TESOL-MALL Graduate Program Woosong University / KOTESOL DCC Symposium
Reimagining Languaging
The Future of Teaching and Education
The Future of Teaching and Education
Plenary Address, Invited Speakers, Presentations
Plenary Address
This presentation explores the concept of instructional technology (IT) from three different perspectives, and the place of artificial intelligence in relation to it. First, there is a review of IT research trends and artificial intelligence in language education. Second, a perception survey is taken into account regarding the continued use of the English language in light of the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). Third, the place of AI in the language classroom and a resulting empirical investigation is explored.
Opening Keynote
2020 has brought with it more challenges than normal for many educators. Primarily the largest challenge many have faced this year, is the shift from face-to-face delivery of education to that provided and implemented via online means. This presentation will briefly highlight several of the challenges involved with this shift, along with implementation considerations when conducting synchronous online teaching, as well as some of the traits required by a successful online teacher. These traits will soon be those that all educators will need to rely on, in which a new normal will likely see a time of social distancing, along with an expectation of the increasing provision of synchronous and asynchronous online teaching to learners.
Closing Keynote
This workshop describes lessons that teach English through social media marketing (SMM). Social media marketing is a technique for attracting customers to products and services through personalized content, customer-targeting, and influencing. Seventy-five percent of organizations worldwide rely on a Social Media approach to marketing, indicating that Business English courses should integrate influencer and native advertisement activities. Natural content is defined as useful content that prospective customers value for the content’s sake (e.g., blog posts, how-to articles, and eBooks). Companies use natural content for product placement to attract new customers and maintain relationships with existing ones. Influencer and native advertising entails spreading information through natural content to a specific audience. Business English through Social Media Marketing helps students create popular online English content that gets views and shares. Marketing activities in EFL context offer several benefits, which include learning entrepreneurship by developing a business origin and purpose, creating customer personas, and producing social media content that attracts attention and spreads ideas. SMM for language learning is a modern take to Business English and becoming increasingly relevant as outdated business English books are preventing students from preparing for a 21st-century work environment. In addition to business purpose and persona lessons, SMM also covers conversational marketing (e.g., talking to clients and answering questions), native advertisement (e.g., advertorials = editorial + advertisement), and digital storytelling. These are just a few additions to traditional Business English courses made possible with Social Media Marketing.
During the workshop, I will describe where, when and how SMM activities provide the opportunity for second language acquisition. EFL/ESL business English activities with SMM place customer relationship management (CRM) lessons in an ESL/EFL framework of learning, specifically learning theories related to the comprehensible output hypothesis and scaffolding. First, each SMM concept is introduced with relevant vocabulary and phrases. Students are then provided model examples of real-world business content. Next, students follow a template-driven approach to content development. For conversation practice, students are given talking points (e.g., concept-relevant questions) and sample responses. Activities are flexible for unique teacher skills and course objectives. While the lessons discussed during the workshop directly apply to business English courses, the activities can be modified from business English to creative writing, multimedia English, business writing classes, and more. Overall, comprehensible second language output is the goal. Language learning occurs through the output of language produced. Language learning is posited to occur because social media provides an excellent channel for content creation and curation. Students create content, self-monitor their progress, and compensate for their knowledge-gaps. Over time, they expand on the syntactic and lexical complexity of their written and spoken content as they produce language output within their scope of language knowledge. With the use of Internet tools, students learn how to reach an audience outside their classroom. Several problems with South Korean English education are addressed through SMM activities, problems such as lack of authentic opportunity to use English outside of class and outdated Business English activities. Through this workshop, I hope we can learn how to expand the current scope of this SMM program. I also hope to help interested members learn how to integrate similar activities into their own classes. Google Drive Link for example materials: https://bit.ly/37PqIEc
One thing that my first-year students consistently complained about is the university-mandated listening test. Every time the reviews came around, students rated the listening test as the most difficult aspect of the course. Not only did the students hate the listening, I hated it.
