Project Driven Business English Teaching Model Based on Flipped Classroom
145814657
Research on Oral English Flipped Classroom Project Based Teaching Model Based on Cooperative Learning in China
Project based teaching method is a new task driven and project oriented teaching mode, it has become an effective means of practical teaching. However, in the process of project based teaching, there are also some problems, such as difficult to control classroom teaching time and so on. As a new teaching mode under the background of informationization, flipped classroom can fully realize students' principal position in learning activities. Based on the applied research of English oral flipped classroom teaching, the concept of flipped classroom teaching is integrated into project based teaching in this paper. By using flipped classroom and cooperative learning, students can reduce the time of teachers' classroom instruction and increase the time of students' participation in project practice through independent learning of network courseware before class, it can make up for the shortcoming of classroom teaching time in project based teaching.
Xiao Fan
202284645
Research on New Model of Business English Negotiation Talent Cultivation Based on Flipped Classroom Mode
The new teaching model of flipping classrooms has been widely used in business English negotiation talents in recent years. With the valuable time in the classroom, students can concentrate more on active project based learning, jointly study and solve the challenges of localization or globalization and other real world problems, thus gaining a deeper understanding. Teachers no longer occupy classroom time to teach information, which requires students to complete autonomous learning before class. They can watch video lectures, listen to podcasts, read enhanced e books, and discuss with other students on the Internet, and access the required materials at any time. Teachers can also have more time to communicate with everyone. This model subverts the traditional teaching mode and is loved by teachers and students. Through the application of flipped classroom in business English negotiation course teaching, this paper draws a conclusion that flipped classroom is very helpful to the smooth development of business English negotiation classroom activities and to the improvement of learners' autonomous learning ability and business negotiation skills in the process of training business English negotiation talents.
Dan Xu
203577763
Research on New Model of Business English Negotiation Talent Cultivation Based on Flipped Classroom Mode
The new teaching model of flipping classrooms has been widely used in business English negotiation talents in recent years. With the valuable time in the classroom, students can concentrate more on active project based learning, jointly study and solve the challenges of localization or globalization and other real world problems, thus gaining a deeper understanding. Teachers no longer occupy classroom time to teach information, which requires students to complete autonomous learning before class. They can watch video lectures, listen to podcasts, read enhanced e books, and discuss with other students on the Internet, and access the required materials at any time. Teachers can also have more time to communicate with everyone. This model subverts the traditional teaching mode and is loved by teachers and students. Through the application of flipped classroom in business English negotiation course teaching, this paper draws a conclusion that flipped classroom is very helpful to the smooth development of business English negotiation classroom activities and to the improvement of learners' autonomous learning ability and business negotiation skills in the process of training business English negotiation talents.
Dan Xu
54917883
The Project Based Flipped Learning Model in Business English Translation Course: Learning, Teaching and Assessment
This study designs a project based flipped learning model for Business English Translation course and tests its efficacy by an empirical study on 65 third year English major students divided into the experimental class and control class. This study incorporates the learning, teaching and assessment activities of both the students and teachers into a project based flipped learning model by setting translation projects and dividing the students of the experimental class into a client group and three translator groups in each business translation unit. After one 16 week semester of experiment, this study conducts a post test, questionnaires and interviews on both the experimental class and control class to test the efficacy of this new flipped learning model. The statistics and facts collected from the above mentioned research methods suggest that the project based flipped learning model can significantly enhance the students' motivation to learn out of class, stimulate their participation in class and raise their self evaluation on translation competence. Additionally, this study finds that the traditional product oriented summative assessment model is ineffective for Business English Translation course in a flipped learning context. Therefore, this study tentatively proposes a process oriented assessment model that is compatible to the flipped learning methodology so as to build integrated flipped classroom pedagogy with teaching, learning and assessment in a virtuous circle of mutual reinforcing.
Lijun Deng
63279025
Research on Practical Training Model for Business English Majors "Project driven" Based on Constructivism Theory
As an important part of practice teaching for business English majors,practical training plays a vital role in improving students' competence and skills.Intending to initiate a new approach that is different from the traditional teacher centered practical training model,the paper puts forward project driven based model.Under constructivism theory,this model advocates that students should be the center of the classroom,where they complete a practical training project in a simulated business situation.It is hoped that this model can arouse students' learning initiative and help to develop their overall professional competence so as to meet the needs of the domestic market.
