To ensure smooth communication and collaboration, here are some troubleshooting tips to address common issues:
Check Internet Connection: Verify that you have a stable and reliable internet connection. Use a wired connection when possible, as it tends to be more stable than Wi-Fi. If using Wi-Fi, make sure you have a strong signal.
Update the Browser or App: Ensure that you are using the latest version of the web browser. Developers frequently release updates to address bugs and improve performance.
Clear Browser Cache: Sometimes, cached data can cause conflicts or issues. Clear the browser cache and cookies before joining the meeting.
Test Audio and Video: Before the meeting, check your microphone and camera to ensure they are working correctly. If you are a speaker, you can click on "Start Practice Session" button test to ensure audio and video devices are functioning.
Close Other Applications: Running multiple applications in the background can consume system resources and lead to performance issues. Close unnecessary apps to free up resources for the Dryfta meeting platform.
Restart Your Device: If you encounter persistent issues, try restarting your computer or mobile device. This can help resolve various software-related problems.
Use Supported Browsers: Ensure you are using a browser supported by the meeting platform. Recommended browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Brave.
Allow Necessary Permissions: Make sure the Dryfta meeting platform has the required permissions to access your microphone, camera, and other necessary features.
Disable VPN or Firewall: Sometimes, VPNs or firewalls can interfere with the connection to the meeting platform. Temporarily disable them and see if the issue persists.
Switch Devices: If possible, try joining the meeting from a different device to see if the problem is specific to one device.
Reduce Bandwidth Usage: In cases of slow or unstable internet connections, ask participants to disable video or share video selectively to reduce bandwidth consumption.
Update Drivers and Software: Ensure your operating system, audio drivers, and video drivers are up to date. Outdated drivers can cause compatibility issues with the Dryfta meeting platform.
Contact Support: If none of the above steps resolve the issue, reach out to the platform's support team. They can provide personalized assistance and troubleshoot specific problems.
By following these troubleshooting tips, you can tackle many common problems encountered on Dryfta meeting platform and have a more productive and seamless meeting experience.
20230720T083020230720T1130Europe/Amsterdam[SYMP04] AILA ReN - Contexts for Inclusive Practitioner Research: aiming for social cohesion in a globalised world.Hybrid Session (onsite/online)AILA 2023 - 20th Anniversary Congress Lyon Editioncellule.congres@ens-lyon.fr
Conducting and disseminating research as a language teacher: the local context of a transnational university
Oral Presentation[SYMP04] AILA ReN - Contexts for Inclusive Practitioner Research: aiming for social cohesion in a globalised world.08:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 06:30:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 09:30:00 UTC
N/A
Conducting classroom-based research is believed to be beneficial for language teachers, especially in higher education, as they have an opportunity to reflect on their own teaching practices and improve them (Hanks, 2015). In many cases, engagement in research and scholarship is also a prerequisite for language teachers to be promoted to senior positions (Smith & Walker, 2021). However, less is known about the extent to which language teachers are involved in such research, their motivations for being involved, the opportunities and challenges they encounter during the process, and how they disseminate their research efforts. Our project aims to investigate the above issues by means of a longitudinal study and by focusing on staff in the School of Languages in Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool university (XJTLU), comprised of the English Language Centre (with over 200 staff, the largest in Asia) and the Modern Languages Centre (which consists of divisions teaching Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish language modules). One unique feature of the School of Languages is the diversity of its staff, who have many varied backgrounds and nationalities. This project utilises rich data to investigate the community of staff engaged in research activities. Firstly, a workshop about engagement in research and scholarship activities was held in the school; participants' (N=36) discussions in five round tables during the workshop were audio recorded with their consent. After six months, we followed this up with interviews with individual teachers to understand their ongoing research practices and progress. Future data collection will include a follow-up questionnaire after twelve months and a reflection workshop, in which we will share some of their ideas from the first workshop and have the participants reflect on, and discuss, their ideas from a year ago. In this presentation, we will report our initial findings of teaching staffs' research activities in our local context, and highlight both opportunities and challenges for them. The opportunities include having a live research culture in the school and a wide range of support on research methods, seeking funding opportunities, and research experience sharing. The challenges were at both an institutional level and personal level, including not having sufficient time for conducting research, lack of motivation, and perceived identity as language teachers, not as researchers. We will discuss these in light of other publications on practitioner research in Chinese universities, European universities, and beyond.
References Hanks, J. (2015). Language teachers making sense of Exploratory Practice. Language Teaching Research, 19(5), pp. 612-633. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168814567805 Smith, S. & Walker, D. (2021): Scholarship and academic capitals: the boundaried nature of education-focused career tracks, Teaching in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2021.1965570
Presenters Qingyang Sun Lecturer, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Co-creative and dialogic approaches to puzzle elicitation and exploration: learning from student and teacher voices
Oral Presentation[SYMP04] AILA ReN - Contexts for Inclusive Practitioner Research: aiming for social cohesion in a globalised world.08:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 06:30:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 09:30:00 UTC
The methodological elasticity of potentially exploitable pedagogic activities (PEPA) has many practical advantages, enabling practitioners to adapt Exploratory Practice (EP) to their local context, integrate teaching and research, and reduce burnout (Hanks, 2019). However, the lack of a clear methodology or set classroom activities, can make it challenging for students and teachers when first transitioning to EP. Hence, practitioners need to share narratives and techniques (Slimani-Rolls & Kiely, 2018).
