TESOL

The roles of English in the world in the 21st century are changing a great deal. English words have appeared all over world for different reasons.  Even in a remote village in Africa, you can at least see Coca Cola's bottles or cans on the dusty grounds. In Afghanistan, where the clash of civilizations took place in its history full of foreign invasions and internal conflicts and in which English is considered as part of the infidel's language, English is the common language for communication among the international organizations and between them and the Afghans. In countries where rapid economic development has been a milestone of success, the need for English has soared sky high.  The more economically developed these countries have become, the more needs for manpower with English proficiency and with knowledge of the 21st century which is largely available in English.  Countries once colonized around the world, such as India, Malaysia, South Africa, etc. are enjoying their material growth based on their pursuit of knowledge and human resource development using the tools left for them by the colonizers. Of course, when colonizers leave a country, there are always problems left behind for the locals, but none of them would really ever be resistance against the English language, or the languages of the former occupiers.

I grew up in a land never colonized by any Western country, Thailand. I studied English with all Thai teachers, but one native English speaker.  The prevailing teaching method in the 1970's was the Grammar-Translation method and, later in the 1980's, the Audio-lingual method. I would have failed like most of my friends in acquiring English as a foreign language, but one thing saved me, my own relentless and innate MOTIVATION to learn the language both with the teachers and on my own.  I have come to be convinced later that motivation to learn is a prerequisite to all successful learning. With motivation, dedication and engagement accompany.  Only through prolonged, meaningful, and progressive engagement with the English language can one really break the deadlocks sabotaged by the culture of memorization and the old receptive pedagogy by the name of the grammar-translation method.

Unfortunately, so many hours in EFL classes have been spent in ways that:

  • demotivate a majority of students;

  • focus on what to memorize about the language (forms) rather the meaningful use of it (meanings);

  • stress evaluation that essentially fragmentalizes lessons into meaningless chunks and takes away the fun of learning a language;

  • decrease students' exposure to the target language for fear of not having a standardized evaluation (though we start to see alternative assessments in recent years);

  • etc.

What should English teaching and learning, especially EFL that is turning into ESL, be like in the 21st century?  I can write a big book on this, but here are a few thoughts:

  • English learning goals must be redefined so that the goals and the learning activities can be best matched;

  • Accuracy based on "standard English" should become even less important in the face of communication-oriented language education to serve the real needs in the new world in which there are many standards of English(es);

  • New contents and means of communication in the globe, such as the flows of knowledge available via the new media (e.g. www and other electronic devices) must be integrated in the learning process, simply because language use has been redefined as the use of it in diverse situations that necessarily include using it to understand and communicate the contents available via the new media and the media in which it appears or is transmitted. The what-to-teach and the how-to-teach notions will need to reflect the real world's practices.

  • etc. (more later).

I have shifted away from the hardcore TESOL issues for quite a while since 2002, but I never totally forgot about it.  Though my interests have expanded into other areas as can be observed via this website, I often presented on topics related to TESOL, but with it in a shared dimension with other meaningful fields such as CALL, critical thinking, critical literacy, language arts, e-learning, and so on.  

I will revisit this page again to develop the points above further.  Please return again.

Best,
Snea Thinsan

  Language Learning Strategies and Styles: Ideas for graduate study
  Vocabulary Learning Strategies: Resources 1 | Resources 2
  Resources for Teachers of ESL/EFL: http://mypage.iu.edu/~sthinsan/TEFL_TESL.htm
  An EAP course design, "Academic Reading for Graduate International Students:  Some plans and reflections (new window) Posted 03/02/2008
  GRE vocabulary Posted August, 2004
   TOEFL Words Posted October 31, 2005
   An online courseware "Fundamental English V, English Department, CMU" I produced with a team at CMU in 2000
  The commonsense in language teaching, Academic Share Fair 2003
  Scaffoldings for online reading instruction/ learning, EV, TESOL, 2004
  EFL vs. ESL learners (a casual reflection)
  ESOL (showing how blurry the status of English can be)
  Effects of Electronic Dictionary on Vocabulary Retention and Reading Comprehension of
    EFL Undergraduate Students in Thailand: Literature review
  ESL Teachers Board FREE LESSONS written by teachers/professional writers, audio lessons, 50 articles, list of int'l ESL schools (1,090), ESL games/quizzes.

Some research projects at IUB:

Please check these new sites: These sites no longer exist! Sorry.

http://thinsan.com/Ed_reconstruction
http://thinsan.com/ESLblogs
http://thinsan.com/E-ducation
http://thinsan.com/TEFLForum
http://thinsan.com/TESOLfair 
 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

  
  

 

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