When you look at the title of my talk Preparing successful learners: Bringing real language into the classroom, did you think, Hmm, I wonder where I’ve heard that before? Of course you didn’t. You’re more likely to be wondering why I chose the theme of the conference as my title and whether I’m going to tell you everything you ever wanted to know about how to prepare successful learners and how you can bring real language into your classroom. If I could give you answers you could all go home at the end of my talk. The other speakers on the program can relax: What I want to focus on is not the how, but the what. What counts as a successful learner? What is real language? What constitutes a classroom? Only after we’ve dealt with the what, can we address the how and the why.

Biography:

David Nunan is Professor Emeritus at the University of Hong Kong, and President Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at Anaheim University in California. He is also a Trustee at The International Research Foundation (TIRF) and a Director of the Foundation Board, at the University of NSW, Sydney. He has held substantive positions at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, the South Australian College of Advanced Education (now the University of South Australia), the Regional Language Centre, Singapore, and Macquarie University in Sydney. He has published over 100 scholarly books and articles on teacher education, curriculum development, classroom-based research, and the teaching of grammar in the communicative classroom. Recent book publications include Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages: An Introduction; (with J. Richards) Language Learning Beyond the Classroom; and (with J. Choi) Clarity and Coherence in Academic Writing: Using Language as a Resource.

Classroom-based teaching has traditionally played a central role in how learners develop their abilities in a second language. However, the learning environment of today’s learners has changed due to advent of the World Wide Web and as a consequence of the advent of mobile technology and Artificial Intelligence or AI. In this presentation I want to look back to the past, to review how language teaching was carried out prior to the digital age, and then to consider how the new affordances provided by technology and the internet and AI are influencing both present and future practices in language teaching.

Biography:

Professor Jack C. Richards has had an active career in the Asia Pacific region and is currently an honorary professor in the faculty of education at the University of Sydney. He has written over 150 books and articles on language teaching as well as many widely used classroom texts. His recent publications include articles on language teacher identity and English Medium Instruction.

Professor Jack C. Richards has been awarded an honorary doctorate of literature by Victoria University, Wellington, for his services to education and the arts and also received the Award for Patronage from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand. The International TESOL organization honored Professor Jack C. Richards as one of the 50 TESOL specialists worldwide to have made a significant impact on language teaching in the last 50 years.

EFL students can benefit from gaining access to the learning resources available in this new media age. I present examples of learners making strategic use of their home languages along with other meaning-making modes (e.g., gestures, graphs, images, sounds, videos) during their English lessons. Video data from U.S. classroom settings will demonstrate that these resources are not "crutches" but rather scaffolds for learning. Examples include a group of students who speak different home languages brought together from their regular classrooms for specialized EFL lessons, and Spanish-speaking students studying American history in a public school with access to computers and the Internet. The classroom interactions demonstrate ways in which participants draw on their full semiotic repertoires and multiple modes within their reach as they complete task activities. I conclude with a call for more in-service professional development and technical support for teachers to cultivate learning in an enriched multimodal world.

Biography:

Jo Anne Kleifgen is Professor Emerita of Linguistics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York. She has been a member of the International Linguistic Association's Executive Committee since 1991 and has served twice as president. Her research focuses on communicative practices in schools and the workplace. She has authored and edited several books, and her articles are widely published in journals and book chapters. She has directed U.S. government-funded research, working with teachers to incorporate new media to support English Learners' language and literacy development. She has also supervised an international program bringing classrooms in the U.S. and Middle-East/North Africa together for online collaborative learning. Jo Anne has been a visiting scholar and guest lecturer at universities in the U.S. and abroad, and has conducted workshops and consultations in Argentina, China, Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, Mexico, Morocco, Panama, Taiwan, Turkey, and Vietnam.

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Biography:

Professor Chan Narith Keuk is the head of the Department of English of the Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL), Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), Cambodia. He obtained his PhD in Linguistics from Macquarie University, Australia, in 2015. His research interests include the variety of English used in contemporary Cambodia, the study of English language teachers and English language teaching education in an EFL context, ELT teacher research, teacher reflective practice, and blended learning.

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Biography:

Dr. Richmond Stroupe has worked with university and professional language learners from Asia since 1989. He received a Ph.D. in International Comparative Education from the University of Southern California and has been involved in the development of language learning programs in a number of contexts. He is currently the Chair of the Master's Program in International Language Education: TESOL and an advisor of doctoral students in Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching Pedagogy in the Graduate School of Letters at Soka University in Tokyo, Japan.

Richmond is the former President of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT), and conducts workshops, publishes and presents on a variety of professional activities and research projects, which include teacher education practices, curriculum and professional development, and developing learners' critical thinking skills.

EFL students can benefit from gaining access to the learning resources available in this new media age. I present examples of learners making strategic use of their home languages along with other meaning-making modes (e.g., gestures, graphs, images, sounds, videos) during their English lessons. Video data from U.S. classroom settings will demonstrate that these resources are not "crutches" but rather scaffolds for learning. Examples include a group of students who speak different home languages brought together from their regular classrooms for specialized EFL lessons, and Spanish-speaking students studying American history in a public school with access to computers and the Internet. The classroom interactions demonstrate ways in which participants draw on their full semiotic repertoires and multiple modes within their reach as they complete task activities. I conclude with a call for more in-service professional development and technical support for teachers to cultivate learning in an enriched multimodal world.

Biography:

With over 20 years of professional experience which cuts across disciplines and sectors, Mr Bophan KHAN currently works as an associate professor at the Royal University of Phnom Penh and an education specialist at UNESCO Cambodia leading a team of national and international experts supporting teacher development, management and professionalism, with a combined budget of over USD 26 million. He has a PhD in linguistics and literacies from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. His work involves teacher policy, continuous professional development, Human Resource Management Information System, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning, multiliteracies, digital solutions for educational transformation, testing and assessment, English Medium Instruction, initial teacher education, curriculum development, and action research.

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Biography:

KHLAING Reaksmeypich is an academic coordinator at Australian Centre for Education (ACE), IDP Cambodia. In her role, she’s been engaging profusely in coursebook selection and teacher professional development. Reaksmeypich completed her MA of Art in TESOL from New Zealand in 2021 and holds a Bachelor of TEFL from the Institute of Foreign Languages (2013) and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Cambodia (2012). After completing her pedagogical training at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in 2014, she became a licensed high school teacher of English in Takeo province until 2016. She’s been a featured speaker and a presenter at national and international conferences like CamTESOL (Cambodia) and TEFLIN (Indonesia).