Blending Learning and Language
“Sometimes I Don’t Know What to Say...”: Blended Learning in the International Student Experience in Tertiary Pre-service Teacher Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Louise Jenkins, Renée Crawford
Socially inclusive practices in teacher education have become a necessity with the increasing enrollment of international students in Australian universities. Whilst this provides for exciting new teaching and learning opportunities it adds a layer of complexity because of the expectation for innovative, flexible, and accessible content delivery. Driven by these priorities, this case study investigates the impact of blended learning to enhance the international student experience in tertiary education classes. A semi-structured focus group interview was used in this case study as the primary data and was triangulated by classroom observations and researcher journals. Initial results have indicated that blended learning enhanced the international pre-service teacher’s skills, knowledge, and overall classroom experience. Primary themes suggest that the balance of face-to-face and online learning platforms created flexible opportunities for the pre-service teachers to synthesise and consolidate information learned in class. This included increased peer collaboration, building a sense of community and developing an appreciation for the sharing of resources.
Environmental Literacy in Language Teaching Education: Preparing Eco-critical Educators
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Andrea Campana, Miguel Farias
Perhaps for ideological reasons, the spiritual dimension of human existence is left aside in second language formal learning processes. One of the closest attempts to include it is the teaching of literature where, through the aesthetic appreciation and the symbolic interrogation of texts, learners and teachers can engage in the discussion and reflection of such issues as transcendental spiritual quests, identity, and eco-ethical consciousness. Another recent attempt is an education policy by the Chilean Ministry of Education, the main motivation for this project, which calls for the inclusion of environmental issues in the school curriculum in order to raise environmental awareness and protect the environment and its natural resources from an ethical perspective. The project we here report on incorporates issues of environmental awareness as part of the literacy practices second language learners engage in. In this context, we inform here on the design phase of a project aimed at incorporating environmental literacy through the use of literary texts in second language teacher education at a public university in Chile.
Education, Culture, Biology, and Attitudes towards Foreign Accents
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gail August
Conventional attitudes and lack of information about foreign accents affect the culture of education, the workplace, and the greater community. American colleges include large numbers of international and immigrant students who speak English with a foreign accent. These students often wrestle with negative attitudes toward their non-native pronunciation, believing that it reflects upon their academic ability and their commitment to learning English. Speaking English with an accent may inhibit students from participating in classroom discussions and may also influence them to underestimate their own potential. These cultural attitudes to accented speech are also seen in many areas outside the classroom. Research from linguistics and biology can provide a more realistic perspective on non-native speech. Current research shows that foreign accents result from the process by which a baby hears and organizes language input from the environment, using a pattern matching process to form sound categories. Initial language acquisition prepares the brain for the sounds of the native language, and these sounds will influence the pronunciation of new languages, particularly when learned in adulthood. A better understanding of these language acquisition processes may influence cultural attitudes toward foreign accents. The argument is not whether there are fixed biological limitations which make native-like speech impossible. It is instead that there are biological processes that make accented speech more likely. It would be more realistic and constructive if social, psychological, pedagogical and professional workplace attitudes drew upon this information.
