’s IEP. In the “Voices” event in Abu Dhabi on November 14, we were pleased to have a total of 13 students provide six interesting presentations. The event was hosted by Fatima College of Health Sciences at Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Volume 17
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Research. Fatima College provided technology, support staff and an extremely pleasant atmosphere. Student presenters included those in their first semesters of a pre-university program and others completing the final years of their studies, with a range of other presenters in between. Two sessions dealt with strategies for learning vocabulary, including one session which featured games developed by Sara Ali Al Abadi and Fareeda Saeed Al Jaberi, two junior students at the Petroleum Institute. They had created the games during their foundation year. Two more presentations dealt with activities outside the classroom. One session gave examples of activities that students felt had helped them. The other, presented by senior students from Abu Dhabi University, focused on theoretical aspects and suggested strategies for students to follow. The other two sessions both involved the use of technology. One described how a specialized website was used to help first-semester students overcome difficulties with their Advanced Placement Physics course. The other featured the use of Audacity, an open-source recording application, to help students reflect on their lessons in science and mathematics, while practicing speaking at the same time. This was the first “Voices” event, but we hope that others will follow.The sessions were all well received and the delegates, who were all teachers, commented on how well the student presenters had put forward and supported their opinions and provided answers to detailed questions. We hope that we will be able to repeat this, but with an even greater number of student presentations. TESOL Arabia Perspectives
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TESOL Arabia Special Interest Groups ESP SIG Chair
ESP SIG Co-Chairs Saad Rabia General Manager SPT (Saad for Professional Training) 02 644 0339 (office) esptesolarabia@gmail.com
Fathi Bin Mohamed ADNOC Technical Institute 02 602 2832 (office) fmohamed3@adnoc.ae
Naamat Saadi Hezber ILC (Independent Learning Center) Director of ILC 04 289 4150 (office) naamat99@hotmail.com
Leadership and Management SIG Co-Chairs Christine Coombe Dubai Men’s College Higher Colleges of Technology PO Box 15825, Dubai, UAE 050 619 4796 (mobile) christine.coombe@hct.ac.ae christinecoombe@hotmail.com
Dr. Phil Quirke Madinat Zayed & Ruwais Colleges Higher Colleges of Technology 050 813 3148 (mobile) pquirke@hct.ac.ae
Learner Independence SIG Team c/o Phil Cozens Petroleum Institute PO Box 2533, Abu Dhabi, UAE E-mail: tailearn@yahoo.com Website: http://ilearn.20m.com Independent Learning Forum: http://groups.google.com/group/ilearn2 Distance Learning Support: http://groups.google.com/group/distancelearningissues Distance Learning Wiki: http://tailearn.pbworks.com/ Study Skills Wiki: http://ilearnstudyskills.pbworks.com/ E-newsletter: http://ilearn.20m.com/newsletter/index.htm Moodle: http://learnerindependence.info Facebook Group: Learner Autonomy and iLearn
Virginia Robson
Jeff Knowling
Amr El Zarka
Phil Cozens
Testing, Assessment, & Evaluation SIG Co-Chairs Christine Coombe Dubai Men’s College Higher Colleges of Technology PO Box 15825, Dubai, UAE 050 619 4796 (mobile) christine.coombe@hct.ac.ae christinecoombe@hotmail.com
Young Learners SIG Chair
Information Technology SIG Chair
Micheline Habib P.O. Box 108131 Abu Dhabi, UAE 050 303 7404 (mobile) mikaellahab@yahoo.com
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Peter Davidson Zayed University PO Box 19282 Dubai, UAE 04 402 1387 (off) 050 843 8782 (mobile) peter.davidson@zu.ac.ae
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Will Moore Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) P.O. Box 90472 Al Ain, UAE 050 334 3657 (mobile) dreigo.will@gmail.com
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Tom Le Seelleur KUSTAR P.O. Box 573 Sharjah, UAE 050 681 9936 (mobile) readingchampionsuae@ yahoo.co.uk
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Eastern Region Chapter Report Yurii Vedrashko
The new Eastern Region chapter team went through their initiation in their first event on November 7.The ex-representatives Abdelbasset Jeddi and Nejib Ali also took the time to come to the event and pass on their managerial wisdom to the new chapter team.This time Fujairah Women’s College of HCT hosted four presentations.These were attended by 24 teachers and administrators from Fujairah, Khor Fakkan and Kalba. The title of this event was “Effective Teaching and Assessment Practices.”Three of the four presenters were from Fujairah Women’s College and the other was from Al Raheeb School.