Wang Qing
198601244
English Abilities Improvement in Vocational Colleges with ETIC
This paper introduces the existing problems and their causes of English teaching in vocational colleges and universities, and creatively puts forward the idea of combining ETIC with traditional teaching to solve the problem of cultivating talents' English communication ability. Then, the paper discusses the inspiration of ETIC to English teaching and the principles of designing specific tasks in English teaching. Last it discusses how teachers should position their roles in this model. Keywords ETIC; vocational colleges; English ability; talent training I. BACKGROUND OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION The National Vocational Education Reform Implementation Plan, officially announced on February 13, 2019 points out that vocational education should be placed in a more prominent position in education reform, innovation and economic and social development. Vocational education should be diversified to serve the needs of China's economic development and cultivate high quality vocational talents. At present, China's economic development is characterized by deepening supply side structural reform, and China's economic growth will shift from demand driven to supplydriven. The core of supply driven is the improvement of efficiency, which mainly relies on human capital rather than material capital [1] During the Two Sessions on March 5, 2019, Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council pointed out in the government work report that higher vocational colleges will expand enrollment by 1 million, indicating that all walks of life in China's social development are in urgent need of high quality vocational skilled personnel to push economic development to a new level. At the same time, China is implementing the strategy of "The Belt and Road" Policy. At this moment, President Xi Jinping is visiting Italy, and advancing the policy of "The Belt and Road" is one of the purposes of his visit. That is to say, after our economic development has entered the second stage of socialist market economy, scientific and technological innovation is the main driving force of economic development, so senior talents also naturally become the first element of market competition. After the Two Sessions, our country clearly proclaimed to deepen the Reform and Open Policy, which means that China's economic development will be more closely connected with the world, so the demand of talents is also diversified and internationalized. With their international communication ability, China's advanced ideas will be better accepted by the world in the field of science and technology, culture, politics, etc. II. THE RESEARCH SITUATION OF VOCATIONAL ENGLISH AT HOME AND ABROAD With the input of the subject "English in vocational schools" on CNKI, 1,133 papers were obtained. It was found that the research on English teaching in vocational colleges began in the late 1990s and showed a sharp rise at the beginning of 2000. With the strong support of the state, it will surely embrace a new research climax. Vocational college students' English mainly through taking general use English, English for special purposes (ESP, EOP professional English, including research on taking English teaching reform, such as increasing business English course, guided by market demand, reform of teaching materials, teaching under the background of the Internet English teaching model research, with English skills competition to promote the teaching and so on. Vocational college students' English are improved mainly through English for General Purposes (EGP) English for Special Purposes (ESP) English for Occupation Purposes (EOP) Besides, there are many researches on EGP English teaching reform, such as increasing business English courses, reforming textbooks and teaching based on market demand, studying English teaching mode under the background of Internet, promoting teaching through English skill competition, etc. Foreign vocational English education started earlier, and some representative figures, such as M. K. Gillespie, Elizabeth Plat and Japan's Gaomu Jiudai, are devoted in their studies on vocational English training courses (VESL) [2] As for the research of the development of the vocational English course teacher, Nunan D. points out that the university language teachers' professional development refers to the teachers' growing process in vocational skills, teaching experience and attitude. Teachers should not only accept classroom skills training but also the development of language teaching ability test, capability assessment and scientific research methods such as theory of course of study to make teachers from the height of the theory to understand and grasp the students' classroom learning [3] According to the study of ESP by 1. China Language Assessment (No. ZGWYCPJJ2018046B) 2. Major Education Reform Funds of Tianjin Agricultural University (2017 E 00) 3. The Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Project 2018. Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 322 2nd International Seminar on Education Research and Social Science (ISERSS 2019) Copyright (c) 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY NC license (http:/creativecommons.org/licenses/by nc/4.0/ 171 Hutchinson &Waters(1987) since the 1960s, ESP has gone through five stages of development, namely, the stage of semantic analysis, of rhetoric or discourse analysis, of target situation analysis, of language skill analysis and the learningcentered stage. III. PROBLEMS IN ENGLISH TEACHING IN VOCATIONAL COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES IN CHINA The document Several opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Vocational Education Teaching Reform Improving the Quality of Personnel Training[4] vocational education to the fusion, between production and education cooperation, international cooperation in teaching standards development, explicitly stipulates vocational education should integrate production and teaching, cooperate with and enterprises, strengthen international exchanges and cooperation in the development of teaching standards, curriculum construction, teacher training, student training and other aspects to promote education and teaching reform and innovation, actively participate in the formulation of international rules, and enhance the international competitiveness of China's technical personnel training. It can be seen that vocational talents are international talents who will go out and cooperate with other countries. This is such a high requirement that vocational schools are required to have the courage to shoulder the responsibility and face up to the historical mission. Basic Requirements of The Higher Vocational Education English Teaching detailedly regulates that the vocational college students in terms of communication range, could complete foreign related task, product introduction and promotion, writing