Learning from multilingual teachers of English

The changing nature of English Language teaching in today’s world, driven by the forces of Globalisation, prompts a number of questions about the roles and identities of English language teachers. Previously acceptable dichotomies, notably ‘native/non-native speaker’ and ‘Centre/Periphery’ are consequently being challenged in studies of who teaches English, where they teach it and what they teach. I embarked on the current study because I felt that the ‘native/non-native’ dichotomy did not adequately describe the knowledge and skills of English teachers I had worked with worldwide. I developed a qualitative interpretative approach, as befitted the interpersonal nature of the study, and gathered data by recording conversations with fifteen participants from seven countries about their experiences of learning, using and teaching English in their contexts. The rich content they provided enabled me to delve below the oft-quoted dichotomies and uncover qualities rarely acknowledged in multilingual teachers. The most important features identified in the study concern the diminished importance of the ‘native speaker’ and the concomitant growth in the confidence of the multilingual teacher. My data reveals that this confidence has been acquired through depth of linguistic knowledge, through observance of other cultures, and through resistance to the encroachment of English by finding a place for the language which satisfies the needs of multilingual users without requiring subservience. In discovering these strengths of multilingual teachers, my exploration of their contexts demonstrates the importance of stepping outside the boundaries of one’s own limited environment and appreciating the range and depth of knowledge which individual English teachers are able to draw on to take ownership of their professionalism

Studies in the linguistic sciences. 08 (1978)

MLA international bibliography of books and articles on the modern languages and literatures (Complete edition) 0024-821

Colonial mutations of caste in Tamil Nadu : an essay on space and untouchability, with special reference to Madurai district, c.1500-1990

After the lengthy war of conquest, the British installed the Permanent Settlement on much of the dry zone of south India. This was part of an original pacification plan designed to be temporary; however, colonial interests later decided that it was politically convenient to maintain some of the "native rank" in the country. These zamindari estates became precisely the area where caste-inducing pseudo-jajmani systems enjoyed a colonized efflorescence. These changes occurred in the nineteenth century; not all of the peculiar traditions of the south Indian social world pre-date the colonial kali yuga

Gurus and Media: Sound, image, machine, text and the digital

Gurus and Media is the first book dedicated to media and mediation in domains of public guruship and devotion. Illuminating the mediatisation of guruship and the guru-isation of media, it bridges the gap between scholarship on gurus and the disciplines of media and visual culture studies. It investigates guru iconographies in and across various time periods and also the distinctive ways in which diverse gurus engage with and inhabit different forms of media: statuary, games, print publications, photographs, portraiture, films, machines, social media, bodies, words, graffiti, dolls, sound, verse, tombs and more. The book’s interdisciplinary chapters advance, both conceptually and ethnographically, our understanding of the function of media in the dramatic production of guruship, and reflect on the corporate branding of gurus and on mediated guruship as a series of aesthetic traps for the captivation of devotees and others. They show how different media can further enliven the complex plurality of guruship, for instance in instantiating notions of ‘absent-present’ guruship and demonstrating the mutual mediation of gurus, caste and Hindutva. Throughout, the book foregrounds contested visions of the guru in the development of devotional publics and pluriform guruship across time and space. Thinking through the guru’s many media entanglements in a single place, the book contributes new insights to the study of South Asian religions and to the study of mediation more broadly

The Potential Use of Slow-down Technology to Improve Pronounciation of English for International Communication

The focus of this research is on oral communication between L1 (first language) and L2 (second language) English users - to determine whether an algorithm which slows down speech can increase the intelligibility of speech between interlocutors for EIC (English for International Communication). The slow-down facility is a CALL tool which slows down speech without tonal distortion. It allows English language learners more processing time to hear individual phonemes as produced in the stream of connected speech, to help them hear and produce phonemes more accurately and thus more intelligibly. The study involved five tests, all concerned with the intelligibility of English speech. The first test looked at L2:L2 English communication and levels of receptive intelligibility, while Tests 2 and 3 focused on testing the slow-down for receptive communication – to help L2 users to process speech by slowing it down and thus making the speech signal more accessible. Tests 4 and 5 changed focus, testing the slow-down speech tool as a means of enhancing the intelligibility of L2 speech production, namely individual phoneme production, as little research has been carried out in this area and phoneme discrimination can greatly increase the intelligibility of an L2 speaker’s pronunciation. Test 5, the main test, used a qualitative analysis of a pre- and post test and a number of questionnaires to assess subjects’ progress in developing intelligible English phoneme production across three groups: the Test Group, who used the slow-down speech tool, the Control Group, who undertook similar pronunciation training but without the application of the slow-down tool and the Non-Interference Group, who received no formal pronunciation training whatsoever. The study also ascertained and evaluated the effects of other variables on the learning process, such as length of time learning English, daily use of English, attitudes to accents, and so forth

Proceedings of the 42nd Australian Linguistic Society Conference - 2011

ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences, School of Language Studies; ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, School of Culture, History and Languag

Beauty and Esthetics. Meanings of an Idea and Concept of the Senses. An Introduction to an Esthetic Communication Concept Facing the Perspectives Of Its Theory, History, and Cultural Traditions of the Beautiful.

When we ask for the definitions and forms of esthetics from a post-modern perspective, we must take into account that the perspective today is a re-constructive one allowing us to trace back historically, but also allowing various forms of research such as empirical research, or quantitative and qualitative research. This book is devided into chapters. Each of them has a different approach towards esthetics according to the definition of esthetics as a theoretical field, esthetics as a phenomenon of beauty, and esthetics as a specific phenomenon in a certain cultural context. We will focus on the contemporary state of research regarding esthetics from branches of the humanities and natural sciences. Our interest here is to join the classical theoretical terminology of esthetics derived from the humanities with contemporary concepts of research also not related to the humanities