Title:
Reflective Practices in Language Education & Research: Towards a Shared Culture of Professional Identity Development (Online Seminar)
Date:
29 January 2021
* transformed into an online event due to the Corona crisis
Objectives:
Disseminating the project outcomes of the E-Portfolio (IO 2) and the Qualification Handbook (IO 3) by organizing a half-day event, consisting of a series of talks and discussions on multi/plurilingual education and research scrutinizing the theoretical and practical dimensions of professional identity development. The event aims to offer a dialogic paltform for the exchange of knowledge and experience on a range of topics including the use of e-tools for supporting reflective practice on multi/plurilingual education and research; affordances and constraints involved in online teaching and research in multi/plurilingual contexts; ethical concerns; enhancing networking and collaboration.
Target group:
Expanding local and international communities of practitioners and researchers in the field of language education, esp. language teachers, early career researchers, teacher educators and doctoral supervisors.
REGISTRATION FREE but REQUIRED through https://enrope.eu/applications/multiplier-event-2-istanbul-registration-form
Agenda: 29 January 2021, 14:00-18:00 (IST-time)
14.00-14:10 -Welcoming and Zoom Connection
Dr.Özlem Etuş İstanbul University, Cerrahpaşa
14:10-14:30 - The ENROPE project – promoting reflection on multi- and plurilingualism in educational linguistics research
Prof. Dr. Stephan Breidbach, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Multilingualism comes in many different guises in academic research, as a research topic in its own right in applied and sociolinguistics, but also as a variable mediating learning in educational contexts. Also, multilingualism appears as a factor impacting on research itself, e.g. in multilingual research environments and research groups, or at the personal level of the individual researchers, who, more often than not, are themselves plurilingual. The ENROPE project conducted by the Langscape research network and partners is an EU-funded endeavour to bring these and further issues of multi- and plurilingualism to the attention of early-career researchers, provide opportunities for professional reflection, and, last but not least, build and extend international co-operations and networks.This presentation will briefly introduce the ENROPE project, its conceptual background and aims, and serves as an opening for the more detailed insights into the different products and tools the project group has to offer in the following sessions of today’s multiplier event.
14:30 -14:50- The ENROPE E-portfolio- Reflective tools for Multi/Plurilingual Research and Education
Dr. Özlem Etuş & Dr. Devrim Günay, İstanbul Üniversitesi-Cerrahpaşa
In alignment with the Enrope project’s aim, the talk addresses professional development and professional self-reflection for emerging researchers and practicing teachers who are engaged in multi/pluri-lingual research and education. Towards this end, the Enrope-E-portfolio will be introduced as an online reflective tool offering a dialogic platform for the exchange of knowledge and experience among teachers, researchers and teacher educators and supervisors at an international scope. The participants will find a first-hand opportunity to explore how specifically designed tasks in three complementary sections of the e-portfolio (autobiography, competencies, showcase) contribute to professional identity development in pluri/multilingual research and education, enhance networking opportunities among interested parties and pave the way for abridging academic learning with professional life.
14:50- 15:10- Online language education in K12: Changes and challenges
Prof. Dr. Derin Atay, Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi
This talk will present online practicum period experienced by pre-service teachers enrolled at the English language education department of a competitive university in Istanbul. With the COVİD-19 outbreak, the pre-service teachers experienced both the School Experience and Practice Teaching courses in online platforms. They observed English classes in different grades and in different schools and had their micro and macro teaching practices under the supervision of their e-mentors. This talk will address the reflections of pre-service teachers regarding language teaching in online classes: To what extent is it possible to boost the communicative competence of learners in English in an online class? What are the new roles of the English language teacher within this “new” learning environment? Which strategies used by the teachers are effective for increasing student engagement in class activities? These reflections will shed light on the changing face of language education.
15:10-15:30 Question and Answers
15:30-15:40 break
15:40-16:00-- Teaching English in ENRICHed multilingual/multicultural contexts: Changing ELT practices in Turkey
Prof. Dr. Yasemin Bayyurt, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi
The field of ELT has been going through a change in the last two decades in terms of the conceptualization of language teaching materials, curriculum development and English language teacher profile in Turkey. Thanks to the English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) or Global Englishes (GEs) paradigms for enabling teachers, learners, parents and other stakeholders/decision makers aware of the fact that English no longer belongs to its native speakers. Recent approaches to ELF-awareness in ELT focus on the need to raise English language teachers’ and learners’ awareness towards the language used in ELF interactions instructed language learning settings where students are exposed to English in various domains of language use besides formal instruction in their language classrooms. In countries like Turkey, traditionally, in the private school sector, teachers from the inner circle countries have been hired besides Turkish nationals. However, with the changing foreign language education policies in Turkey that target closer connections with the non-Western world, more teachers from countries outside the inner circle have been recruited, provided they meet the pedagogic and language requirements. In addition to the languages they bring with them in their repertoires, these teachers speak English and, in varying degrees, Turkish. This multilingual profile is mostly visible in the K-12 private schools all over Turkey, as English is one of the most important assets they market themselves with, and have the resources to invest in. In this paper, I will discuss how teachers’ in the ENRICH project transformed their understanding of concepts like “nativeness/nonnativeness”, “ownership of English”, “accented language use” from a traditional EFL perspective to a more multilingual/multicultural one in the context of a metropolitan city which has been undergoing a profound change in terms of its linguistic landscapes and schoolscapes during the last decade. Hence, the focus of this presentation will be on how institutional policies influence the construction of the teachers’ multilingual and multicultural identities in their professional practice as English teachers and program developers. The aim is to demonstrate the complexities involved in these constructions through close analysis of teachers’ reflections on questions related to their conceptualizations of ELF and its connection to their teaching context.
