Conference
Secretariat
PO Box 24078
Mail Centre
Manners St
Wellington 6011
Michelle Vui
Tel: 64 4 384 1511
Email: alanz@confer.co.nz
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Speakers:
Speaker bio-data and abstracts will be posted as they become available.
Presentation here |
Bio-statement:
Lourdes
Ortega is an associate professor of Second Language Studies at the
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where she teaches graduate courses in the masters and doctoral programmes.
Her research interests include second
language acquisition, L2 writing, foreign language education, and the
use of research methods in applied linguistics. Recent books are
Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and Teaching (co-edited with
John Norris, 2006, Benjamins), The Longitudinal Study of Advanced L2
Capacities (co-edited with Heidi Byrnes, 2008, Routledge), and
Understanding Second Language Acquisition (2009, Hodder Arnold).
Plenary
title:
Participation, acquisition, and in-betweenness as metaphors for L2 learning
Abstract:
Is
learning best apprehended as the outcome from gaining ownership over
some body of knowledge or as the process of becoming a member of a
chosen community of knowers? In an oft-cited article in the late 1990s
mathematics education researcher Anna Sfard argued that, although
distinct, both understandings must be considered equally central in the
patchwork of metaphors that weave our contemporary theories of
learning. When it comes to learning a new language, are the relevant
phenomena best explained as acquisition of knowledge, participation in
new social worlds, or both? In an influential article at the turn of
the century, Aneta Pavlenko and James Lantolf championed the
participation metaphor as superior to the acquisition metaphor and more
apt to guide our new, socially oriented theories of language learning.
But additional language learning can also be imagined as the process of
gaining an intersticial look or double vision, as the discovery of
in-betweenness as a new possibility for being in the world. This third
metaphorical lens was crafted by postcolonialist Homi Bhabha in his
seminal 1994 book The Location of Culture and can be useful as a tool
for thinking of the range of phenomena that arise from the
self-transforming and power-ridden experience of learning additional
(non-primary) languages. In this presentation I examine the genealogy
and entailments of the two (seemingly competing) metaphors of learning
as acquisition and as participation and I explore the new possibilities
made available by the addition of in-betweenness as a third metaphor
that can guide the study of additional language learning.
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Presentation here
Handout here |
Bio-statement:
Gary
Barkhuizen is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Language
Studies and Linguistics at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. He
has worked as an English teacher and teacher educator in the United
States, South Africa and New Zealand.
His research interests are
in the areas of language teacher education, learner language, and
narrative inquiry. He has published over 70 articles in journals such
as TESOL Quarterly, International Journal of Bilingualism, System, ELT
Journal, Language Awareness, and International Journal of the Sociology
of Language, and is the author of Analysing Learner Language (2005,
OUP) with Rod Ellis. He is a fan of Bob Dylan, the Warriors, Bill
Bryson, and Mma Ramotswe.
Plenary-title:
Migrant/refugee learners and their tutors participating in narratives
of success
Abstract:
The
theme of this conference, exploring the metaphors of acquisition and
participation, got me thinking about my own practices as an applied
linguist. Where do I fit in? What metaphor(s) do I embrace in my
research? Key concepts associated with my work on language learning
over the years include multilingualism, narrative, language policy,
learner perceptions, and immigration. Central to all of these is the
notion of success – success in language learning – and different
metaphors of learning mean different definitions of success. In this
presentation, I examine what success means for the participants in a
recent study of migrant/refugee ESOL learners in New Zealand. These
learners receive one-on-one home tutoring through English Language
Partners New Zealand for an hour a week. In the study, the learners, in
collaboration with their tutors, completed written narrative frames in
which they tell stories of the problems they encounter using English,
as well as stories of their successes, both experienced and imagined.
The study draws on different research approaches, particularly
paradigmatic and narrative research traditions, and these will be
interrogated during the presentation.
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Presentation here | Bio-statement:
Tim McNamara
is Professor in the School of Language and Linguistics at the
University of Melbourne. Building on a career as an EFL/ESL teacher
and teacher trainer in Australia and the United Kingdom, Tim has
taught Applied Linguistics at Melbourne since 1987. His research
interests are in language testing, language and identity, language
teaching, languages for specific purposes and the history of applied
linguistics. Tim's language testing research has focused on performance
assessment, theories of validity, the use of Rasch models, and the
social and political meaning of language tests (including work on the
misuse of language tests in assessing the claims of asylum seekers).
His work on language and identity has focused on the impact of
postructuralist approaches to identity and subjectivity, and he has a
particular interest in the writings on language of the French
philosopherJacques Derrida.
Tim is the author of Language
Testing (OUP, 2000) and co-author (with Carsten Roever) of Language
Testing: The Social Dimension (Blackwell, 2006). He has acted as a
consultant with Educational Testing Service, Princeton where he worked
on the development of the speaking sub-test of TOEFL iBT; he was also
one of the original developers of IELTS. Tim is a frequent speaker at
international conferences and has served on the board of the Annual
Review of Applied Linguistics, Language Testing, Language Assessment
Quarterly, Applied Linguistics, Measurement, TESOL Quarterly and the
International Journal of Applied Linguistics.
Plenary-title:
Are
cognitive and social perspectives on assessment incommensurable? The
case of comparative assessment frameworks and language education
Abstract:
The
last two decades have seen the growing use of assessment in the shaping
of educational policy in relation to languages. Clear current
examples of this are the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages and the PISA program of testing reading skills in 15 year
olds. How can validity theory, with its heavy cognitive emphasis, deal
with the social and political meaning of assessment? What social,
political and cultural values do such assessments embody? What are the
positive and negative impacts of such developments? The paper considers
the local impacts of assessment policies which attempt to further the
processes of globalization, and considers the dilemmas that this poses
for validity theory.
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Presentation here
| Bio-statement:
Anne Burns
is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics, the Director of the
Applied Linguistics and Language in Education (ALLE) Research Centre
and former Dean of the Division of Linguistics and Psychology at
Macquarie University, Sydney. She worked for 15 years in the National
Centre for English Language Teaching and Research (NCELTR).
Currently, she is the Chair of TESOL International’s Standing Committee
for Research and a Member-at-Large of the Executive Board of
AILA. Her current research interests include second language
teacher education, particularly through action research, oral
communication from a discourse perspective, English for academic and
professional purposes and teacher cognition. Her most recent books are
Language Teacher Research in Australia and New Zealand (co-edited with
Jill Burton, TESOL 2008) and The Cambridge Guide to Second Language
Teacher Education (co-edited with Jack C. Richards, Cambridge, 2009). A
further single-authored volume, Doing Action Research for English
Language Teachers, will be published by Routledge in early 2010.
Plenary-title:
Teacher cognition in social context: The unobservable dimensions of teaching
Abstract:
Over
the last decade in the field of English language teaching there has
been growing interest in researching teacher cognition and beliefs –
the ‘unobservable’ dimensions of teaching. A central aspect is the
notion that teaching cannot be adequately understood without
investigation of the thoughts, belief and knowledge underpinning
teachers’ practices. Teacher cognition research shows that ‘the mental
lives of teachers’ has considerable impact on what happens in the
classroom. It also suggests that the acquisition of
teaching beliefs, knowledge and skills should be conceptualised in
relation to interactions with the complex social and cultural contexts
of the classroom. In this presentation I examine the notion of
teacher cognition through some of the research conducted over the last
decade. Following this overview I focus on a recent study of teachers’
beliefs about the effective teaching of grammar conducted with input
from teachers in 23 different countries. The study showed that the
common beliefs held by language teachers who participated in the study
and the kinds of decisions they make about teaching grammar effectively
are intricately bound up with the specific social contexts and
conditions of the classroom |
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