Another crowd pleaser was Christine Baldwin, a former primary school teacher from Australia who is currently a Diploma Foundations teacher at FWC. She impressed both primary and secondary teachers with her preparation for a CLIL-oriented lesson. She skillfully demonstrated how fictional characters can seamlessly and organically lead young learners toward learning fascinating real-world facts about such topics as bears and later gradually to math and science concepts. She shared her methods of preparing, teaching and assessing a CLIL unit, do’s and don’ts of teaching, and secrets of engaging young learners’ different modes of learning.The participants broke into four groups and were brought back to childhood experiences through Christine’s engaging statistical activity. Apart from that, primary level teachers learned how to make a smart book, without staples or glue, using only one A4 piece of paper and a few folds and one scissor cut. I personally felt I had gone back in time to my childhood, where with Christine I could learn about the fascinating world of bears.The PDF files with Christine’s materials are available from the research database on the chapter website.
Guy Stieglitz focused on movement and collaboration in a writing lesson.
Guy Stieglitz from Fujairah Women’s College demonstrated his teaching materials and practice aimed at helping lower-level students to develop a better sense of English sentence structures.The presentation focused on collaboration and movement to keep students engaged in learning, hands-on writing practice, and the use of manipulatives in groups to keep students more active in the learning process. Finally, the teachers attending the session shared their experiences with teaching beginning writers.The PowerPoint file for this presentation can be retrieved from the research database of the chapter website in the administrative module, at http://www.zpdonline.org/moodle/.
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Christine Baldwin shows some materials after her fascinating tour of the world of bears.
Naomi Richard, a teacher educator from Al Raheeb School, focused on the importance of frequent
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classroom assessment events. Her presentation provoked a passionate discussion among the participants about the end-users of data to be gathered from ongoing diagnostic tests or other assessment instruments. Participants had an opportunity to air their concerns and beliefs of who may be interested in having such data and how such information can be used in formative and summative assessment. The online forum thread reflecting the discussion of those issues is available for new posts. In addition, Naomi demonstrated different sources to draw on for student-generated materials that can be used for in-class assessment events. She elaborated on her understanding of the conceptual differences between the domains of assessment and evaluation. The PowerPoint file for this presentation is also available from the research database.
is not important. A PDF file is retrievable from the same database. The paper can be discussed in the online forum in the website’s event module.
Alex MacLeod presented his research framework on socio-cultural issues in ELT publications.
Chapter Website
Naomi Richard spoke on frequent assessment.
Alex MacLeod from FWC demonstrated the arresting findings of his research and his future PhD thesis on socio-cultural issues in English-teaching publications. After presenting his research framework for understanding the role of hegemonic propaganda and imposed ideological values in language programs, Alex demonstrated his method of spotting and interpreting ideologically tainted materials and content in different versions of a commercial course book. His overall purpose was to warn teachers who use such commercial materials about unexpected outcomes of curricula based on such materials. He stressed the dialectical nature of the relationship between ideological discourse and commercial course books, suggesting that one perpetuates the other. Alex’s findings demonstrated how skillfully English learners can be manipulated and indoctrinated into beliefs regarding what is and
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http://www.zpdonline.org/moodle/ Construction of the Eastern Region chapter website is underway. It is being constantly updated with new materials, resources, news and data. The site is meant to be an online agora for professional development, exchange of ideas and materials. Everyone interested in English teaching, material writing and assessment is welcome to register a free password-protected account and make use of its discussion boards (forums), chats, databases, proposal submission desk, after-the-event quizzes and other interactive facilities. Recent events will be reported through the constantly updated photo report, which is available in the event module of our website. To view the photos and use the site’s various features, you can log in as a guest or consider registering your own account. The one-time enrollment key for this course is camel.