letters and filling in forms, that is to say, students of vocational education should combining their own professional characteristics and keeping themselves internationalized, can complete all related business in English. However, there are still many problems in English teaching in vocational colleges and universities in China, which do not meet such high requirements. A. Students have a low level in EGP and EOP The main reason is that the quality of students is poor, and the vocational education students are generally biased by society. It is believed that only poor students will enter vocational colleges and universities, so students' English level is relatively poor; B. Poor enrollment leads to poor quality of students The poor quality is mainly reflected in the low learning consciousness, no good study habits, no lofty goal planning, not good at organizing time, not persistent in doing things and so on; C. Insufficient proportion of vocational English teaching Due to the low English level of the students, it is not easy to complete the vocational English learning after completing the teaching task of EGP. First, the vocational students need to master a large number of professional vocabularies, and they are not self conscious and have low interest in English learning, which makes it difficult to complete the EOP teaching requirements. D. Simple teaching method To a large extent, the level of students will affect the way and content of class teaching. Teachers are always afraid that students cannot understand, which limits their motivation to innovate in teaching methods and models. E. No practical textbooks Generally, EGP textbooks cannot meet the needs of professional English. Both students and teachers need to set situational tasks for their own majors in combination with actual work. The task design should not only be limited to oral English, but also to improve their wiring ability. F. No specific vocational English evaluation system With requirement to students, teaching materials, teaching unsatisfied, the evaluation system will naturally be ignored, from the perspective of the development of teaching, scientific and effective teaching evaluation system will promote both teaching and learning. G. No deep enough cooperation with enterprises School enterprise cooperation is to provide students with a good internship atmosphere and help them understand the employment requirements, which is more conducive to setting their own vocational English learning goals. However, schoolenterprise cooperation is not a simple problem, and it requires the coordination of the school, the enterprise and the government. After all, what an English teacher can do is limited. H. Lack of senior vocational English teachers At present, the state encourages double qualified teachers to engage in vocational education and teaching. For English teachers, they should be qualified to pass relevant qualification examinations, provide more detailed guidance for students and give professional suggestions on situational teaching. B
Shi-de Li
211424520
Development Trend of the Undergraduate Practical Training Mode in Private Universities
At present, the research on undergraduate practical training mode of private universities is still insufficient. With the establishment of the connotative development path of private universities, how to create a distinctive training system and mechanism is a difficult problem. This paper makes an analysis of the understanding of practical training of private undergraduate universities in Shannxi and the basic situation and trend of training development, hoping to prepare for the formation of a more mature and distinctive training system and mechanism. The Concept of Practical Training and the Development of Current Practical Training in Private Undergraduate Universities in China The Concept of Practical Training. An explanation of practical training: practical training of vocational skills refers to the teaching process of vocational and technical application ability training for students under the organization and control of schools and in accordance with the training plan and objectives of the professional talents. Another explanation of practical training is "practice" plus "training" Originally derived from the management practice and technical practice of IT industry, it has been introduced into many specialties, especially those closely related to social life. In this study, the concept of practical training is understood as: training is a kind of teaching to improve vocational skills of college students through simulated practice (practice) and real job training during the process of receiving professional education. With the change of society's requirement for talents, the educational concept and mode of universities are also changing. It has become the goal of many universities to cultivate college students with strong application of professional technology and adaptability to social environment. Because of its late start and rapid development, if private universities want to occupy a place under the current education system, they should add more practical training links in the teaching process, improve students' professional skills, and increase social recognition of private universities. Current Development of Practical Training in Shaanxi Private Undergraduate Universities. Participation in training is high. According to the survey of previous visits, more than 90% of the students have participated in various forms of training activities, and the enthusiasm of students to participate in training is very high. In school training has its own emphasis, and out of school training forms are diverse. According to the different specialties and students' interests, the emphasis of in school practical training in the five private universities surveyed is different. Generally speaking, arts are mainly based on classroom scenario simulation and social investigation, while science and engineering are mainly based on in school laboratory direct training. Out of school training includes fixed training bases, joint training of schools and enterprises, and factory type training of enterprise investment. Students' attitudes towards joint training are supposed to unite several private universities in Shaanxi Province for joint training, sharing resources, learning from each other's strengths and making up for each other's weaknesses, and most of the students are very much in favor of it. 2019 9th International Conference on Education and Social Science (ICESS 2019) Copyright (c) (2019) Francis Academic Press, UK DOI: 10.25236/icess.2019.196 1025 Development Trend of Undergraduate Practical Training Model in Private Universities Ideological Changes of Undergraduates. It is hoped that more training opportunities will be provided to improve the operability of professional learning. With the increasing amount of social information, students have learned a lot about practical training cases through TV, network