Archive Copy.
Question: You have an interesting given name, Theron. Any history there?
Theron: It’s my maternal grandfather’s name, whose heritage was Irish, but who was born in South Dakota and moved to Iowa, where I was born, and where my parents grew up. The pronunciation is pretty simple; it’s the same as “Aaron” but with the same “th” as in “three” added on to the front.
Q: What brought you to English teaching? To Asia?
T: My story of getting into English teaching isn’t that different from many people’s. I finished my undergraduate degree in Psychology and wasn’t sure what to do next, but knew I wanted to see a wider world than where I had gone to school in the Midwest. I had done some adjunct teaching for a community college, along with some volunteer English teaching at a local church. I really enjoyed the experience and wanted to do more of it.
I ended up in Japan because I had originally applied to the Peace Corps, but because of my asthma, they had a hard time placing me in one of their programs. I decided that rather than wait, I would find work in a country where access to health care shouldn’t be an issue. That’s one of the reasons I ended up choosing to work in Japan. At the time, the students I was teaching English to in the US were mostly Korean, and they were disappointed that I hadn’t decided to move to Korea.
Q: How does the "Provinces" theme connect to you?
T: I’ve coedited two books on teaching English themes: one on innovative pedagogy and the other on classroom fluency, both with “in Asia” in the title. Asia is a diverse collection of peoples and countries to draw a circle around, but my coeditors and I strongly believed that there was a story of teaching English outside of the global center that was worth telling, and that by giving our books a regional theme, we could help to tell part of that story. My opinion is that this isn’t a matter of examining the teaching of English in any particular country, but rather understanding the teaching of English in particular classrooms can really help to drive the field forward. Working with teachers from around the world, I’ve come to believe that the act of teaching is deeply personal and also context dependent, and so I hope my own small contribution is to help teachers to tell their own stories of their classroom experiences. One example of this is that almost every time I ask students questions about their interests regarding the direction a class should go in, there is almost never a clear consensus. Given a choice between three equally viable options, I’ll often get pretty even splits in student interest and preference across the three. It’s the same with teaching methods. One thing works in one classroom, but not in another. I don’t think that’s just up to the country the students are in; I think it comes down to the teacher and the particular students in the classroom with them, along with the curriculum and institutional cultures in which that classroom is situated.
Q: How do you respond to the "provinces" theme of the conference? Other concepts beyond geography?
T: I think the concept of provinces goes well beyond geography. In the academy there is a tendency to draw boxes around different ideas and concepts. It’s entrenched in the system; universities are built out of schools with broad specialties that are composed of departments with more particular specialties, and where I work, at the Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences campus of my university, there are even labs with particular research specialties that form their own kind of independent units within the institution. Working from within a position of strength, engaging with topics that one knows very well, is an important part of professional practice. But the potential for growth and greater knowledge creation comes when people step out of their individual corners and try to engage others across these mostly artificial and arbitrary divisions. As an example, some of the most interesting research experiences I have had have come through working with people who I wouldn’t normally interact with in my daily, weekly, and monthly routines, but who bring with them fresh perspectives and experiences that help me to better understand where and who I am, and in turn, they learn more about themselves and their contexts.
Q: How do you think your experiences in Japan (and elsewhere) relates to the teaching setting in Asia?
T: I’ve been based in Japan since 2000, and while my MA is from a UK university, I completed my studies via distance learning while still living in Japan. It’s the same for my PhD; while my university is based in the UK, I’m investigating the experiences of authors living in Japan writing for publication while myself living and working in Japan. In that sense, the teaching setting I know best is Asia. It’s where I’ve attended the majority of conferences that I’ve presented at, and it’s where the majority of the students I’ve worked with, both in classrooms and through MA tutoring, are. I see Asia as representing a variety of local diversities that offer interesting and unique challenges to those interested in exploring them.
Q: Could you give us a preview of your plenary session?
T: I’ll be sharing my take on the importance of opening up language teaching research to language teachers and the particular classrooms they teach in to informing practice in the field more generally. Along the way I’ll share what I hope are practical examples of this in practice: how I and other teachers I’ve interacted with have investigated their classrooms and contributed to a deeper understanding of language teaching and learning.
Q: What are you hoping to take from the KOTESOL National Conference in Wonju?
T: I’m looking forward to catching up with old friends who I’ve met previously, to making new friends and contacts, and to learning a bit more about current teaching research in Korea.
Practically, last year in September, Gerald Talandis, Jr. and I presented on a small scale investigation into teacher action research. One of the results of that research is what we think is a new way of representing teachers’ classroom and research interests and experience. We’re going to be sharing that model in our afternoon workshop and are excited to learn how applicable the teachers participating find it to their own experience. We’re hoping that will give us some additional data that we can use to further develop and refine our thinking moving forward.
Q: What do you hope (or expect) others will take from your sessions (include session with Jerry here?)
T: I hope that teachers leave my presentations, both my morning session and the afternoon workshop, with practical ideas regarding how they can seek to better understand their own classrooms and how they can help to contribute to the larger field of language teaching and learning research.
Q: What aspects of your background are important ... in your presentations at the conference?
T: My presentations are very much based on my experience of language teaching and language teaching research. While I’m not going to be the first person to talk on the topics I’ll be addressing, I feel I have a unique set of experiences, based in teaching languages in Asia, that help to convey my main message in a fresh and new way.
Q: … And what about in your daily classroom teaching?
T: About five years ago, I moved from teaching part-time at a number of different private language schools, including my own, in addition to adjunct work at colleges and universities, to working full time as an associate professor at the University of Toyama. I often joke that when I was in Nagano, I taught farmers, and they would give me fresh fruit and vegetables as gifts, but now that I teach university students, my typical student gift is power drinks. That said, I approach my current classes no differently from how I approached my classes when I was teaching in Nagano; I view them as places for both me and my students to learn, and I see part of my responsibility as a teacher to think about how to explore the boundaries of what it’s possible for me to teach and for my students to learn given the particular environments we’re working in and perspectives we’re coming from.
We look forward to the opportunity to share some social time with Theron during the course of the day Saturday!
