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2021 Invited Speakers
Every year, KOTESOL extends a special invitation to a few ELT educators and scholars. Here's our list for 2021. Read on below for more details.
Bo-young Lee: The “Mom Factor” of Korean ELT: Do we work with it, or without it?
Kevin Kester and Sin-Yi Chang: EMI in Conflict-Affected Contexts: Critiques and Emerging Possibilities
Joseph P. Vitta, Christopher Nicklin: Quantitative TESOL Classroom Research in Light of the L2 Methods Reform: A Teacher-friendly Quality Checklist
Christopher Nicklin, Joseph P. Vitta: Recommendations for Classroom-based TESOL Research: L2 Instructed Vocabulary Acquisition as an Exemplar
The “Mom Factor” of Korean ELT: Do we work with it, or without it?
Bo-young Lee
The “Mom factor” in Korea’s ELT setting, compared to the magnitude of their influence as the most critical decision maker for their children’s English learning process, has received relatively little attention in ELT. During the current pandemic, the moms of young learners have become even more influential with their strong engagement and aspiration to learn more about English education. Although this can be regarded as desirable in a general sense, it also raises concerns and issues that need discussion among ELT professionals. The phenomenon of this “Mom factor”, as well as the various advantages and challenges it brings with it, will all be discussed during my presentation.
Dr. Bo-young Lee, a frequent speaker at KOTESOL since 2004, has been an avid English learner herself. She has worked in a number of diverse areas in Korea's English education landscape, in both the public and private sectors: as a TESOL professor in Ewha Womans University teaching different English skills and learning strategies; an inspirational speaker to English learners, teachers and parents; an English education program developer; a teacher trainer; a host/writer of educational programs on media (radio, TV, and the internet), as well as a best-seller writer for all age groups. Currently she is working as a program developer for a video chat English program for young learners and hosting/writing for a daily radio English learning show on Educational Broadcasting Services called Start English. Recently she’s finished writing an ELT course book series Oh! My Speaking for young learners. Her main interests have been helping Korea's EFL learners with communicative proficiency and teacher training.
EMI in Conflict-Affected Contexts: Critiques and Emerging Possibilities
Kevin Kester and Shin-Yi Chang
There are few studies examining the role of English in universities in conflict-affected contexts. Yet, English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) is a common policy implemented by newer universities emerging in conflict zones. Drawing on data collected through interviews with university educators working in two conflict-affected contexts, Afghanistan and Somaliland, this study explores: Why do university policymakers adopt EMI policies in conflict-affected contexts? What are the limits and possibilities of EMI in conflict zones? How might EMI curriculum and pedagogy serve to ameliorate or exacerbate conflict? Data was analyzed through the lens of border cosmopolitanism. The paper will focus on sharing some initial findings from the study, and how current higher education EMI research could learn from the policies and practices of academics working in conflict-affected contexts.
Kevin Kester is Assistant Professor of Comparative International Education and Peace/Development Studies in the Department of Education at Seoul National University. His research interests lie in the sociology and politics of education with a focus on the UN's education system; educational peacebuilding; peace and conflict studies; and social theory (de/postcolonial and postmodern thought, and critical pedagogy).
Sin-Yi Chang recently completed her PhD from the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Her research interests include English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI), language policy, translanguaging, and bi/multilingual education. Her works have been published in System and English Teaching & Learning.
Quantitative TESOL Classroom Research in Light of the L2 Methods Reform: A Teacher-friendly Quality Checklist
Joseph P. Vitta, Christopher Nicklin
Korea TESOL has a long history of presenting venues for the sharing of classroom research that has worked to improve the practices of its members. Second language research in a general sense has been undergoing a methodological reform which has accelerated exponentially over the last ten years. In this presentation, attendees will learn about this methodological reform within quantitative research and how it has manifested itself in what we observe in recent classroom-based research reports. From this overview will emerge several points that readers of these research reports can use to gauge how much stock to put into classroom research reports that might inform their teaching. These points will be presented in an accessible and jargon-free checklist that readers can use to rate a report’s reporting and sample design. Regarding the former, attendees will learn how to identify whether a report’s instruments/measurements have had their validity and reliability considered without the need of technical expertise in the area. Attendees will also learn how to locate and consider how the report has presented the observed effects of the research. Regarding sampling, attendees will learn how issues such as multi-site site sampling, power and sample size planning, and assignment of conditions can be identified and the relevance of such effects. In sum, this presentation works to provide attendees with a tool with which to engage with the research they encounter to inform their practice.
Recommendations for Classroom-based TESOL Research: L2 Instructed Vocabulary Acquisition as an Exemplar
Christopher Nicklin, Joseph P. Vitta
Second language acquisition research (SLA) is in the midst of a methodological reform, particularly within its quantitative domain. This reform has produced a body of work, comprising systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and has resulted in recommendations relating to the practices of SLA researchers. In the spirit of the methodological reform, during this presentation we will discuss research pertaining to an important subfield of SLA, second language instructed vocabulary acquisition (L2 IVA) research, which concerns how target lexical items are learned, specifically in the classroom context, and also the factors influencing the process. The practices of L2 IVA researchers were assessed via the analysis of almost 100 studies published in six journals since the beginning of the 21st century. The results indicated that L2 IVA research will benefit from a more robust approach to sample size planning, and a set of recommendations for future research will be laid out.
Christopher Nicklin is a PhD candidate on the doctoral program at Temple University in Japan and has been teaching English at Japanese universities for seven years. His research interests are mainly psycholinguistics, vocabulary acquisition, and research methodology, particularly statistical analysis using the R programming language. He has recently published in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics and the Modern Language Journal.
Joseph P. Vitta holds a Doctorate in Education from Queen’s University Belfast and has over 16 years of ELT and L2 research experience. He occupies the researcher-practitioner space where his academic work seeks to improve practices in the classroom. Dr. Vitta’s publications have appeared in well-known journals such as Language Teaching Research, RELC Journal, the Modern Language Journal, and the Journal of Asia TEFL.