Participants attending a workshop at an Eastern Chapter event. Participants attending a workshop at an Eastern Chapter event.
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Participants planning to attend upcoming PD events can also download the flyers, newsletters and chapter reports from the event module.
The first PEC for the Most Attentive Participants was not very successful. Only one participant took the after-the-event quiz. This interactive Moodlebased quiz consisted of 20 questions and allowed only one attempt in 18 minutes. The quiz was available online through the event module of the chapter website for three days after the event. The 20 multiple choice quiz questions reflected the content of all four presentations. The winner and only participant who took this quiz was Abou-Arab, an English teacher from Mohammed Bin Hamad School. He scored 85% and won one of the blenders.
Important! To receive a Certificate of Participation after an event, participants must register online at least 48 hours beforehand. Use the site’s registration tool in the event module. From now on, certificates will not be printed on site, but will be prepared two days before every event. The certificates will be given only at the end of the event.
PECs
The Most Popular Topic/Presentation PEC turned out to be more successful. The online polling facility was also active for three days after the presentation. Four participants cast their votes for the most interesting topic/presentation. The presenter with the highest rating (75%) was Guy Stieglitz. Since November, website users have been able to submit presentation proposals through the online proposal submission desk in the event module. Calls for presentations and submission requirements will be detailed in the online proposal submission desk. Please pay attention to the closing date.
The November 7 event on “Effective Teaching and Assessment Practices” was supported by two sponsors from Fujairah: Al Safeer Supermarket and Coral Residence Tower Hotel. These two sponsors offered prizes in the form of valuable gifts, such as a one-night stay at the hotel, a dinner voucher, and two blenders. The prizes were meant for the lucky draw winners and the winners in two contest categories or Professional Exchange Contests (PECs) for the most popular topic/presentation and the most attentive participant.
For more information on TESOL Arabia Chapter Events, see our calendar at http://tesolarabia.org
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Sharjah Chapter Report Mona El Samaty
This is the first Sharjah Chapter report of the new academic year 2009-2010. We had to postpone having our events earlier due to Ramadan and Eid. For 2010, we are scheduled to have six events, three of which are joint events with different TESOL Arabia Special Interest Groups (SIGs). We had two joint events in the first semester with the Learner Independent SIG (LI SIG) and the Instructional Technology SIG (IT SIG). We welcome the joint efforts with the SIGs, and hope all our events meet your expectations. Our first event on November 7, 2009, entitled “Declaration of Independence,” with the LI SIG was very successful. We had six presenters, and over 60 attendees. In the first session, Dr Maher Ben Moussa, from the University of Sharjah (UOS), and Laurial Mehdi, from the American University of Sharjah (AUS), gave concurrent presentations. Dr Maher's interesting presentation, “Reading: From a Lonely Process to Independent Learning,” aimed at arming the students with reading strategies that can be turned into cognitive habits they can apply in constructing meaning from a text. In the adjacent room, Laurial Mehdi talked about how to make learners more independent.
Phil Cozens presenting at our November event on scientific report writing.
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She argued that in order to instill the value of lifelong learning into the students, a modification of traditional teaching methods as well as student support are required.
Hala El Miniawi at the December event where she presented on the use of IT in grammar classes.
The next concurrent presentations were given by two presenters from Abu Dhabi, Phil Cozens, the LI SIG Chair and Jeff Knowling, both from the Petroleum Institute (PI). Phil gave a hands-on workshop to show how basic experiments can be an interesting gateway to improved scientific report writing for low ability students. On the other hand, Jeff talked about radio resources available on the internet. He showed how teachers can use materials especially from Voice of America (VOA) and National Public Radio (NPR) websites to develop in-class activities, or a collection for independent study accessible online. In the third session, four presenters from AUS, Leslie Giesen, Amanda Ward, Olivia Riordan, and Kelley Fast talked about the extensive reading program that is being piloted by several reading instructors in the Intensive English Program (IEP), to verify how extensive reading could be incorporated into the
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reading course at all levels. In the next door lab, Samah Elshal, from Madares Al Ghad schools, talked about her experience in setting up an Independent Learning Center at her school. The TESOL Arabia membership secretary was present at the November event and many attendees became members, renewed their memberships, or registered for the TESOL Arabia conference in March.
