Sino-African Philosophy: A Re-“Constructive Engagement”

“Constructive-Engagement” is a meta-philosophical and meta-methodological “strategy” suggested by Chinese and comparative philosophy scholar Bo Mou for analyzing and enriching philosophical exchange. In this paper, I will use this strategy towards an end, on a scale, and with a topic not attempted before. I will use it as a “template” for redesigning a poorly developing area of cross-cultural comparison I call Sino-African reflective studies (SARS). My goal in this work-in-progress is to design a plan for reconstituting SARS as Sino-African philosophy (SAP), an inclusive yet coherent field of research and innovation unified through organizing principles. I will design the overhaul of SARS in three stages. First, by surveying SARS for its basic features including its structural flaws. Second, by remapping SARS in line with “renovation” principles drawn from its literature. Third, by blueprinting SARS in line with “construction” principles theorized from the constructive-engagement strategy (CES)

The Internationalization of Higher Education in Southeast Asia: Three Case Studies from Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam

The increase of international economic collaboration as a result of globalization has an impact on various aspects of society at the regional level. To improve the effectiveness of such collaboration, the government of numerous countries begins to focus on internationalizing the education system as an approach to increase the level of global competence among the local population. Nevertheless, the results of integrating the international elements in each county are often varied whereby some countries are able to conform to the international policies according to the standards set by global agencies while others distort the international policies to conform to the local norms. This research attempts to provide a holistic explication of the process of internationalization of higher education in Southeast Asia. The purpose of the research is to utilize the findings as case studies for other universities in Southeast Asia that are experiencing the challenges of the internationalization process. Through the application of the grounded theory approach, the focus of the research is to identify how and why the selected universities are able to meet the international standards provided by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2012-2013. Moreover, the research also focuses on identifying the level of convergence and divergence in the process of internationalization among the selected universities through conducting a SWOT analysis. The results of the study present a substantive grounded theory on the significant factors positively influencing the internationalization process of the three universities from the perspectives of each university as a result of the coding process. Furthermore; the research findings identified factors such as the level of nationalism, the local political insurgency, and the increase of living expense as having a negative impact on the success of internationalizing higher education in Southeast Asia

Course Goals and Feedback Workflows: Examining Instructors\u27 Pedagogy in Professional Communication Service Courses

In Professional and Technical Communication (PTC), feedback has not been studied in proportion to its importance, particularly in service, or introductory, courses. Feedback is a form of assessment; therefore, an empirical study of instructor feedback requires attention to PTC instructors’ pedagogical goals and learning outcomes. This research asked and answered three questions about 1. Instructors’ pedagogical goals and learning outcomes for their PTC service courses, 2. Instructors’ approaches to giving feedback on students’ resumes and cover letters, and 3. The extent to which instructors’ pedagogical goals and feedback aligned. This research contributes data-driven findings on instructor feedback within PTC service courses, implications about how instructors’ training and theoretical backgrounds affect their pedagogy, and information about how instructors’ goals reflect PTC’s overarching goals. I interviewed 10 instructors and collected their service course syllabi, resume and cover letter assignment sheets, and instructors’ feedback on students’ de-identified resumes and cover letters. For analysis, I coded the data using a coding scheme that emerged from the data and from Miller’s genre as social action. When instructors spoke about their pedagogical goals, they most often discussed Neo-Aristotelian rhetoric and genre. In their syllabi learning outcomes, instructors framed rhetoric and critical thinking as most important. When giving feedback, half of the instructors gave formative feedback while half gave summative feedback. Summative feedback was faster; however, instructors who gave formative feedback generally received more polished writing. Four implications arose from the discrepancies between instructors’ pedagogical goals and their feedback-giving practices: 1. Instructors’ relationships with theory were informed by their graduate-level training and/or their workplace experience. 2. Instructors rarely discussed teaching information literacy and content-centric writing in their pedagogical goals; however, they gave ample feedback about issues of information, detail, and content on students’ resumes and cover letters. 3. Instructors’ labor conditions informed the perceived quality of their feedback and their adherence to their pedagogical goals. 4. Instructors often imported pedagogical methods from first-year composition into PTC service courses due to a lack of time or training. This study calls for further empirical research about instructors’ training experiences, instructor feedback, and field-wide goals for the PTC service course

Writing and the Internationalization of U.S. Higher Education: The Roles of Ideology, Administration, and the Institution