Listening is an essential skill for EFL students but it is one of the hardest to teach. Common textbook activities such as fill-in-the-blanks and comprehension questions are unengaging for both students and instructors. Furthermore, they concentrate only on receptive skills and only superficially model authentic English. Moreover, the standard method of playing the audio track over a communal speaker does not allow for individualized learning opportunities. There are, however, different approaches to listening that make it more beneficial for learners. This workshop aims to introduce participants to a method for modifying existing listening files into interactive integrated listening activities. Participants will learn how to use the audio editing software Audacity to adjust textbook listening files or even in order to record brand new audio files. The workshop will also suggest how to use student smartphones for more individualized listening. Finally, the workshop will discuss using Google Drive to distribute listening files to students. Participants will learn the tools make listening better fit the needs of their students. Nicole Shiosaki has been teaching at the university level in South Korea for three years. She previously presented at the Woosong University Symposium KOTESOL DCC workshop The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Education about the videogame Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.
The use of audience response systems (ARS) in language classrooms has been for some time an established pedagogical approach to teaching. In the West, the use of ARS’s has proven effective. However, until recently, little was known about the effects of ARS inclusion in Korean classrooms. Recently, a study sought to examine the use of Poll Everywhere as an ARS within the English conversation classroom at a Korean university. The findings of this study addressed student engagement in English conversation courses and the relationship it has with Poll Everywhere. Students overwhelmingly noted that the use of Poll Everywhere in the classroom enhanced their learning experience, allowed them to be more enthusiastic, interested, and motivated to respond in English, and generally increased their engagement in English instruction. Furthermore, it was noted by the students that factors such as anonymity, novelty of teaching style, and the ability to aid in the expression of English allowed them to engage more in English lessons as they produced English language in a classroom setting. The results of the study hypothesized that Korean university students respond positively to Poll Everywhere integration that allowed for enhanced engagement in English conversation classes. In this symposium, participants will examine the research and participate in using an ARS in the form of a workshop practicum. Using ARS’s in Korean classrooms has serious potential to enhance language learning in a Korean cultural context, and it is the hope of the presenter that other instructors in Korea can utilize ARS’s to enhance learning in their own classrooms.
Aaron Jones has served as a language instructor at the collegiate level in both South Korea and the United States. His research interests include engagement strategies and their effectiveness in regard to cultural context. Aaron received his Master of Arts in Teaching ESL and Master of Arts in Global Leadership from Dallas Baptist University.
Students continuously contribute knowledge to online Q&A forums, allowing them to ask and search for information or share their experiences with other users. Focusing on Q&A forums, particularly on the forum of Stack Exchange (launched in 2010), this work aims to extract an online corpus of such questions (answers are not extracted) from the ‘English Language and Usage’ community found on that site. The collected corpus of several thousand questions is then processed by a novel NLP (natural language processing) algorithm to define the most frequent ESL (English as a second language) learner’s questions and potential interests. The obtained data can then be exploited for language research and education as learner data voluntarily contributed to Q&A forums reflects students’ real-world problems, and this can be utilized to help teachers in undertaking the process of student needs analysis and materials development in various contexts.
In order to analyze the corpus of questions extracted from the forum, an algorithm created using the Python programming language was developed that allows for parsing of site content and then systemizes the obtained data. The participants tag their questions, however this may be undertaken inappropriately or a question may refer to several categories. To address that, the algorithm provides a means of revealing the most questionable categories through its own tagging system, and one that complements users’ tags. After tagging is undertaken, questions are sorted by category (tag) in reverse order. In this manner, the most problematic categories can be revealed and the data statistically analyzed. The unique feature of this research is in acquiring an amount of contributed data (utilizing a Big Data paradigm) that allows for the formation of statistically valid conclusions about out-of-class students’ interests, problems, and their inquiries. Possessing this data, teachers can then use it to enhance their curriculum and materials development to meet the needs of their students, while allowing them and researchers to deeply understand learners of current interests along with their genuine problems. Irada Gezalova is in her 2nd year of study in the TESOL-MALL Master of Arts degree program. She received a bachelor’s degree in law from Bashkir State University, Russia. Her main research interests are English linguistics, ESL, and artificial intelligence.