Keywords: ELF, ELF-awareness, Teacher Identity, Multilingual/Multicultural Contexts, Linguistic Landscapes, Schoolscapes
16:00-16:20-- Multilingualism in ELT: voices from the classroom
Dr.Dilek İnal, İstanbul Üniversitesi-Cerrahpaşa
The world becoming increasingly multilingual and people having access to and acquiring proficiency at varying levels in more than one language undoubtedly resonate in the context of ELT. Questions have been raised about the effects of monolingual instructional practices and the role of learners’ other languages and the manner and extent they will be encouraged to draw from them has been debated extensively. The more visible and audible linguistic diversity has become in society at large and at school in particular, the stronger has become the need to perceive languages as “part of a larger ecology” (Murray & Scarino, 2014) and adopt approaches to support their co-existence. What implications these had for the EFL classroom and how the teachers could tackle linguistic diversity have emerged as significant issues to address. This presentation will report on the discussions conducted by pre-service teachers in Practicum on their previous plurilingual language learning experiences followed by their observations of and reflections on the linguistic ecosystem of English classrooms in a variety of school settings in Istanbul.
Murray, N., & Scarino, A. (Eds.). (2014). Dynamic ecologies. A relational perspective on language education in the Asia-Pacific region. Dordrecht: Springer.
16:20-16:40 – Designing Multilingual 3D VR Games and Augmented Reality Dictionary App
Dr.Tuncer Can, İstanbul Üniversitesi-Cerrahpaşa
The talk will look at the results of two different EU funded Erasmus+ Projects aiming at designing multilingual products for learners with migration background. GUINEVERE Project seeks to develop Multilingual 3D VR Games for learners to indulge into play while learning a foreign language in the form of avatars and YOUALLS Project that aims at developing an app that works as a dictionary which combines pictures of basic job-related materials and situations with the corresponding technical term in the languages available among the project partners, i.e. Turkish, German, Swedish, English, French, Spanish and available among their institutional networks established when schooling learners with a migration background, e.g. Polish, Romanian, Arabic and Dari. The app has a dictionary mode and an augmented-reality mode where a camera can scan single words, text and pictures of job-related materials leading to the relevant term in the user’s pre-selected language in five occupational fields identified in a needs analysis in all participating countries are: catering, construction, nursing, metal motor mechanics.
16:40-17:00 Question and Answers
17:00-17:10 break
17:10-17:30 Expanding monolingual (English) practices in academia: contexts, modes and opportunities of researching plurilingually
Prof. Dr. Britta Viebrock, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
My presentation will focus on contexts, modes and opportunities of multi- and plurilingual research within the predominantly monolingual English practices in international academic discourse. The world is multilingual and, thus, calls for multilingual approaches to research, to which plurilingual researchers can make a substantial contribution and help provide underrepresented populations with a voice – or develop their own voice for that matter. But within the logic of the academic system these opportunities are challenged by the dominance of English. In career development terms, plurilingual researchers are often not rewarded for their contributions in languages other than English. This situation leaves them with a number of complex choices: Should they comply to the requirements and, therefore, stabilise a predominantly monolingual system whereas their research interests are clearly geared towards multi- and plurilingualism? Or should they engage in more subversive behaviour and focus on the accessibility of research results in the local communities where it was produced? After a brief introduction to the topic and an outline of the problem, I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of multilingual research approaches and then systematise specific decision-making domains (e.g. with regard to the collection, analysis, dissemination of multilingual data as well as those involved – researchers, study participants, academic context). I will argue that it is the responsibility of established researchers to offer new ways of dealing with multilingual research contexts and support early career researchers in finding their own voice as a plurilingual researcher.
17:30-17:50 What is ENROPE for us? Voices of Enropers
Bahram M. Behjoo, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Dr. Ceren Cirit Işıklıgil ,İstanbul Üniversitesi-Cerrahpaşa
Jane Elizabeth Mitchell-Smith, Universitat Ramon Llull
Marta Maria Röder, Universität Siegen
Hanife Tasdemir, İstanbul Üniversitesi- Cerrahpaşa
In this session, we, Enrope participants are going to talk about what Enrope means to us. We will share why we wanted to participate in this project in the first place, returns of being an Enroper so far, and what we hope to achieve in the future Enrope activities. We believe that being in a project which aims to make our voice heard and provide a cooperative platform by bringing senior and early career researchers as well as teachers together contributes to our professional identities in various ways. Therefore, knowing that reflection is a component of Enrope Competency Model, as early career researchers, we will voice our thoughts and share our opinions with the Enrope community.
17:50-18:00 Question and Answers & Concluding Remarks