and other media, some of which are good and some of which are bad. In the continuous understanding of cases, students have also carried out their own thinking and action, hoping to have more training opportunities during school, to understand the society, and understand interpersonal relationships. At the same time, through training, it is hoped that the operability of professional learning can be improved, building a platform for future further study or deep seated theoretical learning. It is hoped that more exercises will be done to improve the ability of teamwork among students. In the process of training, the completion of a project (plan) cannot be accomplished by a single person or a small group of people. It requires the unity and cooperation of students. Everyone, as a small member of the task, should take active action to complete the project (plan) smoothly. Therefore, tacit cooperation is important to provide more practical training and exercise to form this way. It is more important to have tacit cooperation, which is exactly what college students' lack. It is expected to organize a certain amount of effective training. Nowadays, people's life festival is gathering faster and faster. Everyone hopes to do more and more effective things in a limited time, so is the practical training of college students. Students all hope that the school can provide appropriate practical training, and do not fool students casually, that is, in the case of spending a lot of manpower, material and financial resources, students are still ignorant of their profession or feel that they do not get the desired effect, and some even allow students to conduct inappropriate professional training. In that way, students will complain and lose confidence in the training. Changes in Undergraduate Students' Views on Practical Training Requirements. Requirements for training times and time. Some professional training is too frequent, 2 3 times a year, with the duration of 4 6 months. On the contrary, some professional training times are too few. Students do not participate in the training once until their junior year, and the general time is one or two weeks; some have not even participated in any form of training. Therefore, students hope to balance the number and time of training. Too many times of training will make students feel exhausted and their ability to learn theoretical knowledge is not satisfactory. Too few training times will make the actual operation of students more laborious, and it is difficult to achieve the ideal training purpose. Practical training should be increased, especially in specific positions such as relevant enterprises and companies. For students, they are very eager to carry out "actual combat" especially to enter the specific positions of relevant enterprises and companies. With the help of training instructors and leaders of enterprises and companies, they can gradually apply the theoretical knowledge they have learned to specific work to achieve the purpose of learning for application, which proves that the practical training has achieved fairly good results. Students majoring in Business English, for example, have learned so much language knowledge related to economy and trade that they will inevitably abandon it if they do not engage in "actual combat" and this kind of learning itself will be meaningless. The important link of practical training matching position. For students of different majors, matching training is undoubtedly very important. However, driven by interests, many enterprises pay little attention to the practical training of many students. They think that such cooperation with an intern in a school is to find students to serve the enterprise gratuitously. They simply regard interns as "temporary workers" They arrange positions at will and set working hours, places and environments at will, and they do not think from the students' point of view. In recent years, it is often reported that college students are treated unreasonably in enterprise training, which seriously leads to some students' fear of society and unwillingness to enter the society. This phenomenon also exists in a large number of vocational training. According to the research, at present, the construction of practice bases in vocational colleges is quite arbitrary, which is manifested in the random investment of funds, the arbitrary procedures construction and the random construction
Rong Zhang
222355470
CHANGE IN INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM THROUGH TECHNOLOGY AN ANALYTICAL STUDY
This paper discusses about the effectiveness of ICT driven education and Change in Indian education system through technology greater commitments and willingness to share and adopt innovative solutions are urgently needed from all aspects of society be it Governments, the private sector, communities, donors, parents, and students. All schools should be transformed into active learning environments open to their communities. Telecommunication and power infrastructure policies should aim at schools as starting points for rural transformation; trainers, teachers and students should be empowered to be creative and should act as catalyzing agents for change in their schools; and leaders must cuddle a vision that will set up their youth for tomorrow"s challenges. Despite the challenges mentioned in the paper, ICTs are being increasingly used in education in both the developed and developing world, in order to connect children from poor and remote communities, render them a quality education, and in general equip both teachers and students with a wider range of educational resources to have greater flexibility. Hence it can be said that, the growth and success of digital education depends on the extent to which the issues and challenges mentioned in this paper are addressed. 1. OVERVIEW Although, India scored well in improving from mere 12% literacy at the time of independence to 74% as per 2011 census, it still lags behind the world average of 84% Targeted programs at primary and secondary education like SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) have proved beneficial to some extent but a lot needs to be done to truly educate India. Data figures and enrollment ratios might have presented a rosy picture, but one needs to invigilate the dark corners of Indian education. We are living in the world of quickly advancing technology. Since the advent of the Internet and personal computers, we no longer compete with the people next door, city, or state but with the people around the world. It is a generation of students who have very different social experiences growing up through the changing times. They are used to surfing the Web looking for interesting information and things to buy. They post their photos and blogs to share with other members of global community. They frequently send and receive text messages and emails to family and friends via wired and wireless networks. Many educators argue that the