Miniawi raised the issue of whether grammar should be taught or acquired, and how IT can help in grammar classes. In the last session, Will Moore, the IT SIG Chair, gave a presentation on “Never Get Lost” readings which provide students with left-to-right eye guidance and synchronized text-voice, emphasizing proper phrasing and intonation. Last but not least, Rasha Al Okaily, from UOS, introduced VoiceThread where students have the opportunity to experience collaborative learning in an online space, through sharing their work. Tom Le Seelleur, the chair of the new Reading SIG (READ SIG), was present at our December event, demonstrating a PowerPoint presentation on the new SIG, and answering attendees' questions about it. Tom also had a sign up sheet for those members who wished to support the new SIG.
Will Moore presenting on “Never Get Lost” readings in December.
The second event entitled “Technology in the Service of Language Learning” was a joint event with the IT SIG. It was held on December 12, 2009, and was also a big success. We had six presenters and about 50 attendees. In the first session, Elena Danilina from Higher Colleges of Technololgy, Sharjah Men's College, introduced a teacher-friendly poster-creation tool: GlogsterEDU. Students can use it to create interactive web-based posters that combine text, images, video and audio. A concurrent presenter, Paul Rebeiz from UOS showed the audience how to use Hot Potatoes to generate a variety of interactive exercises such as short answer quizzes, matching exercises, and cloze passages. In the second session, Kabir MacDow, from the Abu Dhabi Education Council, Al Ain, demonstrated how to use two online learning programs, “Rosetta Stone” and “Tell Me More,” for supplemental, individualized instruction in the language classroom. Concurrently, Hala El
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The publishers, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Cambridge University Press, Gulf Education, and Kasha, never fail to attend our events and display their latest editions of teaching-related and nonteaching related books, dictionaries and other materials. They also generously give us books for our end of event raffles. We appreciate their attendance and support of our events. Our next event, on February 20, 2010 was a joint event with the newly-formed Leadership and Management SIG. This is to be followed by three more events on March 20, April 3, and May 8, 2010. Finally, I would like to thank all presenters who share their knowledge and experience with us, such as SIG chairs Phil Cozens and Will Moore who have helped us have successful joint events, Halina Campa, the chapter secretary for her hard work, and Ed Carlstedt, our treasurer, for making the events possible. Last but not least, I would like to thank the volunteers who help us have a smooth late registration early in the morning, and help us out throughout the day. Our best wishes to everyone.
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I feel the breadth of the modules, the enthusiasm of the tutors in their subject areas and the discussion between participants makes this programme top-notch. EdD TESOL student, Dubai
TESOL Programmes The Graduate School of Education is recognised as a leading School of Education with a diverse and highly successful track record, including:
• Ranked 5th in the UK for world leading and internationally excellent research (RAE 2008) and influencer of national Education policy
• Ranked 4th in The Times Good University Guide 2010 • ESRC-recognised outlet for part-time, full-time, distance learning and CASE research training • ESRC quota for research studentships • International community with postgraduates from over 70 countries studying in the School over the last five years
Doctor of Education (EdD) – available in Dubai Dubai Knowledge Village. Programme Coordinator: Dr Salah Troudi, email: s.troudi@exeter.ac.uk This is a professionally-oriented taught doctorate degree suitable for EFL/ESL professionals, including primary and secondary teachers, college lecturers, and programme coordinators. The degree is taught part-time over four years and local tutors are available for your support. The programme consists of two compulsory research methodology modules, plus the following three content modules: • Critical Issues in Teaching English • Language Learning and TESOL Pedagogy • The Meaning and Practice of Professionalism You will then complete a research-based thesis of up to 50,000 words.
MPhil and PhD – available in Dubai The School has an outstanding reputation for research training and offers MPhil and PhD degrees involving independent study under two supervisors, culminating in the presentation of a written thesis. Full- and part-time study is available.