Though not everyone may be familiar with memes, most people encounter them in their daily lives. Memes can be as simple as jokes or stories between friends. However, the term often refers to images that are sometimes used to express opinions on the internet. The internet is also a place where EFL learners encounter English, including English memes. Thus, teachers must guide their learners about how to decode and use memes. The workshop aims to introduce the tools and websites to define, make, and use memes in adult classrooms. The presenter will introduce a meme activity, and then discuss other possible activities. The audience will come out of the workshop with the knowledge necessary to design lessons using memes whether they are beginners or experts. Overall, the workshop will give instructors the resources and inspiration necessary to start integrating memes into their classrooms for the betterment of their students in a time where the internet is a dominant presence.
Andrew Aguiar has been teaching EFL in South Korean academies for over seven years, and has recently started to work for a national university. He has presented at two KOTESOL events, including The 4th Industrial Revolution and Education Symposium, where he introduced how to use commercial video games in the EFL classroom.
This workshop will help participants identify their intrinsic educational philosophy and the human ethical values that flow from that philosophy. The contemporary multilingual educational philosophy will be explained. Participants will then get the opportunity to consciously develop their classroom value system according to a multilingual approach. You are teaching some set of values – if not directly, then indirectly. So, if you are aware of your own values and reflect on how these values are displayed in your classroom, you can ensure that you convey these values in your classroom management, teaching style, classroom exercises, homework assignments, assessments, and personal communication with students. In the English language classroom, your attitude towards the L1 of the students, or their knowledge of other languages, also display an important part of your human ethics and value system. This is also true of your own efforts to understand the students’ L1, albeit only to enhance your methods of teaching English. We will identify participants’ values, find which of those values connect with a multilingual language education philosophy, then brainstorm about how these values can be implemented in the classroom. You will be able to go and establish which adjustments to make to your classroom management, style, assessment, homework, instructions, and general communication in order to reflect the appropriate human values and ethics.
Jan Mathys De Beer (Ph.D) has many years’ experience in education, research, and publishing, with degrees in philosophy, religion, psychology, and applied education. He has been a professor at Woosong University in South Korea since 2017 where he teaches English and research and writing courses. He is currently the assistant research coordinator of the Woosong Joint Research Project that studies various aspects of EFL teaching, and he publishes in the areas of philosophy (ethics), language education, and religious studies.
For the past decade, translanguaging and other multilingual movements in SLA and EFL/ESL circles have advocated for learning spaces sensitive to the learner’s socio-cultural repertoire and background. And yet the growing internationalization of higher educational institutions has not embraced the diversity of student backgrounds, but instead blanketed such differences by requiring participants to study as English speakers. The current wave of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) disenfranchises the mother tongues of non-native English speakers in order to conform to an external standard of English as a lingua franca. I shall provide a report on the attitudes of Korean students and international faculty in regards to EMI. Through the critical lens of translanguaging, I will ask and try to answer the following questions:
Cyril Reyes is an educator. He is interested in social justice, the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, and translanguaging. He is currently employed by Woosong University.
As teachers, we have always taken our profession for granted, however, the first half of the 21st century has shown us that change is coming, and it is riding a roller coaster! In this discussion, we will explore the pros and cons of online teaching vs the benefits and drawbacks of contact time, as this is a controversial issue which may affect our current and future employment. Many universities are opting for online classes, as it is more cost-effective for them – so where does that leave us? The second point of discussion will look at the overwhelming amount of ‘EdTech’ websites and advertisements with which we are bombarded on a daily basis, which make it virtually impossible to choose between what works and what doesn’t. We will look at some methods we can use to sift through this information overload. We will discover how we can still be relevant and stay ahead of the pack by using technology to our advantage.
Dawn Edgecome is an Assistant Professor at Woosong Information College, assigned to the Sol International School for Culinary Arts and Pastry. She has been teaching for 25 years and has worked in South Korea for 5 years. She has been teaching at Woosong Information College since 2017. Dawn has taught students from Kindergarten, to adults and has taught a variety of subjects. Her focus, however, has always been on English. She has taught English as a Home Language, Foreign Language, First Additional Language and Second Additional Language. Her teaching career started in South Africa, where she taught in Primary Schools and High Schools. She received her B.A. Degree from the University of Pretoria, in 1988, her PGCE (cum laude) from the University of Johannesburg in 2011 and a post-graduate degree (B.Ed Hon.) in School Management and Curriculum Development from the University of South Africa in 2017.