only way to continue our dominance and prosperity in the world economy and politics is to educate our people as competitive and creative members of the global community, and the proper integration of technology in our education system is crucial to accomplish the goal. Numerous research papers, articles, ECONSPEAK: A Journal of Advances in Management IT Social Sciences, Vol. 8, Issue 7, July 2018 Impact Factor 5.132 ISSN: (2231 4571) www.skirec.org Email Id: skirec.org@gmail.com An International Double Blind, Peer Reviewed, Refereed Open Access Journal Included in the International Indexing Directories Page 2 and books were written on integrating technology into the classroom, and they often couple it with the ,constructivist" learning theory. Many of them focus on using technology to enhance teacher student communication and to promote collaborative and active learning, which calls for a dramatic paradigm shift from the lecture based education model. Historical Background In order to discuss how best we can integrate technology into the classroom, we need to review the historical relationship between technological innovation and education. A "meaningful integration of technology in classroom" can be traced back to the early part of the 20th century when visual aids such as films, pictures, and lantern slides were commonly used in public schools Then came motion picture projectors, sound motion pictures, the radio, the television, Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) computers and the Internet in chronological order. How did they change our learning and teaching? Here are some historical anecdotes which can give us some ideas. With the Indian education system welcoming the new age methods of teaching, the dream of modern India will be a reality soon. The adoption of high tech driven technologies in education seems bridging the gap between the modern and the traditional practice of teaching. 2. GOVERNMENT OF INDIA'S VISION TOWARDS DIGITAL INDIA The Government of India"s vision of Digital India Campaign has given hopes to many schools and universities to bring certain changes in the education system with a positive outlook. The education sector is in the middle of paradigm shift from a onesize fits all factory approach, to a much more tailored learning e book, e content, elearning technologies have brought a slew of changes in the teaching methods and the schools alike. The universities and schools majorly private players have adopted the new teaching tools, but government and government aided schools still need to get in sync with the new technology era. 3. GOVERNMENT SUPPORT The adoption of smart education system in India is predicted to increase with a CAGR of 16.76% during the period from 2016 to 2020. The aim of government to raise its current gross enrollment ratio to 30 per cent by 2020, will boost the growth of the distance education in India. Government allotted a huge sum for the development of smart learning, only to encourage the distance learning providers and e teachers to utilize the funds in educating India smartly: Technology as a boon Technology has been proved to be a huge revolution in the field of education, be it the newly joined school kids or the great scholars and researchers, technology has tamed them all. Smart boards, digital podiums, smart class ICT and visualizer have pushed the chalk and duster culture to the walls. Children tend to have their interests inclined more towards technology than to the limited exposure they get through the traditional education methods. Culture adaptation: The recent market research report from Technavio predicts the smart classroom market in India to grow at a CAGR of more ECONSPEAK: A Journal of Advances in Management IT Social Sciences, Vol. 8, Issue 7, July 2018 Impact Factor 5.132 ISSN: (2231 4571) www.skirec.org Email Id: skirec.org@gmail.com An International Double Blind, Peer Reviewed, Refereed Open Access Journal Included in the International Indexing Directories Page 3 than 20% during the forecast period of 2016 to 2020. People are keen to adapt to the online culture, which is encouraging the deepeners to come up with next level eLearning methods, formulas and websites. Especially the 3D learning experience is known to help students to learn in a virtual environment, allowing them to get into the depth of the subject. Educator Technology partnership: Educators have realized the importance of technology in today"s education, thus they have adopted the new change taking place in and around the globe. A study reported that about 85% of educational institutions believed that it is important to provide a fostering environment that has the right mix of technology and education in Uttar Pradesh. Multiple apps for providing solutions of problems: There are multiple apps for providing solutions of problems related to mathematical, physics, chemistry in different methods, all thanks to the app culture. These apps by edupreneurs give them exposure in the market as well as encourage others to move forward in the technology era. Nothing stops for anybody, if you stick to obsolete methods, your business remain under the heap of dust, when others run over your hard earned name and fame, because change is the only constant. Silicon India (Sep 2003) reported that Embalam, a village in India, southern India with population of 7000, with 600 of every 1,000 families living below the poverty line. They speak no English and most have not studied beyond high school. But they man one of the 12 spokes, called Knowledge Centers of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enabling rural development program. Each centre is interlinked through wired and wireless communication devices. According to Silicon India (2003) the project has won two major international awards, the Motorola Gold Award 1999 and the Stockholm Challenge Award 2001 under the "Global Village" category. 4. IMPACT OF SMART CLASS It enables the teachers "to quickly assess the aptitude of the student, how much of a particular lesson student has been able to understand and grasp. There might have been conventional thinkers who still believe in the traditional teaching method, yet adoption with the help of digital tools, teaching can be far more interesting and valuable for the new age generation." ESmart Book As the previous subsection shows, it is difficult to talk about digital textbooks as a single concept because of how greatly the platforms differ in features and functionality, and how books utilize the available features. Consequently, this thesis looks at only one series of books, on a single platform. This means that any results will inherently only apply to that series of books and that platform, and that any comparisons to other digital textbooks and their platforms must be done with caution. The book series in focus for the present investigation is Skills, a series of textbooks for vocational English in upper secondary school in Norway "SKILLS engelsk for yrkesfag," ECONSPEAK: A Journal of Advances in Management IT Social Sciences, Vol. 8, Issue 7, July 2018 Impact Factor 5.132 ISSN: (2231 4571) www.skirec.org Email Id: skirec.org@gmail.com An International Double Blind, Peer Reviewed, Refereed Open Access Journal Included in the International Indexing Directories Page 4 n.d. Skills are available as a digital textbook on Gyldendal"s own Smartbok platform, as well as in paper form. In addition, there is an online digital resource website called the resource bank that provides digital resources for both the
