Teaching English as a Glocalized Communication (TEGCOM): Some Empirical Examples / Ribut Wahyudi

The purpose of this article is to discuss my own auto ethnographical reflection of teaching experiences obtained during a 6 month Discourse Analysis course back in 2013. I will discuss my teaching experiences in relation to the TEGCOM and its related literatures. I then showcase what and how my teaching experience matches with the pedagogy. I use the following TEGCOM (Lin, Wang, Akamatsu & Riazi (2002; 2005) reference to contextualize the Western materials to students’ cultural contexts. In this paper, I use auto-ethnography (Cauley, 2008; Ellis, Adam, Bochner, 2011) in elaborating my experience of teaching Discourse Analysis course, an empowering methodology which allows the personal story through the use of pronoun “I” (Dyson, 2007)

Situating English Language Teaching in Indonesia within a Critical, Global Dialogue of Theories: A Case Study of Teaching Argumentative Writing and Cross-Cultural Understanding Courses

This dissertation aims to critically examine lecturers’ discursive statements in interviews and English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom practices in Indonesia, primarily in the teaching of Argumentative Writing (AW) and Cross Cultural Understanding (CCU) courses at two universities (Multi-Religious and Islamic University) in Java. This study uses poststructural and interdisciplinary lenses: Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA); Connell’s (2007) ideas of Southern Theory, Kumaravadivelu’s (2006b) Post Method Pedagogy, and Al-Faruqi’s (1989) and Al-Attas’ (1993) Islamisation of knowledge, as well as the critiques of these theories and other postcolonial voices. The critical examination of ELT practices through poststructural and interdisciplinary lenses in an Indonesian context is urgent, as teaching practices at present are subjected by competing regimes of ‘truth’ including Western, neoliberal, Southern, and Islamic discourses. The data were collected from curriculum policy documents, semi structured interviews, stimulated recalls and classroom observations from seven lecturers. The data were then transcribed and analysed primarily using FDA and also discussed in relation to other interdisciplinary theories, the critiques of these theories, and other relevant postcolonial literatures. Within the analysis there is a particular focus on how ELT Methods and World Englishes are enacted, negotiated, or resisted by lecturers. This study strongly suggests that Western discourses have dominated other regimes of truth, as evidenced in the privileging of process and genre approaches, global Northern structures of AW essay, as well as an emphasis on American and British English in AW courses and the privileging of those two dominant English varieties in CCU courses in most contexts. The study also suggests there are tensions between religious discourse and emerging neoliberal discourses in national policies and university documents and some lecturers’ language. Southern discourses seem to have been marginalised and seem to be only resorted to support the use of Western discourses in the classroom teaching. The use of FDA and interdisciplinary lenses, along with their critiques and other postcolonial voices, are underexplored in current studies of ELT practices. Therefore,this study extends scholarship in the ELT field and makes a case for exposing lecturers to counter discourses, such as Southern and Islamic discourses, in order for them to be able to critically negotiate or appropriate Western and neoliberal discourses in their teaching practices

A Critical review of "Understanding changes in Chinese students’ strategy uses of learning strategies in China and Britain: A socio-cultural re-interpretation" by Gao, X (2006)

Doing a critical review of a research report in language learning is very crucial for at least two aspects. Firstly, it can sharpen the horizon of research methods and techniques for researchers, language educators, and graduate students. Secondly, it will open a broader perspective of language learning itself and its related issues. These two aspects certainly take an important role in the teaching L2 language and SLA research, upon which this critical review stands

SECOND LANGUAGE LITERACY PRACTICES: A CASE STUDY OF A CHINESE STUDENT IN AUSTRALIA

This article discusses the second-language literacy practice of an ESL student in Australia. It firstly explores the literacy practices (reading and writing) exercised both in China (the subject’s home country) and in Sydney, Australia, where the subject was taking an academic preparation course prior to her master study. Secondly, this article delves into literacy practices conducted inside and outside the classroom in the same contexts. This research aims to contribute to the existing literature on literacy practices by expanding the focus of investigation beyond writing and by bringing up a specific case study, which is hardly addressed in the literature: a Chinese student in non-American education setting. Through analyzing the results of semi-structured interview, it is revealed that the participant adopted several different literacy practices in reading and writing due to different learning objectives and contexts.Â

