Nikki Ashcraft

Nikki Ashcraft - Featured Speaker @ KOTESOL 2023

  Featured Session

Laying the Foundation for Classroom Collaboration

Research on second language acquisition highlights the critical role of interaction for language learning, and current teaching methods encourage teachers to employ collaborative learning approaches utilizing pair and group activities. Still, classroom teachers often struggle to engage learners in activities that require collaboration with their classmates for successful completion. Learners may not feel comfortable interacting with others, not know how to interact collaboratively, nor have the language to do so. This session outlines the conditions that support collaboration between learners when participating in communicative and task-based language learning. These conditions include having a sense of class community, the establishment of interactional norms, learners’ facility with interactional language, and the design of tasks that require the collaborative involvement of all learners. Participants will leave this session with practical guidance for establishing these necessary conditions in their own classrooms to enhance the level of learner-to-learner collaboration.

  Invited Second Session

Best Practices for Facilitating Asynchronous Online Discussions

The asynchronous online discussion board has been available as a tool for online instructors since the early days of online education. Even as new technological tools for online learning are developed, the discussion board remains foundational to many online classes and offers advantages to other forms of interaction. Students can become bored, though, with weekly discussion post requirements unless instructors utilize effective facilitation strategies and design discussion prompts that challenge learners to employ higher order thinking skills (i.e., to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create). Additionally, prompts should motivate learners to respond, to read what their classmates have posted, and to engage in authentic communication. In this session, participants will become acquainted with various techniques for structuring asynchronous online discussions, learn tips for facilitating these discussions, and have the opportunity to critique sample discussion prompts.

  Biosketch

Nikki Ashcraft is an associate teaching professor at the University of Missouri, where she leads the online MEd TESOL program. During her TESOL career, Dr. Ashcraft has taught ESL/EFL and trained teachers in the US, Mexico, Chile, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan. She is an English language specialist with the U.S. Department of State and has trained Fulbright English teaching assistants preparing for assignments in the Middle East and North Africa. Dr. Ashcraft has served in various leadership roles within TESOL International Association, among them chair of the Teacher Educator Interest Section and chair of the Membership Professional Council. She is certified in effective online teaching practices by the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) and has been honored with Mizzou’s Excellence in Online Class Facilitation Award. Dr. Ashcraft has published two books with TESOL Press and numerous book chapters and journal articles.

Select Sites
Nikki Ashcraft Article for The English Connection (March 2023; PDF)
University of Missouri: Nikki Ashcraft

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