This presentation documents how a practitioner enacting EP for the first time uses reflective, co-creative and dialogic PEPA to help students generate and co-explore puzzles. The students are studying compulsory English classes at a Japanese university taught by a British teacher. Students' English level is not high (CEFR A1-A2), suggesting some may have low self-esteem and feel ontologically disengaged from their learning (Matusov, 2011). EP offers an opportunity to mutually engage their desires, stimulate curiosity and reflection, and re-ontologize their language learning (Kato & Hanks, 2021).
These PEPA aim to support quality of life in the classroom by facilitating meaningful engagement. Reflective PEPA stimulate curiosity about language learning by expanding learners' perspectives on language skills and provoking affective responses to learning experiences. Creative-play PEPA involve group playfulness to familiarize students with improvisation and emergence in co-exploration. Dialogic PEPA help students agree on ground rules for group interaction that increase the potential for mutual understanding by emphasizing inclusivity and valuing difference.
The initial aim of this research is not to prove the efficacy of the PEPA, but to understand how participants interpret and use them. Multiperspectival interpretive phenomenological analysis is used to examine the lived experience of participants (Larkin et al. 2019). 'Cases' are construed as student-teacher dyads. Idiographic interpretation of teacher and student learning journals, assignments and post-course interviews is used to identify important points where perspectives converge and diverge. Comparing teacher expectations with students' sense-making of activities enables the practitioner to be reflexive about their practice, improve the activities and find culturally sensitive ways to facilitate reflective co-exploration.
Participants in this presentation will be introduced to a range of innovative PEPA that could be adapted to support their practice. They will also gain insights into inclusive and culturally informed ways to stimulate language learners' curiosity, co-exploration, and quality of life in the classroom.
References Hanks, J. (2019). From research-as-practice to exploratory practice-as-research in language teaching and beyond. Language teaching, 52, 143-187. Kato, Y., Hanks, J. (2021). Learner-initiated exploratory practice: revisiting curiosity, ELT Journal. Larkin, M., Shaw, R., & Flowers, P. (2019). Multiperspectival designs and processes in interpretative phenomenological analysis research, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 16:2, 182-198. Matusov, E. (2011). Authorial teaching and learning. In E. J. White & M. Peters (Eds.), Bakhtinian pedagogy: Opportunities and challenges for research, policy and practice in education across the globe (pp. 21-46). New York: Peter Lang Publishers. Slimani-Rolls, A., Kiely, R. (2018). Exploratory Practice for Continuing Professional Development: An Innovative Approach for Language Teachers, London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Presenters Tim Cleminson Associate Professor, Kawasaki University Of Medical Welfare
Moving towards understanding how working contexts matter in Exploratory Practice
[SYMP04] AILA ReN - Contexts for Inclusive Practitioner Research: aiming for social cohesion in a globalised world.08:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 06:30:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 09:30:00 UTC
This paper attempts to understand the role played by the diverse working contexts in the professional lives of a group of in-service teachers, who graduated from two universities (PUC-Rio and FFP/UERJ) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These teachers were familiarized with Exploratory Practice (EP), a critical-reflexive modality of Practitioner Research, included in their undergraduate curricula. Within the EP framework (Allwright & Hanks, 2009), space was made available to reflect upon the need to understand the quality of life – both personal and professional – experienced by students and teachers inside and outside their EFL classrooms. As exploratory teacher educators, we claim that (future) teachers' professional development depends on going beyond the technicalities of teaching methods and raising teachers' awareness of the social and institutional contexts where teaching and learning occur. The focus of this paper is to investigate how the collaborating teachers discursively relate their professional contexts (Sarangi and Roberts, 1999) to their understandings of the basic ideas of EP and its role in the everydayness of their classroom lives. The data were gathered through exploratory conversations held with the participating teachers during a British Council-funded project, which focused on the 'delayed impact' of EP as experienced by 44 Brazilian teachers. Working within a qualitative research paradigm, we, as part of the research team, analyzed the teachers' discourse, collaboratively seeking to identify emerging themes associated with the primary purpose of the project – understanding the sustainability of EP in these teachers' professional practices. We adopted an emic perspective to data analysis and worked from the participants' perceptions and understandings of their own teaching. This procedure evoked (i) the teachers' comprehension of what EP means to them, (ii) how it is part of their daily classroom routine, (iii) how these teachers have been surviving in the profession, and (iv) whether EP has offered them a viable alternative to professional pressures. Our overall understandings are that, for the participating teachers, in their diverse specific contexts, EP is a sustainable approach, not only within teacher education but also within language teaching and learning. We also came to understand that, on account of institutional limitations, some of these teachers have to follow guidelines and school curricula and do not engage in Potentially Exploitable Pedagogic Activities, which would characterize canonic EP classes. They acknowledge that their way of surviving in their local professional contexts is by agentively profiting from the learning opportunities generated during classroom interaction. These practitoner perceptions enabled us to understand that, for these teachers, adopting such an exploratory attitude towards issues brought about by their students has offered them a viable and inclusive alternative to classroom management and lesson design, which are generally imposed by globalized educational institutions. Allwright, D. (2003). Exploratory practice: Rethinking practitioner research in language teaching. Language Teaching Research, 7(2), 113–141. Allwright, D., & Hanks, J. (2009). The developing language learner: An introduction to Exploratory Practice. Palgrave Macmillan Sarangi, S., and C. Roberts, eds. 1999. Talk, work, and institutional order. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Qingyang Sun
Tim Cleminson
