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.
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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.
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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 Outdated drivers can cause compatibility issues with the Dryfta meeting platform.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.
20230718T131520230718T1615Europe/Amsterdam[SYMP92] ELF in education: setting agendas for the future100 % Online sessionAILA 2023 - 20th Anniversary Congress Lyon Editioncellule.congres@ens-lyon.fr
Critical pedagogy in Language Teacher Education: The impact of English as Global Lingua Franca
Oral Presentation[SYMP92] ELF in education: setting agendas for the future01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 14:15:00 UTC
English as a lingua franca (ELF) has generated considerable debate during the 20+ years of intensifying research activity we have seen in this paradigm, requiring language teachers and teacher educators to reflect critically on pedagogic resources and methods. English as global lingua franca represents substantial challenge to conventional assumptions regarding language, communication and education.
This paper considers the expansive empirical work that has to date explored the relevance of ELF for language (in) education. Taking stock of where we are in the field I address the following questions (as proposed by the symposium convenors):
In what ways does ELF research change current standpoints in this specific field? What new perspectives does ELF research bring about in each of these domains?
In what specific ways can you envision ELT moving forward as a direct result of the impact of ELF research? Which specific agendas would you draw for the future?
Addressing Q1, I examine the value of adopting a critical stance on established conceptualizations of language awareness, language proficiency, teacher knowledge and expertise. Addressing Q2, I examine the ideologies underpinning language and education to thus engage with the full impact potential of devising ELF-informed pedagogies for future practices.
Global Englishes and ELF research have made it essential for language teachers and teacher educators to reflect much more critically on resources and practices than they have had to do in the past. The role of English as a global lingua franca undoubtedly constitutes a substantial challenge to what we conventionally think about language, communication and education.
This symposium paper will explore the value of engaging in critical thinking with regard to existing conceptualizations of language awareness, language proficiency and professional (pedagogic) content knowledge among ELT practitioners and stakeholders. From an ELF perspective we have seen time and again how conventional principles and practices in language pedagogy continue to be underpinned by language ideologies that predate the globalizing realities of English and may thus continue to hinder the development of an ELF informed orientation to language, language learning and language teaching. To date a substantial volume of research has aimed to promote better understanding of ELF from a classroom perspective, with studies exploring learners' and (more often than not) teachers' awareness and attitudes towards ELF, with a view to incorporating opportunities for an ELF-informed approach to language resources, pedagogic materials and classroom methods and practices. There has also been considerable discussion of the relevance and potential impact of ELF in Teacher Education, but relatively little examination of teacher educators' professional beliefs and practices.
The objectives of my paper are to address the symposium questions, engaging in debate with colleagues researching a diverse array of contexts for further exploration regarding the development of alternative future approaches to language, materials and practices in programmes of language teacher education. My goal will be to build on previous work that has investigated language pedagogy from an ELF perspective and extend this by further elaborating on the impact of ELF research for practising teacher educators. Where to date the focus has been principally on ELF-aware/ELF-informed language teaching, with some discussion of associated implications for teacher education, my concern will be more specifically focused on developing ELF-informed teacher educators and ELF-informed professional development.
Presenters Martin Dewey Reader In Applied Linguistics, King's College London
ELF-framed language policies and practices: decolonial perspectives from the global south
Oral Presentation[SYMP92] ELF in education: setting agendas for the future01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 14:15:00 UTC
History has witnessed a plethora of language teaching proposals in the last decades ranging from structuralist-oriented practices until recent critical and sociocultural orientations. Special attention has been given to English language teaching (ELT) for the very privileged – and controversial – condition English language holds to the detriment of other languages. Recent discussions on English as a Lingua Franca (EFL) research now seem to gain momentum in different educational contexts for its commitment with more heterogeneous uses of English. This talk aims at discussing the presence of ELF in global south contexts, particularly in Brazil. In doing so, emphasis will be placed on how global-south ELF research has been addressed in strong relation to (de)coloniality. Aspects in contemporary Brazilian ELF-framed curricular guidelines will be outlined. Then, results from an exploratory focal group study composed by Brazilian student teachers will be shared with an emphasis on how they make meaning of ELF research in their own teaching experiences. Preliminary analysis show constraints and potentialities in the implementation of ELF as English teachers' agency is either thrived or withered depending on how diverging school contexts respond to neoliberal and colonialist driving forces and the prevailing fiction of monolingual imaginaries.
