(Technology) 1:00-1:45 pm Zoom
Tourism Projects with Local Communities: Situated Learning and Place-Dependent Model to Enhance Authenticity
This presentation aims to demonstrate how language teachers can create authentic lessons connecting to local communities while promoting regional attractions and culture in different genres. Participants are expected to come away with ideas to collaborate with local communities considering students' contexts giving students real-world experiences as well as teach genres appropriate to purpose, audience and modes. Sample activities and the rationales of this curriculum will be in the presentation, and participants will then be encouraged to create their own activities fitting their own teaching context. By doing so, participants are expected to learn a) how language teachers can integrate students' contexts into their curriculum, b) hot to make students aware of different genres, and c) how to integrate technology into the project. According to Dressman and Sadler (2019), Korean students have struggled with learning English due to the competitive motivation and the exam-oriented English lessons heavily relied on grammar. These exam-oriented lessons, sequestered problem-solving, are not easily transformed in real contexts (Dunleavy and Dede, 2014). Students can transfer their knowledge as preparations for future learning when they are offered real-world alike experiences. This project is designed to offer authentic learning experiences for students under situated learning and place-dependent model bolstering learning transfer and motivation. Through these models, students are able to learn English within a specific and localized context to make learning relevant to the students and activate their prior knowledge. (Dunleavy and Dee, 2014; Martin et al., 2014).
About Ehean Kim
Ehean Kim is a teaching faculty in the Department of Spanish and Intensive English Communication Program at the Pennsylvania State University. He is also a graduate student studying Teaching English as a Second Language at the same University. His research interests include computer-assisted language learning, polyglot, and genre-based language teaching.
