MALAYSIA
Stop Talking, Start Listening: Role Of Feedback In Improving Teaching
Maya Khemlani David
University of Malaya, Malaysia
Teaching is communicating and effective communication is incomplete until a teacher gets feedback from her learners. This paper argues that brave and effective language teachers should be prepared to receive feedback from their learners regarding their respective teaching styles. Such feedback reveals and discloses many issues, including opinions formed of the teacher because of both the verbal and non-verbal code used in the classroom. The data is drawn from an open discussion with teachers who were undergoing a degree course at the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya and who had been taught by a number of teaching staff. The question put to the learners at the completion of a three-year English language proficiency program was “What makes for effective teaching/teachers?” The views of the 24 learners who formed the sample will be discussed. The views of learners must be given due consideration and this will only occur if teachers are willing to listen. With such feedback teachers will be empowered.
MAYA KHEMLANI DAVID is an associate professor at the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya. She was the chief editor of The English Teacher, a journal of the Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (1994-1998) and is currently on the editorial committee of Reading Online, a publication of the International Reading Association. Dr. David has presented over 50 papers (applied linguistics and sociolinguistics) both in Malaysia and abroad and has published articles in a number of journals including The Hong Kong Linguist, Language and Literacy, English Australia, South Pacific Journal of Psychology and the International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Dr. David’s latest publication is The Sindhis of Malaysia: a sociolinguistic account (London:Asean).
AUSTRALIA
Australian Aboriginal English as a Lingua Franca
Andy Kirkpatrick
Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia
The variety of English known as Australian Aboriginal English has developed over a number of years to serve as a lingua franca among the multi-lingual Australian Aboriginal community. This variety of Aboriginal English is characterised by many cultural conventions and pragmatic norms that have been transferred from a variety of Aboriginal languages. It thus serves as an identity marker for Aboriginal Australians, many of who do not speak Aboriginal languages. This transfer of the cultural conventions and pragmatic norms of Aboriginal Englishes, however, causes cross-cultural misunderstandings when this variety of English is used as a lingua franca between Australian Aboriginals and migrant Australians. In this paper, examples of the speech styles of Aboriginal languages and Aboriginal English will be provided and the implications of these for cross-cultural misunderstanding between Aboriginal and migrant Australia considered.
ANDY KIRKPATRICK is Professor of Language Education at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. He has recently edited a special edition of the journal Asian Englishes devoted to Australian Aboriginal English. He was Chair of the recently completed 5th English in South East Asia conference held between 6-8 December at Curtin University and is editor of the selected proceedings of that conference, to be published by Language Australia.
CHINA
English As A Global Language: Implications For Teaching
Tony T. N. Hung
Hong Kong Baptist University, China
The last few decades have witnessed the rise of English from the position of an international language to that of the first truly global language. This period has also witnessed the emergence and development of a number of 'New Englishes' in various parts of the world, such as Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines, which have become more or less stabilized and indiginized.
It may seem ironic that, just when English is turning into a global lingua franca, it is also sprouting many new varieties which differ from each other in significant ways, not only lexically but phonologically and syntactically, sometimes to the point of jeopardizing mutual intelligibility and thus undermining its very usefulness as a global language.
The problem has alarmed linguists and educationists sufficiently to keep the issue of an 'internationally intelligible' standard of English alive for more than two decades, and probably well into the future. The indiscriminate adoption of a particular native accent of English (such as British RP or General American) is no longer a credible solution, as English in the 21st century is no longer the language of Britain or the United States or any single country or single group of speakers, but a global language, and as such, variety is in its very essence. To some extent, the alarm over mutual unintelligibility is exaggerated. The mass media and global travel will act as moderating influences, keeping the speakers of various varieties of English (old and new) in constant touch with each other. But this is not to deny that there is nothing which educators can do (or need to do) in helping speakers of new varieties of English acquire certain features of pronunciation which can render their speech more internationally intelligible and acceptable. This is a far cry from imposing an exonormative standard like RP or GA on the learners. To begin with, the learners' naturally acquired phonology of English, with its regional features, is accepted as the basis or starting point. They are comfortable and spontaneous with it, and we should 'interfere' with it only when necessary, to ensure that the set of features or contrasts which are most crucial for intelligibility are acquired.
Two recent proposals by Jenkins, and Deterding, Brown and Low (among others), are examples of a move towards this end. In the present paper, the author makes a proposal of his own, which differs to some extent from those cited above, and provides a rationale and justification for it.
TONY HUNG is Head of the Language Centre, and Director of the Centre for the Advancement of English for Professionals, at the Hong Kong Baptist University. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of California (San Diego), and an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Lancaster. He has published on phonology, new varieties of English, the teaching of pronunciation and grammar, and Chinese linguistics.
SINGAPORE
A Five-Country Comparative Survey of English Language Teaching Practices
Rita V. Skuja-Steele
National Institute of Education/ Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
The trend toward globalization has led to an increasing emphasis on the use of English language as an international lingua franca for business, tourism, and general dissemination of information across national borders. This emphasis has in turn provided a rationale for the use of comparative educational research to explore the manner in which different countries approach the teaching of English as a foreign or second language.
An as example of such research, the presentation will focus on the Pedagogical Practices in English Language Education (PPELE) project recently undertaken by the National Institute of Education in Singapore. This project explored the teaching of English in the fourth year of language learning in each of the five participating countries: PR China, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, and the USA. Through the collection of teacher logs, in-depth interviews with each teacher, and a review of policy statements from each country, the study aimed to define the contexts and conditions for language education and, at the same time, to describe teaching practices in each of the five countries as illustrations of possible options for English language education. The study also aimed to identify the support systems for language education in the schools and to examine the relationship between pedagogical practices and stated English language education policies, including views on the economic importance of English as an international language.
The presentation will describe the background motivation for the study in question; will discuss the rationale behind the methodological approach; and will compare similarities and differences between English language teaching approaches in the five countries studied.
RITA V SKUJA-STEELE, Associate Professor, is Head of the English Language and Literature Academic Group of the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. She is the Principal Investigator on a collaborative cross-nation research project, Pedagogical Practices in English Language Education (PPELE). Her research interests include classroom discourse; practicum mentoring; teacher beliefs and reflection; and curriculum design and implementation.
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