Masters programme – intensive summer study option The Masters in TESOL is aimed at professionals working at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. The programme is flexible, allowing you to choose from the wide range of modules available. Prior to starting the programme, a member of our academic staff will help you plan out the best programme to meet your needs. The programme is available full-time (1 year) and through an intensive summer programme that takes place in July over two consecutive summers.
Graduate School of Education For more information please visit www.exeter.ac.uk/education telephone + 44 (0) 1392 724986 or email edu-admissions@exeter.ac.uk
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Kick Off: Ras Al Khaimah Chapter and Leadership & Management SIG Inaugural Event Christine Jones The Ras Al Khaimah Chapter of TESOL Arabia hosted the inaugural meeting of the new Leadership and Management SIG on October 31 at Ras Al Khaimah Men’s College (RKMC). The LM SIG focuses on the promotion and development of good management practices in the region, and the investigation of leadership and management issues. About 70 people, including teachers from the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels in and around RAK, attended the inaugural event. Attendees were welcomed by RAK Chapter Representative Anna Bailey. Anna was pleased to invite everyone to partake of coffee and refreshments and to introduce the first speaker of the day.
Volunteers Natalie, Juliet, & Jeri welcome event attendees.
Dr Christine Coombe, co-chair and founding member of the LM SIG, opened the conference with her reflections on the Teacher Leadership Academy (TLA) held in May 2009, which was funded by the US Department of State Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). She discussed the resounding positive response to that conference and how it led to the creation of the LM SIG. Christine was followed by the event’s plenary speaker, Dr Sufian Abu-Rmaileh. Sufian is currently Volume 17
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the Vice President/President-elect of TESOL Arabia. He gave a presentation on leadership styles which examined positive as well as negative examples of leadership. He discussed the results of adding a positive statement, knowing how to apologize, and delegating authority, and briefly reminded attendees of the necessity of those characteristics. Sufian’s plenary presentation was an excellent foundation for the workshops and presentations that followed in the concurrent sessions. The workshops examined various aspects of leadership for teachers, students, or administrators. Dr Barbara Harold, a teacher at Zayed University, discussed the results of an ongoing effort at ZU to examine over several years the successes and challenges in the development of research and curriculum leadership skills in pre-service teachers. She shared several student-developed research projects and discussed the value of these projects. Attendees expressed a great deal of interest in the future of such research projects. Josephine Kennedy, from Abu Dhabi Men’s College, showed how teachers can empower students and colleagues through the use of Active Listening Techniques. Jo suggested several listening strategies. Steve Allison, a supervisor at Abu Dhabi Men’s College, gave a very timely presentation on the art of delegation. This popular presentation included shared experiences of both managers and teachers, and linked well with the plenary discussion by Sufian. The second round of concurrent sessions featured additional leadership components. Sandra Oddy, from Al Ain Women’s College, gave a detailed presentation on the successful planning of a PD event. Her experience and involvement with the organization of TESOL Arabia conferences since 1998 was clearly evident in her presentation. Lisa Barlow, from UAE University, presented on change and educational management systems in the UAE. TESOL Arabia Perspectives
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Her discussion of current research into the process of educational change and problems unique to this particular educational setting was both timely and fascinating. Last but not least, Christine Coombe’s workshop “Burnout in ELT: Strategies for Recovery or Prevention” was hugely popular and came close to being standing room only. Her suggestions and prevention tips were well received by participants.
Rounding out the conference, teachers had an opportunity to buy some of the latest TESOL Arabia publications from volunteer Daniel Carroll. Sandra Oddy also issued cards to new members and, with volunteer Jennifer Bergh, registered people for the TESOL Arabia conference in March. Volunteers Jerri Lang, Juliet Anderson, and Natalie Konzen cheerfully greeted the more than 70 attendees and provided certificates following the event. The feedback from participants was positive, with several commenting on the usefulness and relevance of the information presented. The RAK Chapter Executive Committee would like to thank all of the presenters for their valuable contributions and acknowledge their dedication to professional development evident in RAK. They would also like to thank RKMC for hosting the event. The committee would also like to extend its thanks to Chapter Representative Anna Bailey for her diligence and effort in bringing this quality event to Ras Al Khaimah.