The purpose of this presentation is to introduce the main features of an ethnography and its potential as a research tool for EFL instructors living in Korea. A general definition of the term ethnography is a study involving a systematic recording of human cultures as well as being a descriptive work that is developed from such research. This presentation is intended to appeal to people who are interested in the cultural dynamics they interact with in their classrooms, as well as in their communities. Ethnographic research is necessarily longitudinal and qualitative, and will appeal to those who prefer this over quantitative models, and to those with a genuine interest in learning about the cultures and sub-cultures that are influencing and shaping the lives of their students. This presentation will also provide an overview of the structure of ethnography based on Spradley’s seminal work The Ethnographic Interview. An ethnographic project previously completed in Daejeon will be introduced and reviewed. Further discussion will focus on some of the identifiable sub-cultures that are prominent in Korean society, which, due to its emphasis on group dynamics and collectivism both at work and at leisure, presents many opportunities for ethnographic research.
Neurodiversity is ADHD, dyslexia, autism spectrum, mental health, and personality disorders. Disability is a physical or mental condition that limits an individual’s movements, senses, or activities. Cultural and social stigmas hinder these individuals from succeeding and thriving within society and the education system, especially in Asia. We need to dismantle stigmas and provide an understanding of neurodiversity and disability. Is there a lack of early childhood intervention in the South Korea, and the resulting impact it has on students going undiagnosed? The best methods to improve learning are implementing Assistive Technology. What is Universal Design for Learning framework? How can we engage the students and create a space that provides a learning environment that meets their needs? Moreover: providing a space for the student to be themself without shame, discrimination, and the constant demand to conform or pressure to “mask.” The research will be based on teachers’ classroom experiences, studies in special education, and research. There will be active audience participation to discuss personal experiences, and the resulting negative impact on disabled and neurodiverse students within the education system and society. As teachers, we should be able to assist our students in ways that can help them succeed and understand their needs. The presenter will go in-depth on how we can improve as educators by creating a classroom and teaching methods that meet the needs of our students with special needs.
Crystal S. Cho Jones is currently a graduate student at Indiana University in the Master of Science in Education program specializing in special education. They lived and worked in South Korea as an ESL teacher for almost six years, teaching K-12 and adults. They have worked with and helped individuals of different disabilities for seven years.
The intent of this workshop is to show examples and ways to adapt to Korean culture and the mentalities that gain a foothold in our own minds as Western expats living in Korea. There will be personal examples of how to adapt to the physical, mental, spiritual, and social aspects of a country that we might consider to be so different to our home countries. There will be discussion about the problems that we face here that are sometimes overwhelming and hard to come to terms with. These include the freedom of the use of alcohol, the physical criticisms of our bodies, the spiritual stagnation that one might feel, the idea that we are stuck with people (expatriates and locals) that we would possibly never relate to or come into contact in our home countries, the coming and going of the friends we have made, and the Koreans that may only use us for our English language skills or other traits. People will learn a few ways to find a positive way to deal with the mind demons that cause a person to feel hopeless and isolated when lacking familiar support systems. This situation can make a person feel hopeless and seek ways to hurt themselves. If this sounds like you, or you are interested in these topics, this workshop might be for you. It will help you gain a more positive mindset through exploration and discussion of gratitude, and how it will help you to find other ways to deal with stress and everyday life in a country that is not your own.
Retha Choi is an assistant professor at Woosong Information College in the Nursing Department teaching basic nursing English. She has a Master of Arts degree from the TESOL-MALL graduate program at Woosong University. She has a bachelor’s of social work from Walla Walla University in Walla Walla, Washington. She has volunteered as an academic advisor at HOPE – a registered non-profit, NGO based in Seoul, an organization that provides free English language courses for disadvantaged families and children. (www.alwayshope.or.kr) She has lived and worked in South Korea for 25 years, with 18 years teaching at three universities in Daejeon. She is currently on a committee at Woosong Information College for the flipped classroom, developing materials for the university’s LMS online program. She enjoys learning new methods of using media in the classroom and developing ways to motivate her students.