Komal Chandra Joshi Dr Alok Kumar Tiwari
142416176
Struggling against pedagogical instrumentality: Attempting to awaken the literary imagination in Singapore's secondary English classrooms
Building Communities of Readers among Teachers (BCR) project attempted to employ a teachersas readers professional development framework to build participating Singaporean secondary English teachers' capacities to teach literature. Teachers as readers projects are designed to promote teachers' personal engagement with narrative as a prelude to reconceptualizing English their teaching, leading them to afford students with greater opportunities to explore literary texts in depth through extended talk, writing and other forms of representation. This paper elaborates the interrelated structural and attitudinal reasons why this framework had to be abandoned in favour of more a recognizable form of professional development in order to garner sufficient teacher support to work towards the projects' goals. Singapore's legacy of a pragmatic and technicist orientation to education hinders the adoption of such a reflexive form of professional learning. Since independence (1965) pedagogical instrumentality has provided Singapore's students with a strong foundation in English language competencies (Luke, 2005) Wee notes, that, in terms of its language policy, Singapore's emphasis on economic development "treats English language proficiency as necessary for attracting foreign investment and providing access to scientific and technological know how" (Wee, 2003, p. 214) Economic instrumentalism with regard to language policy in Singapore historically has lead to justifications of a pragmatic orientation to pedagogy. Instrumentalism oriented language and literacy as commodities and resources. Instrumentalism led to monologic, highly scripted, constrained, superficially procedural, and didactic teaching, which favoured those Singaporean students who faithfully reproduced predictable textual responses and constructions. Until recently, there was little opportunity in the majority of Singaporean English language and literature classrooms to explore the full meaning potential of texts (Kramer Dahl, 2008) English is the language of instruction in all but the mother tongue classes (Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil) in Singapore. The Ministry of Education's (MOE) recent policy shifts focus on providing greater opportunities for students to engage meaningfully with a wide range of texts. For example, in recent years, the government has made progress in providing more English language pre primary education (84% The number of households that use English (42% in 2005) has steadily increased. One of the key aims of the current English Language Syllabus is to promote language for literary response and expression (MOE, 2007) Contextualised within these policy initiatives, the pedagogical intervention project, described below, attempted to run counter to the powerful legacy of instrumentalist educational discourse in Singapore. With modernization and globalization, the national and institutional contexts for Singaporean education have changed. The MOE's recent policies support cognitively richer and more meaningful student outcomes that recognize likely 21 century economic and social requirement. Elsewhere, we note that the operationalizing of policies to create a new critical and creative future workforce have reflected the persistence of this instrumentalist legacy (Kwek, Albright, Kramer Dahl, 2007) Not surprisingly, given these new and ambitious policy commitments: Singapore's education system is characterized by gaps between its current practices and its aspirations (particularly with respect to the cognitive depth of teaching and learning in Singapore's classrooms) .Overall, however, it is a system with substantial achievements, high aspirations, significant institutional resources and capacities, and considerable challenges. (Hogan et al, 2008) The Building Communities of Readers among Teachers (BCR) project was an intervention into teachers' personal and pedagogical reading practices based on a narratological and intertextual understanding of textual response in secondary English education. This researchbased, two year project tried to connect teachers' rich textual engagements with those they provide their students. Its aim was so facilitate the creative and critical possibilities that textual openness can bring to classroom practice and learning. The Legacy of Pedagogical Instrumentality The development of Singapore's education system and its underlying ideology affects the profile of teaching in general and English teaching in particular. Building teacher capacity in content and pedagogical knowledge was this project's focus. Singapore is a compact, highly urbanized, nation state in Southeast Asia with a population just over 4.5 million comprised of ethnically diverse, multilingual, and multireligious citizens. 75% of the population Chinese, followed by Malay (15% Indian (7% and others (3% the country's official languages include Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil. English is the dominant language of administration, business and education. Singapore became an independent state in 1965, governed by the democratically elected People's Action Party, with Lee Kuan Yew as the chief architect of the nation. The lack of any strong opposition in government has meant that nation building policies, including educational, were often implemented top down, efficiently, and effectively. Given Singapore's geographical location (surrounded by Muslim states) and its history (occupied by Japanese forces during the World War II) the country was, and will always be, vulnerable politically and economically. With no natural resources, Singapore is entirely dependent on its human resources to survive and succeed. Education quickly became a main policy focus with continual commitment and significant investment since independence. As Lee and his government began to realise their nation building project, bringing Singapore from a third world developing nation to a first world cosmopolitan city state, education played several key roles: it spearheaded economic development; it was the quintessential tool for social engineering; it built social coherence amidst diversity; and it facilitated a meritocratic ideology (Chua, 1997) The pragmatic orientation of educational policies meant that