Dr Barbara Harold discusses undergraduate research projects.
TESOL ARABIA 2010 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
The Editor of the Proceedings of 16th Annual TESOL Arabia Conference would like to invite you to submit a paper based on your presentation at the conference to be considered for publication in the next volume of the Proceedings. Only those who presented at the most recent TESOL Arabia Conference may submit articles for the Proceedings. Please send your article to Mashael Al-Hamly at: Email: mashael2@hotmail.com Please follow the specifications outlined below: Articles should be between 3000-4000 words. Articles should be typed using Times New Roman, font size 12, with 1½ line spacing. If you include Tables and/or Figures, make sure they are no wider than 12 cms. Do not use color in Tables or Figures. Do not use footnotes. Only use "portrait" orientation (i.e. don't insert any pages in "landscape" orientation). Remove all hyperlinks. Include a complete list of references using APA style as outlined in the Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition (2009). Send articles electronically as a Word attachment. We will acknowledge receipt of articles within two weeks, except during the summer vacation in July and August.
Deadline for Submission: October 1, 2010
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Chapter Represenatives
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TESOL Arabia Chapter Representatives Abu Dhabi Representative Ahmed Saadawi IAT PreCORE Program Khalifa University of Science, Technology & Research (KUSTAR) PO Box 127733, Abu Dhabi, UAE 02 444 3763 (office), 02 444 5143 (fax) 050 771-7255 (mobile) a_saadawi@yahoo.com
Al Ain Representative Mokhtar Trabelsi Ministry of Education and Youth PO Box 1245, Al Ain, UAE 03 751 2662 (res) 050 563 0238 (mobile) noorkha97@hotmail.com
Sharjah Representative Mona El Samaty University of Sharjah College of Arts English Department P. O. Box 27272, Sharjah, UAE 06 505 3349 (office) monaelsamaty@gmail.com
Dubai Representative Rehab Rejab Institute of Applied Technology PO Box 124354 Dubai, United Arab Emirates 050 637 5957 (mobile) rehabrajab@yahoo.com
RAK Representative Anna Bailey Ras Al Khaimah Women’s College Higher Colleges of Technology PO Box 4792, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE 07 202 5230 (office) anna.bailey@hct.ac.ae, rakrep@yahoo.co.uk
Acting Eastern Region Representative Yurii Vedrashko Fujairah Women's College Higher Colleges of Technology PO Box 1626, Fujairah,UAE 050 193 9805 (mobile) yvedrashko@hct.ac.ae
Western Region Representative Mohammad Azaza Zayed Al-Khair Model School PO Box 57657, Zayed Town, UAE 02 884 4453 (office), 02 884 4478 (fax ), 050 780 3988 (mobile) amelki22@yahoo.com
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Membership Form
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TESOL Arabia Membership Application 2009-2010 Please complete this application form and follow the directions for payment on the reverse. Please note that membership fees are not refundable. TESOL Arabia Secretariat, I C & E, PO Box 29884, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Fax: +971 4 3355141 Tel: +971 4 3372718 Email: tesolarabia@icedxb.com Please check one:
175 UAE Dirhams
regular* - for applicants residing within the GCC countries**
135 UAE Dirhams
for primary & secondary school teachers residing within the GCC countries
135 UAE Dirhams
for full-time students (with letter of confirmation from college or university) residing within the GCC countries
250 UAE Dirhams
for international membership (all members residing outside the GCC)
All information given in this form will remain confidential and is solely for the use of TESOL Arabia. First Name: ________________________ Last Name:
________________________________
Postal address: __________________________________________________________________ Postal address: __________________________________________________________________ City __________________________________________________________________________ Country ______________________________________________________________________ Is the above your place of work, or your personal address? (please circle)
Work
Personal
Email: _________________________________________________________________________ Email addresses will be used to contact you about many TESOL Arabia matters. Please ensure your address is correct. Your address will also be added to the TESOL Arabia Internet announcement list to receive announcements unless you tick here. Contact Tel: ________________________________ Fax: ______________________________ Name of place of work: ___________________________________________________________ (i.e. name of school, company, college, university etc.)