In this dissertation,Writing and the Internationalization of U.S. Higher Education: The Roles of Ideology, Administration, and the Institution, I examine one private institution, Syracuse University, for how it has approached internationalization (both currently and in historical efforts), how it has dealt with the increased presence of English language learners (ELLs), and how both realities may affect the research and practice of writing program administrators (WPAs). I use scholarship from Second Language Writing and Writing Program Administration as frameworks for examining some of the sociopolitics involved in addressing the new needs of an internationalized higher education institution, including the politics and ideologies that may impede WPA work but may not always be readily apparent. I draw on institutional research in the forms of archival research, interviews with university administrators, and an administrative case study of one graduate-level writing course for ELLs. This dissertation project can be seen as culminating in two separate but intermingling qualitative studies. First, based on interviews with fourteen university administrators, I illustrate that some the most pressing concerns currently perceived at SU include cross-cultural conflict, a lack of resources for ELLs, and the need for increased and different kinds of institutional support, particularly since the effects of internationalization at SU have typically been handled after the fact rather than preemptively through strategic systemic planning. Then, based on rhetorical analysis of historical institutional data and archival materials, I exemplify how past efforts to internationalize were infused with separatist, colonialist, and ethnocentric points of view. I argue that applying institutional research to WPAs\u27 local university contexts for the purposes of revealing current materialities and longstanding ideologies can enhance WPAs\u27 abilities to locate opportunities for rhetorically negotiating change that is needed. In my second qualitative study that informs this dissertation, I investigate the administrative practices and politics involved when implementing new writing resources on behalf of ELLs in higher education institutions. I provide an administrative praxis narrative describing my development and piloting of a graduate-level writing course for ELL students wherein I analyze the departmental and institutional constraints traversed. This situated and site-specific study--which is informed by participant-observations, field notes, course materials, and interviews with fourteen student participants and one writing instructor--further exemplifies some of the benefits and challenges of institutional research. I catalog many issues and obstacles WPAs may need to consider as they navigate the often opaque and power-infused institutional spaces in which they participate and seek to change, including issues of sustainability, institutional backing, and the politics of remediation. To conclude this dissertation, I offer suggestions for future inquiry and propose a transdirectional model for institutional research and administrative practice. This model aims to account for a wider range of institutional realities as sites for determining transformational possibilities that better respond to linguistic and cultural diversity in higher education

“Difference in/at the center a transnational approach for mobilizing international multilingual graduate writers\u27 writing assets during writing instruction.

This research project presents an empirical exploration of how the writing assets possessed by international multilingual graduate writers impact the theory and pedagogical practices in writing studies, especially regarding the approaches to teaching writing. Extant scholarship in writing studies, especially on second language research/teaching, translingual writing practices, and asset-based writing pedagogy has engaged issues of difference in language, race, culture, as well as funds of knowledge, highlighting the impacts of these differences on the academic success of non-native English speakers in US schools and colleges. My dissertation builds on these trends and highlights the narratives, perceptions, and experiences of international multilingual graduate writers and writing consultants at the University of Louisville’s Writing Center to contribute a new, reflexive way of viewing writing differences in our work with students who are from countries other than the US. I employed a qualitative study that is informed by in-depth interviews with five international multilingual graduate writers and two focus group discussions with five writing consultants. I subjected the data I collected from my participants to analytical interpretations using the theoretical lens of the transnational writing framework as well as rhetorical empathy. The alignment of both frameworks is evident in how rhetorical empathy becomes a heuristic tool that writing instructors can use to successfully navigate the contexts of their teaching, either writing centers or writing classrooms––which I argue have increasingly become transnational in nature. Through analysis of international multilingual graduate writers’ interviews and review of their observation data, I show that they are aware of the difference between their prior writing orientation and their current writing situation in the US. Regardless, they possess some knowledge of how writing works, influenced by their linguistic, cultural, and rhetorical competencies. These competencies are leveraged as assets that they possess and would reveal to their writing consultants as long as an atmosphere that welcomes a discussion of their writing assets and tends to allow them to guide us on what we can do with these assets is cultivated. Likewise, I submit that writing professionals (instructors and consultants) need to start to reimagine every encounter of writing instruction the transnational engagement that ties people and places together across borders and adopt a rhetorical empathy stance to create opportunities for changing the Subject and the Other in terms of the knowledge of academic writing. Finally, I offer implications to this research and concluded by offering rhetorical empathy’s applications in writing studies, especially in writing classroom contexts with a suggestion for a move away from having different sections of college writing class and toward making all college writing courses multilingual sections

Intercultural dialogue with Indonesian state sector language teacher educators about the epistemology of ELT INSET