economic considerations often, and quite overtly, drove educational reforms. For example, the bias in education towards the scientific, technical and business disciplines over the arts and humanities is evident in former Minister of Education, Teo Chee Hean's, proclamation that the former disciplines, "fuel economic growth and allow a country to gain a competitive edge" and prepare students with the "knowledge, skills and mindset to thrive in a technology driven and rapidly changing future" (Teo, 2002) Concern for meeting the demands on the new knowledge based economy and globalisation prompted the government to implement a number of wide ranging and systemic educational reforms intended to create students who are creative, innovative, entrepreneurial, and independent learners. The Thinking Schools, Learning Nation (TSLN) reform in 1997 was the major response to a need to create a nation of 'knowledge workers' (Tan Gopinathan, 2000) A market model drove innovative school practices, whereby competitiveness was encouraged through national school rankings and greater school autonomy (Tan, 1998) Nevertheless, the government's control over the school curriculum, the pressures imposed by national examinations at the end of 6, 10 and 12 years of schooling, accountability of school performances, led to the risk averse practices of not deviating from the mainstream curriculum. In a culture of school league tables, teachers were more inclined to persuade students to drop subjects they deemed to be 'difficult to score in' "Subjects such as Literature, Art and Music, .have been sidelined in the curriculum of [the] schools since it is harder to predict student examination performance in these subjects" (Sharpe Gopinathan, 2002, 157) This technicist vision influenced curriculum design and teacher education in Singapore. Deng (2004) argues that teacher preparation programmes and one may add inservice programmes in Singapore are largely oriented towards equipping teachers with technical and practical skills and techniques required to be competent in classrooms. Such training systematically marginalizes the "educative" role of teacher development, which takes on the task of transforming teacher beliefs and perspectives. "Education opens people to the 'power of possibility' it empowers them to think about what they are doing, to make sense of their lived worlds, and to perceive different alternatives" (Deng, 2004, 164) In the context of English language teaching, such limitations in teacher training inevitably construed particular kinds of pedagogy that created a strong foundation in basic language competencies but failed to provide students with the critical and creative repertoires needed for the 'new communicative order' (Street, 1999b) Findings from recent studies, both large scale and case based, in Singaporean classroom pedagogy and curriculum recontextualisation, described in the following section formed the basis of our intervention. Research Findings on English Language Teaching The Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice (CRPP) an educational research centre based in Singapore, conducted an empirical, large scale, comprehensive baseline analysis of what constitutes pedagogical practices in Singapore schools (Luke et al, 2005) Quantitative and qualitative in nature, the Core project draws on research designs from the Wisconsin Centre on Organisation and Restructuring of Schools studies (Newmann and Associates, 1996) the Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study (Lingard et al, 2002) and the Productive Pedagogy framework from New South Wales (Gore et al, 2001) It explicitly focused on the everyday practices, the intellectual and discourse work, of
James Albright Anneliese Kramer-Dahl Dennis Kwek
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What does Institutional Globalization Mean for Foreign Language Education in the US? Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Models for the Less Commonly Taught Languages
What does Institutional Globalization Mean for Foreign Language Education in the US? Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Models for the Less Commonly Taught Languages Nelleke Van Deusen Scholl, Director of the Center for Language Study, Yale University Stefane Charitos, Director of the Language Resource Center, Columbia University The U.S. Department of Education recently published an international strategy document, laying out a framework for U.S. students to become more globally competent (U.S. Dept. of Education, 2012) This policy change ironically follows the deep cuts to the Title VI International and Area Studies programs which had traditionally supported the teaching of many of the less commonly taught languages at U.S. institutions of higher education. The new national strategy runs parallel to a move toward globalization among institutions of higher education in the U.S. over the past decade or so, which has raised serious questions about the role (or lack thereof) of foreign language education within institutional internationalization (cf. Warner, 2011) The focus on an increasingly global curriculum requires a re examination of the ways in which languages are learned and taught. It encourages us to explore new models for language learning which are more flexible, focus on discipline specific needs, promote advanced, professionallevel proficiency, and target translingual and transcultural skills (cf. 2007 MLA Report) In creating a conceptual framework for the global institution, we must address the following questions: What curricular and institutional changes characterize a global institution? How can we create a more central role for the study of language and culture within international initiatives? How can we provide our students with a truly authentic translingual and transcultural experience? What are some examples of programmatic initiatives that demonstrate best practices? In this talk, we will highlight a number of initiatives at our institutions in the U.S. that have attempted to address these challenges. We will first discuss a collaborative project that is intended to support a broad range of languages in order to adequately prepare U.S. students for increasingly globalized studies and next we will give a brief overview of three programs at Yale that provide customized instruction focusing on discipline specific and advanced level language skills to promote professional competency. Columbia, Cornell and Yale have recently developed a collaborative framework that allows them to collaboratively offer a variety of less commonly taught languages that are increasingly difficult for universities to support. The Shared Course Initiative (SCI) uses high definition videoconferencing and other distance education technologies to recreate a synchronous, interactive and learner centered environment, designed to address the specific needs of a highly interactive language classroom. This model allows students to co construct their identities