A brief presentation of a proposed semester-length project for university level students that explores body language, emotion, and translanguaging through television and cinema performances.
Nicholas Bell is an alumnus of the TESOL-MALL Graduate Program at Woosong University. He is currently in his 7th year as an assistant professor at Joongbu University in South Korea.
This talk is about the varying perceptions of the roles and traits that an effective native English speaking teacher (NEST) should have in order to work well at a university in South Korea. The talk will discuss the various perceptions that are held by the different parties involved (namely the NESTs themselves, Korean counterparts, and the students). I will argue that there needs to be better communication between the different groups, as these different perceptions mean that NESTs are often not well integrated and therefore used ineffectually. Teachers should be aware of the different ideas of how they should be operating. If students and teachers have wildly different ideas of what they should get from the classroom, then it will lead to unresponsive and uncooperative classes. Therefore it is in teachers’ best interests to know about the different perceptions of what a NEST should be doing in the university classroom. I will provide the audience with various views that I collected through my research from different teachers and students, and use these to make some suggestions for the classroom. I also hope to get some discussion going to collect ideas on how we can better understand our students, and foster better communication between the different parties involved. In understanding the perceptions of NESTs roles, all parties can make for a more conducive work environment which will ultimately benefit students greatly.
Alastair Brewer has been living and working in Korea for over ten years, employed at different universities, as well as in the public school sector and private sector. He holds master’s degrees in TESOL and MALL from both Woosong University in South Korea and St. Cloud State University in the United States.
The value of English throughout the world, with its relative importance in inner-circle, outer-circle, and expanding-circle countries is continually worth evaluating and exploring. Particularly so in countries where English helps unite people under one umbrella through its use as a second language, where it may be important to continually assess its value in terms of its impact on everyday life. In this regard, an understanding of the value of English in Bangladesh will be explored in terms of how being able to speak the language leads to opportunities that provide access to education, employment, and societal respect for undergraduate students in Dhaka. The focus of the presentation is on detailing how success is brought to those who are able to master this language, and the challenges that they undergo to achieve this.
Md Kamruzzaman Patwary is participating in the TESOL-MALL Master of Arts degree program at Woosong University, and will defend his thesis this semester.
Whether by developing big-picture thinking and a wider contextual awareness through social sciences, or more specific high tech needs of STEM, access to English-language resources on the many environmental crises facing our students will help them to adapt and survive. This open talk will share the latest in ESL lesson resources from within South Korea and beyond, with half the 45 minutes reserved for participants’ constructive contributions of their own lessons teaching language on the topic of current environmental issues. These might be in the form of resources such as written stories like The Hummingbird by Wanjira Mathai, or websites that present science in age- and level-appropriate ways like Global Weirding by Dr. Katherine Hayhoe. They might be stories of individuals who are contributing to environmental solutions such as those by the very young Dutch inventor Boyan Slat with his plan for cleaning the oceans of plastics, or of local groups such as the School Strike/ Fridays for Future team named Youth 4 Climate Action in South Korea. Or it might be a report on your lesson and how it went in your hagwon, school, or university, such as Crystal Jones’ excellent study on air pollution for elementary school students at the Andong National University vacation camp session. Or perhaps you’ve taught university students how to check peer critique media reports, or reviewed science journal articles for “conflict of interest” and sponsorship statements. Or it might be research that you’ve found of others’ lessons, or questions that you have for how to approach teaching a subject that has piqued your interest. Comments questioning the veracity of the climate emergency are cute but not welcome; rather, tell us about your lesson on reducing single-use plastics or in class-energy waste, establishing a school environmental action group, or something similar.
Julian Warmington has been teaching at the university level in South Korea for more than ten years. He has been researching on the state of environmental education in ESL for several years, presenting on it for the last few years, and established the Environmental Justice SIG in 2018.
We all love Disney, but have you ever thought of using Disney to help students understand and write compare and contrast essays?