This is a study through, and of, intercultural dialogue about the epistemology of in-service courses (INSET) for Indonesian primary and secondary state sector teachers of English. The dialogue was with the local experienced and novice language teacher educators from the English Department of an INSET centre attached to the Indonesian Ministry of National Education. The dialogue took place in Indonesia and was conducted almost exclusively in English. Beliefs about the epistemology of INSET in English language teaching (ELT INSET) are understood to be the value attached to, and the perceived relationship between, the different forms of language teacher knowledge that feature in the ELT INSET classroom. The participants’ epistemological beliefs were co-constructed through different forms of dialogue, incorporated in a range of activities designed both for research and professional learning purposes. These activities included the observation of, and post-observation dialogue about, two of the experienced language teacher educators’ ELT INSET classroom practices. The study of intercultural dialogue dimension to the thesis is a product of a reflexive stance on such activities in an intercultural context where issues of language, power, rapport and role expectations were heightened. The participants’ epistemological beliefs were found to reflect much current international thinking about language teacher learning, and there were numerous areas of correspondence between stated beliefs and observed ELT INSET classroom practices. The dialogue “pushed” the participants to make principled justifications of their ELT INSET classroom practices, and to consider additional and alternative practices. The study makes a range of recommendations related to the spirit, scope, sequence, content and management of intercultural dialogue about the epistemology of ELT INSET, for both research and language teacher educator professional learning purposes

Feminine Identities

The first four essays in this volume all focus on issues of gender in the works of different English authors and thinkers. Shorter versions of each of these essays were formerly presented as papers in an autonomous section of the Research and Educational Programme on Studies of Identity at the XXth Meeting of the Portuguese Association of Anglo-American Studies (Póvoa de Varzim, 1999) and published in the proceedings of the conference. The second cluster of essays in this volume — two of which (Jennie Wang’s and Teresa Cid’s) were first presented, in shorter versions, at the joint ASA/CAAS Conference (Montréal, 1999) — addresses the work of American women variously engaged in contexts of cultural diversity and grappling with the ideas of what it means to be an American and a woman, particularly in the twentieth century. These essays approach, from different angles, the definitional quandaries and semantic difficulties encountered when speaking about the self and the United States and provide, in one way or another, a sort of feminine rewriting of American myths and history.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologi

Intercultural dialogue with Indonesian state sector language teacher educators about the epistemology of ELT INSET

This is a study through, and of, intercultural dialogue about the epistemology of in-service courses (INSET) for Indonesian primary and secondary state sector teachers of English. The dialogue was with the local experienced and novice language teacher educators from the English Department of an INSET centre attached to the Indonesian Ministry of National Education. The dialogue took place in Indonesia and was conducted almost exclusively in English. Beliefs about the epistemology of INSET in English language teaching (ELT INSET) are understood to be the value attached to, and the perceived relationship between, the different forms of language teacher knowledge that feature in the ELT INSET classroom. The participants’ epistemological beliefs were co-constructed through different forms of dialogue, incorporated in a range of activities designed both for research and professional learning purposes. These activities included the observation of, and post-observation dialogue about, two of the experienced language teacher educators’ ELT INSET classroom practices. The study of intercultural dialogue dimension to the thesis is a product of a reflexive stance on such activities in an intercultural context where issues of language, power, rapport and role expectations were heightened. The participants’ epistemological beliefs were found to reflect much current international thinking about language teacher learning, and there were numerous areas of correspondence between stated beliefs and observed ELT INSET classroom practices. The dialogue “pushed” the participants to make principled justifications of their ELT INSET classroom practices, and to consider additional and alternative practices. The study makes a range of recommendations related to the spirit, scope, sequence, content and management of intercultural dialogue about the epistemology of ELT INSET, for both research and language teacher educator professional learning purposes

AN INVESTIGATION OF ACADEMIC WRITING IN INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION

Writing and the power of the written word is a very important aspect of our literate society and writing is integrated into all aspects of our daily life. Good writing skills are paramount in social and educational institutions where textual production and related writing activities represent the main framework for knowledge production and dissemination (MacArthur, Graham, Fitzgerald, 2006). According to MacArthur et al. (2006), writing allows us to communicate with others who are removed by distance and time; it can foster and preserve a sense of heritage and purpose among larger groups of people, and can convey knowledge and ideas that represent an important and essential part of any sociocultural and educational system. Writing not only is representative of knowledge in a specific cultural and social system but also and more importantly, is fundamental for knowledge production and dissemination in any social, cultural and educational institution (Tolchinsky, 2006). vi The purpose of this study was to investigate the acquisition of academic writing in international students by using Vygotskys system of meaning as theoretical and methodological framework. The use of Vygotsky\u27s theory was crucial to unfold the dynamic processes of academic writing in English as L2 in the participants in this study. The analysis of academic writing in English as L2 at the intersection of the sociocultural and cognitive is the first step in investigating academic writing by applying a more systematic theoretical lens in second language writing and writers.\u2