Critical applied linguists, such as Kubota (2014), have stated that there seems to be a gap between theory and practice despite contributions from the so-called multi-pluri turn. In the field of English language teaching, this gap is evident among well-intended pedagogies which, despite addressing diversity, don't usually tackle the problem in depth. Decolonial thinking is a critical field of inquiry committed to excavating the genealogy of asymmetrical power relations in history with an emphasis on how racialized bodies, cultures, identities and languages turn out to explain oppression and marginalization. Once we identity and interrogate how these oppressive mechanisms were engendered by Modernity/Coloniality and how colonial traces persist in contemporary society (Mignolo, 2000), we might commit ourselves towards the interruption of coloniality in daily-live racial micro-aggressions. What do English scholars, teachers, teacher educators have to do with such things? Along with Kubota, I advocate in favor of approaching language studies to the above concerns brought by decolonial thinking. This seems paramount specially for those involved with English language education research and practice for English language holds a privileged and controversial condition as consequence of colonial and imperialist traces. New terminologies have arisen as a response to monolingual and monocultural orientations to language, such as the concept of English as a Lingua Franca (EFL). As this symposium addresses, over the years, ELF has become a full-fledged research field generating important scholarship all over the world. This proposal is a call to further invest in the approach of ELF research to issues of decoloniality for its potential to prevent English teachers from self-marginalization (Kumaravadivelu, 2012). Regardless of advances in ELF theorizations, normative centripetal forces seem stronger than ever in neoliberal society particularly among global south English users whose disapproved mestisaje linguistica (Anzaldúa, 1987) « needs to be fixed ». This talk aims at presenting the constraints and potentialities of ELF in contemporary Brazilian educational policies and practices. In doing so, results from an exploratory focal group study composed by English student teachers will be shared, with an emphasis on how participants make meaning of ELF. Preliminary analysis show constraints and potentialities in the implementation of ELF as English teachers' agency is either thrived or withered depending on how diverging school contexts respond to neoliberal and colonialist driving forces and the prevailing fiction of monolingual imaginaries.
Reference: Anzaldua, G. (1987). How to tame a wild tongue. Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Pp. 53-64. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. Kubota, R. (2014). The Multi/Plural Turn, Postcolonial Theory, and Neoliberal Multiculturalism: complicities and implications for applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 37(4), 474-494. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012). Individual identity, cultural globalization and teaching English as an international language: The case for an epistemic break. In L. Alsagoff, S. L. Mckay, G. Hu, & W. A. Renandya (Eds.), Principles and Practices for Teaching English as an International Language (p. 9-27). New York: Routledge. Mignolo, W. D. (2000). Local histories/global designs: coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Shifting from English Langauge Teaching to English Language Awareness Teaching
Oral Presentation[SYMP92] ELF in education: setting agendas for the future01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 14:15:00 UTC
This paper will address the need to shift the goals of ELT from language development to language awareness development. Goals of language teaching can be divided broadly into external goals, or language developments, and internal goals, or attitudinal developments (Cook, 2007). In the language classroom, the external goals―becoming able to use L2―are largely emphasized, while the internal goals―expanding capacity to interact with diverse others―tend to be regarded as by-products of the process of the achievement of the former goals. As it is the "language" classroom, this may be a matter of course. However, what ELF research has revealed is that L2 users' ability in English and importance as English users can be dismissed by not only other people but also themselves because of a monolithic and monolingual view of English focusing on unrealistic objectives of achieving 'native-like' proficiency, which is often advocated in ELT. For example, my study on Japanese university students' language awareness development through study abroad (Suzuki 2021, 2022) has found that even direct experiences of ELF communication would not necessarily contribute to their positive attitudes to L2 users of English. This finding of ELF research indicates the need of shifting the main focus of ELT from external goals to internal goals. This change is parallel to Seidlhofer's (2004) suggestion to change English language classes into language awareness ones about two decades ago. As ELF communication inherently involves other languages, multilinguality of it, or EMF (English as a Multilingua Franca, Jenkins 2015), has to be well acknowledged in ELT. Unless making learners see their own multilinguality in a positive light, they would continue to judge their own use of English as well as other L2 users' against native speakers' ones, and the gap between them and native speakers would fail them to envision a successful bi/multilingual English-speaking self. The shift to language awareness in ELT consequently may address the issue of ELT's moral responsibilities because advocating monolingual NESs as a model for learners is largely questionable. I will discuss these points referring to my study on study abroad introduced above.
Cook, V. 2007. The goals of ELT. In J. Cummins & C. Davison (Eds.) International handbook of English language teaching (pp. 237-248). Springer. Jenkins, J. 2015. Repositioning English and multilingualism in English as a Lingua Franca. Englishes in Practice, 2(3), 49-85. https://doi.org/10.1515/eip-2015-0003 Seidlhofer, Barbara. 2004. Research perspectives on teaching English as a Lingua Franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, 209-239. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190504000145 Suzuki, A. 2021. Changing views of English through study abroad as teacher training. ELT Journal, 75(4), 397–406. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccab038 Suzuki, A. 2022. University students' global citizenship development through long-term study abroad. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 11(1), 77-88. https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2022-2070
English as a Lingua Franca and perspectives in ELT
Oral Presentation[SYMP92] ELF in education: setting agendas for the future01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 14:15:00 UTC
Over the last decade ELF research has extensively investigated the implications ELF findings can have for ELT, from a number of different perspectives and in many cases intersecting views with other recent waves of innovative research, such as multilingualism, translanguaging and decolonization of English. Several areas have been identified as crucial for ELF research findings to have an impact on language education, and ELT in particular: Teacher Education has been shown to be an essential moment in this process of change, where awareness of the ways and contexts in which English is increasingly used as a lingua franca of communication is to be accompanied by transformative actions and practice to be localised in the specificity of each educational context (e.g. Sifakis 2019; Sifakis et al. 2018). Materials development, both at an institutional and at a local level, is another relevant area in which new viewpoints need to be taken into account to respond to the skills that are needed to effectively and flexibly communicate in English nowadays, with the inclusion of strategic and intercultural competence. Last but not least, within this perspective teacher and learner agency should be given due prominence, both as to their experiences as ELF users, and in terms of their needs and aims in teaching and learning English (e.g. Seidlhofer 2011; Widdowson 2015). Findings from ELF research in several domains, from language use to transcultural communication and language teaching, can greatly contribute to promote pedagogic actions in ELT that take account of the aforementioned points. First of all, informing Language Teacher Education programmes, with thorough discussions of and reflection upon the issues ELF raises, to move towards transformative actions in actual teaching and learning practices – for example, overtly including awareness of the relevance of communication strategies in ELT syllabuses. Materials development, and ways of broadening the use of existing published materials in an ELF-aware perspective, is another important area where ELF research could significantly impact ELT, indicating ways and directions that are locally suited, actively involving teachers and learners, within a decolonizing perspective. ELF, together with the developments of other research areas in Applied Linguistics (multilingualism and translanguaging, for example) can certainly provide further significant contributions to language education and ELT, continuing the important work that has been developed over the last decade in TEd, and setting up Action Research projects with teachers, practitioners as well as students to work towards the integration of ELF-oriented pedagogy in teaching practices.
References Seidlhofer, Barbara. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sifakis, Nicos C. 2019. ELF awareness in English Language Teaching. Principles and processes. Applied Linguistics 40(2). 285–306. Sifakis, Nicos C., Lucilla Lopriore, Martin Dewey, Yasemin Bayyurt, Lili Cavalheiro, D. Savio P. Siqueira & Stefania Kordia. 2018. ELF-awareness in ELT: Bringing together theory and practice. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 7(1). 155–209. Widdowson, Henry G. 2015. Frontiers of English and the challenge of change. In Paola Vettorel (ed.), New frontiers in teaching and learning English, 227–232. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.
Presenters Paola Vettorel Assistant Professor, University Of Verona
Martin Dewey
Paola Vettorel