as members of a broader community of practice, connecting them across the distance to other learners with similar goals. After two years of implementation, it has quickly become apparent CIP SYMPOSIUM 2014 Flere sprog til flere studerende Nye studiekompetencer til den globaliserede verden More Languages for More Students Improving Study Skills for a Global Context that such a model for collaborative instruction has the potential for significant curricular and institutional transformation beyond language instruction. Institutions can engage in the creation of collaborative curricula as well as leverage its innovative approach to sharing academic resources across institutional boundaries in order to allow students and faculty to access sources of knowledge regardless of where these are located. In the second part of our talk, we will focus on three programs that provide an interdisciplinary and student driven model of language education that matches the needs of a globalized curriculum: Languages for Specific Purposes (LSPs) Directed Independent Language Study (DILS) and Fields. We are offering LSP courses in collaboration with the professional schools that prepare students for both fieldwork and for a culturally diverse work environment. The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, for example, is working in 70 countries around the world; the Yale global health initiative also has a broad reach across the globe. Examples of recent LSPs include Spanish for Medical Purposes, Chinese for Healthcare Professionals and Haitian Creole for Environmental Purposes. A second program, Directed Independent Language Study (DILS) was first launched at Yale University in 2001 with just one language and now has served approximately 900 students and offered about 90 languages. It allows undergraduate, graduate, and professional students to apply for individualized language support in languages that are not taught in the regular language departments; students may enroll for up to four semesters of study. Similar to DILS but focused on a more advanced level of study, the Fields program, encourages students who are not language or literature majors to pursue advanced language study in the context of their academic and discipline specific interests (examples include Japanese and architecture; Vietnamese and child psychology; Arabic and journalism; Russian and economics, etc. Our recommendations: 1. Situate foreign language learning centrally within the vision of the global university Prepare both students and faculty for global opportunities Target advanced and professional level language skills 2. Strengthen the broader objectives of FL learning create more flexible and customized opportunities for language and disciplinespecific learning Connect international experiences with classroom learning Offer alternative models for FL learning, such as opportunities for experiential and community based learning 3. Support distance collaborations across institutions sustain diversity in less commonly taught languages encourage faculty across the disciplines to work on common solutions (e.g. strengthening or expanding the curriculum; developing shared courses or materials) share professional development opportunities for language faculty CIP SYMPOSIUM 2014 Flere sprog til flere studerende Nye studiekompetencer til den globaliserede verden More Languages for More Students Improving Study Skills for a Global Context The new challenges for university language centres in a "Flexilingual" world Intercultural, linguistic and pedagogical challenges in the drive to equip both students and academics for an increasingly mobile future Nick Byrne, Director LSE Language Centre, London School of Economics My practical rather than theoretical contribution to the workshop will highlight the issues, demands and challenges for higher education language providers. I shall firstly address and focus on the key issues of maximising the linguistic potential of students, in particular UK undergraduates who still enter the global job market with noticeably fewer language qualifications than their fellow EU and international students. I shall then look at the role of university language centres in supporting academics with their own needs in English for both Academic and Teaching purposes. During the presentation I shall highlight some key stages in the implementation of language policy developments at both national, regional and institutional levels. I shall be showing the latest facts and figures relating to language uptake, and the reasons behind this. It will become clear how important a role university language centres in the UK and Ireland have been playing up to now, and how this role will increase. Although numbers have declined in the number of students who are taking an honours degree in a language, the numbers of students who are taking a language as an assessed module in their degree has grown sharply, as has the number of students choosing to pay to do a language course as an extra curricular activity. These figures show that language study has become more popular not less, but the way, amount, level, purpose and indeed reasons have changed. Indeed we as language professionals and providers still need to agree on and then accept a broader definition of language study in higher education. Furthermore it can be argued that students need a flexible approach and offer in language provision. Some will still want a traditional or revised degree in language study. We still need these students. We also still need those students who choose to 50% languages combined with a different field of study, such as business, law, engineering or management. But the new norm and majority will be those increasing numbers of students who take a language as an assessed module or extra Organisations such as the British Council and the British Academy have all launched research projects over the last five years to emphasise the need to move from a monolingual to a multilingual mindset. The British Council's "Language Rich Europe" and the British Academy's "Born Global" projects run alongside national awareness raising campaigns such as "Speak to the Future" which are promoted by key press organs such as The Guardian, and furthermore given support at the highest level by no less a select body than the House of Lords. I shall here elaborate on my concept of "flexilingualism" The language needs of undergraduates particularly in the UK and indeed Ireland where the Irish government has just launched a new consultation paper on the future of language education have become not only an educational issue but also a marketing tool. This is a result of the new university financial landscape, and the emergence of a consumer orientated and fee based world of English, and to a lesser extent, Irish, Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh institutions which charge lower fees. I shall therefore also look briefly
Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl