Date

2015-10-10

Author

Kaçar, Işıl Günseli

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A case study in the Turkish context Işıl Günseli Kaçar Middle East Technical University, Turkey This exploratory case study aims to investigate the impact of involvement in Comenius assistantship program on the sociolingistic meaning perspective of pre-service teachers of English in Turkey, an expanding circle country, regarding their pedagogical practices and learning processes in different cross-cultural educational contexts with speakers from a variety of linguacultural backgrounds. It also sheds light on the participants prior sociolinguistic background and the deeply embedded assumptions they brought to these contexts from the perspective of World Englishes. It examines how these prospective teachers beliefs about English language learning and teaching can be explained by their stories of study abroad experiences in ELF communities. The theoretical framework in the study is Mezirow s (1991) transformative learning theory. Participants, were 15 Turkish pre-service teachers of English, advanced non-native speakers of English who voluntarily joined the Comenius assistantship program between 2011 and an exchange program, ranging from 13 weeks to 45 weeks, that provides teaching opportunities for preservice teachers in a multicultural school environment. The data was collected via semi-structured interviews prior to and following their experience and reflective journals. Findings indicated that the involvement in the program brought about changes in their sociolinguistic meaning perspective, to some extent, pointed out by Mezirow, concerning the way they interpret their own experiences in pedagogical settings. Following themes emerged in the data: their pedagogical practices and beliefs about teaching and learning English in varying degrees, depending on their personality characteristics, the nature and degree of cross-cultural interactions with ELF communities, and most importantly, their interpretations of cross-cultural encounters with members of these communities. The study underscored the necessity of integration of an intercultural-awareness component into university language teacher education programs to familiarize prospective language teachers with cultural diversity, cross-cultural communication, compensation and accommodation strategies. Keywords: pre-service teachers, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), transformative learning, sociolinguistic meaning perspectives, World Englishes Illegal Englishes: Undocumented language use and social justice Nils Olov Fors Hankuk University of Foreign Studies This paper reports on an ongoing project designed to examine the language use of a so-called World Englishes setting with the aim to bridge the gap between privileged and underrepresented cultures and contexts. The project is based on the idea that language research is discourse that constructs and valorizes language use, and that socially responsible language research should seek to be transformative (e.g. Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Giroux, 2003; Meinhof & Galasinski, 2005; Sung, 2012). The purpose of the project is to better understand the role of language research and pedagogy in contexts where changes in demographics, migratory patterns, and geopolitical power are creating what Luke and Dooley (2009) describe as complex new demographic and cultural conditions for linguistic and socioeconomic inclusion and marginalization (p. 3). The author and some of his graduate students in a Korean TESOL program documented the sociolinguistic context of foreign workers in a Korean manufacturing plant and analyzed the language use of the workers and their host community. The data and analysis were then used to determine how and to what extent the workers language use and their sociocultural context are represented and explained in mainstream TESOL/ELT research and pedagogy. The paper outlines the framework for socially just language research on which the project is based, describes how qualitative and quantitative data were collected, presents preliminary findings of the analysis, and discusses reactions to the project from participants. The paper also lists principles and strategies for critical education research and considers how such research might contribute to our understanding of multilingual language use in our communities, and how such language use can be included in research and classroom teaching. Keywords: language use, social justice, critical 90

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/78866
http://educationdocbox.com/Language_Learning/78757481-In-loving-memory-of-larry-e-smith.html

Collections

Department of Foreign Language Education, Conference / Seminar