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Membership Form
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TESOL Arabia Special Interest Groups – please circle up to TWO SIGs of your choice: English for Specific Purposes Instructional Technology Leadership and Management Learner Independence Literature Testing, Assessment, Young Learners and Evaluation TESOL Arabia Branches – UAE residents please circle the branch you want to contact you: Abu Dhabi Al Ain Dubai Fujairah + East Coast Ras Al Khaimah Sharjah
Western Region
METHODS OF PAYMENT
The fee payable is the one applicable at the time we receive your application for membership. We can only process your membership once your application has been received. All payments must be in UAE dirhams.
CASH, CHEQUE, BANK DRAFT
CASH must be paid in UAE dirhams in person at I C & E’s offices in Dubai. Room 413 Sultan Business Centre (Next to Lamcy Plaza) Dubai
ONLINE payments are now possible via our website. Please go to http://tesolarabia.org for full details.
DIRECT DEPOSITS should be deposited in UAE dirhams only to:
Mashreq Bank, Park Place Branch, Dubai, UAE Account number: 0994710846 Account name: International Conferences & Exhibitions LLC Swift code: BOMLAEAD
The original deposit slip (usually pink in colour) must be sent with the membership application form to IC&E at the address on the form.
CHEQUES or BANK DRAFTS must be in UAE dirhams made payable to:
“International Conferences & Exhibitions LLC” The cheque or draft should be sent to IC&E at the address on the form with the membership application form.
Upon payment, an official TESOL Arabia receipt and Membership Card will be posted to you.
If you do not receive a RECEIPT within two weeks of applying, please contact us at: TESOL Arabia, IC&E, P.O. Box 29884, Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 3372718, Fax +971 4 3355141, Email: tesolarabia@icedxb.com
Notes: * ‘Regular’ membership is for people employed at the government system post-secondary education level or the private sector equivalent, or are otherwise outside the recognised primary or secondary schooling system. Decisions made by the Membership Secretary regarding categories of membership are final. **Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
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Guidelines for Contributors
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Guidelines for Contributors Perspectives. Please contact Dr. Atta Gebril, the Reviews Editor, at cgunn@aus.edu.
General Editorial Policies TESOL Arabia Perspectives is the official publication of TESOL Arabia, designed to meet the organization’s professional objectives by publishing articles that discuss the teaching and learning of English as an additional language at all levels and with a particular focus on the region (the Gulf, Middle East, North Africa and South Asia). TESOL Arabia Perspectives invites previously unpublished manuscripts that address the diverse topics that make up our profession, including, but not limited to, methodology, pedagogy, curriculum and materials development, assessment, classroom inquiry and research, teacher education and language and culture.
Emerging Technologies This section will document short articles of about 5001000 words that provide overviews of educational technologies, their utilities and incorporation into practice. This could include software, hardware, and web-based resources.
Networking This section will feature conference and country reports. Reports will range between 250-1000 words. Conference reports should provide the readers with a good overview of the conference in question as well as some personal insights of how it impacted the author. Country reports can provide a glimpse of professional activities, concerns and projects in the Photos with captions must accompany the submission.
Submission Categories & Guidelines Feature Articles Features should generally be between 2000-3000 words in length, and address educational issues (theory leading to practice) relevant to the membership. The articles can document a critical survey of a particular aspect of the field, detail and analyze pedagogical issues, describe and discuss research findings, or highlight contextual factors and their implications for educational practice. All submissions should be thought through, organized, and clearly written. APA style format will be strictly adhered to regarding referencing. Submissions must be in Times New Roman, font size 12, double spaced. Submissions not meeting APA standards will not be reviewed. Every feature article will go through a review process where the reviewers consider how well it:
Reader’s Response Reader’s Response gives the readers a forum to respond to articles published in previous issues. Responses should focus on the content of an article and provide reasoned feedback. Responses should be between 500 – 1000 words.
