Authenticity 2.0

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At the MATSDA (Materials Development Association) conference held in June 2016 in Liverpool, Freda Mishan gave a presentation entitled Authenticity 2.0.

As language use today moves increasingly into digital fora – social media, social networking and so on, accompanied by an internationalisation of the language most associated with the Internet, English, the concept of ‘authenticity’ in the context of language samples and language use becomes ever more evasive. One route for achieving authenticity in the language learning context can be found, ironically perhaps, in the work of pre-digital theorists such as Van Lier (e.g. 1996), who maintained that authenticity was not intrinsic to learning materials themselves but was a factor of the learners’ engagement with them and of the tasks enacted with them. This conception of authenticity is a perfect fit for the digital era, where more and more of the language use is in interaction on a plethora of different media and applications. In the digital era, therefore it is to interaction and task that we turn for our ‘authenticity 2.0’.

Below is the Prezi for her session.

It seems to me that the relevance of Authenticity, reactions and Online Communication will be something to keep an eye on for the foreseeable future. Getting back to the older, more philosophical definition of authenticity for language learning seems to be the best way of keeping the issue up-to-date for the digital-era.

CALL Teacher Education

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There is a brilliant book entitled ‘Teacher Education in CALL’ (Hubbard and Levy eds. 2006) which details the current state of CALL teacher education – some of the predominant findings are that there is not enough CALL Teacher Education going on as part of INSET or PRESET training, and even when CALL is part of Teacher Education programs it is often considered unsatisfactory in terms of preparing teachers to actually use CALL applications in class.

In the TESLCA-L List-Serv I started a post about CALL and Autonomy and was soon contacted through the list by Greg Kessler, a researcher and CALL Teacher Education Specialist who contributed to the ‘Teacher Education in CALL’ book. The post took on a slightly new purpose then, focusing on CALL Teacher Education and how this can feed into Autonomy Training.

I decided I would expand the idea by adding a post here. By joining the free mailing list TESLCA-L you can read the archived postings and also add to them, or alternatively leave a comment here on this blog about the subject.

We are particularly interested in:

  • any CALL preparation courses you have taken
  • your attitudes towards CALL use and CALL Teacher Education
  • any experiences you have had while trying to integrate CALL into your classes

We look forward to reading your postings!