Gender, Language and Politics: the Representation of Theresa May on Twitter

The relationship between women leaders’ language, social media, and politics has been interesting to be discussed.  However, there are lacks previous studies that examined the women leaders’ language and how the word choices represent women leaders on Twitter.Thus, this study aims to find out Theresa May’s language on Twitter and how those word choices represent herself as a woman leader. The data are taken from the tweets on Theresa May’s Twitter account over the last six months of her leadership reign (from January until July 2019), which focused on her crucial tweets about politics and leadership. The researchers adopted four theories to capture and analyze the data from different angles to produce the rich analysis of Theresa May’s word choices and representation on Twitter. The study revealed several word choices used by Theresa May into four categories: (1) announcement tweets, (2) attack/negative tweets, (3) personal characteristics, and (4) policy. Furthermore, the study also found that Theresa May utilized those word choices to represent herself as a political leader. She also used metaphors and pronouns to shape the desired representation. Furthermore, not all PDA elements by Fairclough Fairclough (2012) were employed due to the limited characters number on Twitter or other possible purpose(s). This study is beneficial to enrich the knowledge on how the use of language by woman leader is implicated within social and political contexts of a country. The Linguistics analysis on gender, language, and politics is another take away from this research

Ambiguities and tensions in English language teaching: Portraits of EFL teachers as legitimate speaker

Using post structural approach, this book explores the three EFL teachers’ experience in Oaxaca, Mexico named Carlos, Rocio and Hilario. All of three teachers gained undergraduate degree in TESOL from the local university. At the time of research, the three teachers had three year teaching experience (Sayer, 2012). The major themes of the book are tensions and contradictions experienced by those three teachers in the effort of performing their identities in their profession toward US-English Ideology (Sayer, 2012). Legitimacy, symbolic competence and performativity are of the central themes where Carlos, Rocio and Hilario went through struggles before getting their first teaching experience (Sayer, 2012). Native speakerism, race discrimination and the necessity to have ‘payala’(connection) in teacher union are the hurdles during process of job-seeking. In addition to teaching objectives from the ministry of education, emigration to North America and the historical relation between Mexico and US mark the teaching process in the classroom (Sayer, 2012). More detail elaborations are given in the following paragraphs designating eight chapters

What does Good Language Learner (GLL) say about foreign language learning? a story from an Indonesian learner

Learning a foreign language could either be problematic or simplistic. For those who have learnt a foreign language (e.g. English) for along period of time but no significant progress it might be discouraging. On the other hand, for the successful learner it might be just an ‘’affordable price’’ to get through. This paper draws on a successful foreign language learning experience by an Indonesian learner of English. Having no English background, along with the learner’s non-linear degree courses makes this success story unique. The data was taken through questionnaire sent through email and Facebook correspondence, in which the respondent answered the set of questions and the researcher clarified for further explanation if the answer was not clear enough. The result of the questionnaire seems to indicate that the respondent characterizes some characteristics of good language learners (Rubin, 1975). However, there are domains in which the respondent’s personal narratives do differ with the characteristics of good language learners as has been described in the former studies

Reflective Teaching, Post Method Pedagogy and Teacher Professional Development and How These Interrelate to Each Other and Improve Classroom Teaching

Reflective teaching is an activity to recall what has been done in the classroom, and evaluate the process of teaching itself. The purpose of doing this is to improve the quality of teaching (Richard in http://www.tttjournal.co.uk; Tice, 2011) through data collection (Bailey, 1997). It is the attitude of questioning the practice of teacher’s profession (Bailey, 1997). The principles of doing this is by peer observation, written account of experiences, self-reports, auto biographies, journal writing, collaborative diary keeping and recording lessons (Richard in http://www.tttjournal.co.uk), student’s feedback (Tice, 2011), teacher’s stories (Bailey, 1997). Reflective teaching has been proven to learning effectiveness (Taghilou, 2007) and ‘encouraging growth and improving pedagogical knowledge and professional development for pre-service teachers’ (Rodman, 2010). This could be one of possible ways of teacher’s professional development, in which teachers act as adult learner and the facilitator in education system (Borko, 2004), focus on student’s learning, includes training, practice and feedback, is on going process, collaborative etc Haqq 1995 (cited in Wilson and Berne, 1999). The practice of reflective teaching as a way of professional development could, in my opinion, be integrated in the Post Method Pedagogy (Kumaravadivelu, 1994; 2006) which advocates three pedagogic parameters; particularity, practicality and possibility. Particularity refers to a ‘context sensitive pedagogy’, practicality means ‘theorize what teachers practice and practice what teachers theorize’, and possibility means ‘the social, political, educational and institutional forces that shape identity formation and social transformation’ (p.184). The integration might be possible as primarily, in particularity and practicality parameters, teachers should have a reflection on what they teach in what context and how they teach a particular subject, the things that might also facilitate professional development. This paper will explore the interconnection among reflective teaching, post method pedagogy and teacher professional development. At the end of the paper, the writer will share my experiences of teaching as a reflection and a way of developing professio