Lesson Ideas Do you have a great lesson idea or an activity that others should know about? Lesson Ideas offers teachers the opportunity to share their activities in context. Submissions should be between 500-1000 words and detail the activity as well as provide a context for usage.
discusses issues that seek to inform practice; contributes to the knowledge base for teaching and teacher education in general, and in the region in particular; addresses educational issues and needs of ELT in the region; identifies an educational research agenda.
Photographs and other images In order to avoid poor quality images, please submit the largest size and best resolution images you have. This should be at least 300 dpi and saved as a tiff, eps, or jpeg (in order of preference). Headshots and brief bios including the author's current professional affiliation must accompany all submissions.
Reviews
Send your submissions to:
Reviews should evaluate any recent textbook, resource book, CD/DVD and audio or video title. Reviews should be 500–1000 words in length and evaluate materials for their approach, content, appropriateness, adaptability, and relevancy. A list of materials received for review will be made available periodically in
Melanie Gobert & Rebecca Woll TESOL Arabia Perspectives Co-editors Melanie.gobert@hct.ac.ae Rebecca.woll@hct.ac.ae
TESOL Arabia Perspectives is published three times a year: November, January and June
Deadline for next issue: March 30 Volume 17
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Executive Council
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TESOL Arabia Executive Council President
Vice President
Josephine “Jo” Kennedy Abu Dhabi Men's College (HCT) PO Box 25035 Abu Dhabi, UAE 02 404 8312 (office), 02 681 0026 (res) 050 317 7062 (mobile) josephine.kennedy@hct.ac.ae
Sufian Abu Rmaileh UAE University - UGRU PO Box 17172 Al Ain, UAE 03 706 4562 (res) 050 713 1803 (mobile) sabu-rmaileh@uaeu.ac.ae
Executive Secretary
Executive Treasurer
James McDonald Academic Bridge Program Zayed University Dubai, UAE 04 402 1371 (office) james.mcdonald@zu.ac.ae
Sufian Abu Rmaileh UAE University - UGRU PO Box 17172 Al Ain, UAE 03 706 4562 (res) 050 713 1803 (mobile) sabu-rmaileh@uaeu.ac.ae
Membership Secretary / Past President
Conference Treasurer
Les Kirkham c/o Al Ain Women’s College Higher College of Technology PO Box 17258, Al Ain, UAE leskirkham@gmail.com
Beth Wiens Zayed University PO Box 19282, Dubai, UAE 04 402 1350 (office) 04 402 1003 (fax) 050 4620566 (mobile) beth.wiens@zu.ac.ae
Conference Co-Chair
Member at Large
Josephine “Jo” Kennedy Abu Dhabi Men's College (HCT) PO Box 25035 Abu Dhabi, UAE 02 404 8312 (office), 02 681 0026 (res) 050 317 7062 (mobile) josephine.kennedy@hct.ac.ae
Sandra Oddy Al Ain Women's College Higher Colleges of Technology P.O. Box 17258 Al Ain, UAE 03 709 5319 (office) Sandra.Oddy@hct.ac.ae
Co-Editors - Perspectives Rebecca Woll Abu Dhabi Men's College Higher Colleges of Technology P.O. Box 25035 Abu Dhabi, UAE rwoll@hct.ac.ae
Melanie Gobert Abu Dhabi Men's College-CERT Higher Colleges of Technology P.O. Box 25035 Abu Dhabi, UAE mgobert@hct.ac.ae
Acting SIG Coordinator
Conference Proceedings Editor / Conference Co-Chair
Heather Maria Baba Abu Dhabi Men's College Higher Colleges of Technology P.O. Box 25035 Abu Dhabi, UAE tasigscoord@yahoo.co.uk
Mashael Al-Hamly Dept. of English Language and Literature Faculty of Arts Kuwait University Kuwait mashael2@hotmail.com
Publications Coordinator
Web Master
Mashael Al-Hamly Dept. of English Language and Literature Faculty of Arts Kuwait University Kuwait mashael2@hotmail.com
Ismail Fayed Institute of Applied Technology P.O. Box 66866 Al Ain admin@tesolarabia.org
Volume 17
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