Writing may not be the most favorable task of English language teachers, but teaching it is a necessity. When we think about writing, we usually think about the basic five types of essays: narrative, descriptive, expository, persuasive/argumentative, and compare-and-contrast – written in five paragraphs. This can be boring for the students, as we tend to use the same topics over and over again, so the students can basically engage with us and develop work on remote. What I am proposing is a different take on the overused, but needed, compare-and-contrast essay. Compare-and-contrast is something that we do in everyday life. We are always analyzing the best way to work a problem, finding all the pros and cons to a solution, or just trying to determine which action is best. It does not matter what your field of expertise is, this is something that students need to master in order to be productive members of the workforce, so why not make it fun? When we open our students’ creative minds, thinking outside of the box, they tend to be more engaged in the class. So, in this workshop, I will explain how I use Disney movies and their original writings to get the students to understand compare-and-contrast, and to get the students to think creatively about them. Terri Beadle has been teaching English for 10 years in the US and abroad. She has taught university language classes as well as content classes in education. She is currently teaching at Woosong University in Daejeon, South Korea. Ms. Beadle has recently started her doctorate at the University of Illinois.
This presentation will discuss a meta-analysis on the gamification of education, and the implications for language education. Beginning with an overview of meta-analysis, I will explain the benefits of and methods for conducting a meta-analysis, and how to interpret the results. This will be of particular use to individuals who want to conduct research but may not actually be able to do so in a classroom setting. Following the discussion on meta-analysis, there will be a discussion on the results of this specific meta-analysis, and what they show about the gamification of education. First, I will give a general overview of gamification and what it is. Then I will go into my specific research and the results of the meta-analysis. This will be beneficial to educators because it will give directions and guidelines for how they might be able to incorporate gamification elements into their classroom. After listening to my talk, participants will have a general overview of meta-analysis as well as gamification, and how it may be of use to them in their current situation.
Chris Garland is a visiting professor in the English Language and Literature Department of Hanbat National University. He has lived in South Korea for over ten years, and has taught at all grade levels, from elementary school all the way through to university. His research interests include the roles of motivation and gamification in language learning and teaching.
Sometimes, the TESOL instructor struggles to find topics that are interesting and relevant to English language learners (Kumaravadivelu, 2012), both male and female, both young and old. Two topics that I have found have seemingly universal appeal: movies and superheroes. This workshop includes a pair of lessons which will apply communicative language learning. The tasks that will be utilized are role plays, group work (Scrivener, 1994), and information gap activities (Ibid). The lessons work well with both intermediate and advanced English learners.
Participants in this workshop will see how exploring movie genres (Beach, 2007) allows students to consider the concept of the genres (such as romance, comedy), and subgenres (such as romantic comedy) that a motion picture falls into (Ibid). In addition, students will be encouraged, with limited instructor supervision, to create their own scene in the form of a movie script. Finally, students can practice and perform their scene. In part two of this workshop, we will explore the concept of superheroes by examining famous popular superheroes in the comics (Richards & Renandya, 2002) as well as examples of failed superhero concepts from the past. Students will then create their own unique superhero with specific superhuman or supernatural powers as well as a secret identity. Some of the scaffolding will be done using handouts which are authentic materials*. A concluding analysis will determine the popularity of each superhero, and what can be modified to make the character more popular. I will share examples of some of my students’ past creations, and if time permits, an actual workshop will be conducted with the attendees. * The handouts are edited versions of superhero descriptions derived and edited from the web sites listverse.com, heavy.com and themost10.com. References Beach, Richard. (2007). teachingmedialiteracy.com A Web-linked Guide to Resources and Activities, New York: Teacher College Press (Columbia University). Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012). Language Teacher Education for a Global Society. Routledge Publishing Group. Richards, J., & Renandya, W. (2002). Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press. Scrivener, J. (1994). Learning Teaching. Macmillan Education. Mark Sabourin has lived in South Korea for the last twelve years, and he has been teaching English to students at Woosong Information College for the past eight. He did his undergraduate work in English literature at California State University in Sacramento. He is an alumnus of the Woosong University TESOL-MALL Graduate Program at Woosong University in Daejeon, South Korea. |
WOOSONG UNIVERSITY TESOL-MALL Graduate Program 196-5 Jayang-dong, Dong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea, 300-718
telephone: 042-630-9895 or e-mail: [email protected]
telephone: 042-630-9895 or e-mail: [email protected]