Facing the Mirror: Dilemmas and Issues Encountered on a TESOL programme in an International University Environment

Abstract: This paper investigates the experiences of three postgraduate students studying on an MA TESOL and Applied Linguistics course in a British university context. It demonstrates how subtle discourses of „ownership‟ of English (Holliday, 2014; Pennycook, 1994, 2001; Kumaravadevelu, 2003) persist in such training contexts, despite the general shift towards internationalizing higher education environments in the UK. The paper will discuss how the participants negotiated the teaching practice components of the course, and the issues they faced through being „non-native‟ speakers of English. It further examines the impact this had on their professional development and self-perceptions of „legitimacy‟ as teachers of English. The different constructs of a TESOL teacher are discussed and the need for a heightened awareness of training needs for teachers across diverse contexts

Innovative Education, President\u27s Progress Report 2017

How can academic leadership create a culture of INNOVATION? How can faculty more effectively convey their KNOWLEDGE? How can students learn the skills, traits, and process to become future INNOVATORS

Relational pedagogy for student engagement and success at university

The Australian Government's policy to transform higher education by 2020 includes plans to significantly raise the levels of undergraduate enrolment by people of low socio-economic status. In light of this policy direction, this article examines how a group of undergraduate students of low socio-economic status work to maintain their desire for learning and to remain included in the university system despite experiencing cultural processes of exclusion. As the students reflect on the cultural and pedagogical conditions that promote, support and enhance their participation and engagement in higher education, a picture emerges of the importance of students' relationships with academics. Whilst positive relationships help students to remain engaged, negative experiences work against continuing participation and engagement. Given the desire of the Australian government to increase participation in higher education by students from under-represented groups, this research identifies some challenges and possibilities for both universities and academics

Does gender matter in online learning?

It is generally noted that computing is gendered, with women opting out of IT. Will the impact of online learning change this? Some researchers claim that women are disadvantaged in online courses. Others argue that we need a ‘women‐friendly cyber‐classroom’. Yet our experience is that the women achieve better results than the men; it is loner males that are disadvantaged by distance learning. We argue that online courses need to be people‐friendly so that no learners are disadvantaged

'First Portal in a Storm': A Virtual Space for Transition Students

The lives of millennial students are epitomised by ubiquitous information, merged technologies, blurred social-study-work boundaries, multitasking and hyperlinked online interactions (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005). These characteristics have implications for the design of online spaces that aim to provide virtual access to course materials, administrative processes and support information, all of which is required by students to steer a course through the storm of their transition university experience. Previously we summarised the challenges facing first year students (Kift & Nelson, 2005) and investigated their current online engagement patterns, which revealed three issues for consideration when designing virtual spaces (Nelson, Kift & Harper, 2005). In this paper we continue our examination of students’ interactions with online spaces by considering the perceptions and use of technology by millennial students as well as projections for managing the virtual learning environments of the future. The findings from this analysis are informed by our previous work to conceptualise and describe the architecture of a transition portal