Researching and Being Researched in Asian and Canadian Educational Contexts: Issues of Translanguaging, Intercultural Competence, Language Teacher Education, and Participant Engagement
The upcoming research seminar on Wednesday April 11, 12:00-2:00PM, Ponderosa Commons Multipurpose Room (Room 2012) will be facilitated by Dr. Guofang Li, and presented by Pramod Sah, Carl Ruest, Dr. Huangwei Gao, and Dmitri Detwyler. All are welcome, no RSVP needed. Light refreshments will be served.
Abstract:
The world is becoming multilingual and multi-dimensional, with complex consequences for conducting research. The issues of language use in multilingual classrooms, cultivating intercultural competence among the next generation of learners, and developing future language teachers for cross-cultural classrooms are becoming critically important. While we focus on exploration of research findings as researchers, these changing conditions also call for additional exploration of participant experiences in such research.
Based on projects analyzed in Professor Guofang Li’s LLED565-062: Qualitative Data Analysis course this semester, this panel will present their results in their respective studies that involve research conducted in Asian and Canadian education contexts. Please see the attached flyer for the individual abstracts of each paper.
Panel Speakers:
Pramod Sah will present a discourse analysis of two content-area teachers’ translanguaging practices in English medium instruction classrooms in Nepal. Against the popular perceptions of the positive effects of translanguaging practices in the literature, the lack of both content and language learning in the two classrooms presents a cautionary use of translanguaging in multilingual contexts.
Carl Ruest analyses Quebec and Vancouver adolescent exchange students’ experiences as revealed by their personal reflections in their autobiographies of intercultural encounters, a tool designed to develop their intercultural competence. Thematic analysis of 20 autobiographies revealed that the document offers the students a means to discuss their emotional experiences, but is limited in evoking components of intercultural competence, suggesting a need to revise this tool to better develop the adolescent population’s intercultural competence.
Dr. Huangwei Gao will examine critical issues of Chinese as a second/foreign language teacher education from the perspectives of both teacher educators and pre-service teachers in a Chinese teacher education program in China. Both teacher educators and pre-service teachers reported significant mismatch between beliefs in knowledge and skills that Chinese pre-service teachers should have and experiences that they gained through the program.
Dmitri Detwyler will discuss issues of power and research engagement through a discourse analysis of personal journals about his own recent experience as a participant in a research study. The analysis exposed perceived internal tensions in research participation, suggesting the importance of addressing research participants’ emotion discourse and power relations in conducting educational research.pre-service teachers should have and experiences that they gained through the program.