English Today

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I am delighted to announce that my piece for English Today entitled “The Authenticity Continuum– towards a definition incorporating international voices” has been accepted and is scheduled for publication sometime in the near future. The piece expands upon the need for a less culturally embedded view of authenticity in language teaching. I am very pleased to have been accepted in such a prestigious journal.

Word Cloud of Word Frequency from my research into authenticity
Word Cloud of Word Frequency from my research into authenticity

EFL Teacher Journeys Conference: Reflection

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I sit here on the Shinkansen home to Tokyo, the obligatory post-conference beer and bento box at hand. I have just attended the EFL Teacher Journeys conference in Kyoto, part of the Teacher Development SIG at JALT, and it was easily one of the best conferences I’ve been to in a long while. I think it is a sort of hidden gem among language teaching conferences in Japan. I’m very glad I discovered it. I didn’t know anyone there, but I met so many people who I feel will likely become firm friends. Thanks to the community spirit of  like-minded individuals, of people telling their stories and listening to the stories of others, this was a fascinating and engaging conference. I was excited about the EFL Teacher Journeys conference, it seemed to be a perfect fit for me because it prioritizes narratives, qualitative inquiry and the issues of identity and development that regularly preoccupy us as teachers. I was delighted when my proposal was accepted. It makes me very happy to report that this conference was fantastic and truly delivered even more than I had hoped for. Although I didn’t know anybody, I was instantly made to feel welcome and introduced around. I even met people who were familiar names that I was citing in my PhD thesis, or people whose work I had read in journals and book chapters. The first talk started at 9:30, I found it hard to choose each of the individual presentations because they all sounded interesting, but I opted first to watch a talk by Sachie Banks. Her talk had a similar theme to mine I thought, being a professional narrative of her development as a teacher, so I wanted to see her talk in order to gauge just how much of a “story” I could put into my “story” presentation. Her talk was exactly as I had hoped, a very personal and contextualized journey from her life as a teacher of Japanese and English, her educational and teaching background detailing her personal and professional growth. It was interesting and although deeply personal and centered around her individual journey, it struck a lot of chords with me and other members of the audience, as evidenced by the lively and interesting discussion that took place after her story was over. People asked other questions or shared their own experiences, which chimed with or added support to hers. Next it was my presentation. I was quite amazed with the large turnout, I had an almost full house with maybe 20 or 25 participants (the conference is nice and small with maybe 70 or 80 people in all). I hadn’t really scripted or prepared what I would say beyond my very visual slides (inspired by the Beyond Bullet Points Approach), and I found myself talking about things which I hadn’t expected I would talk about, being very open because of the receptive audience. And in telling my story, I learned things about myself. I am new to narrative inquiry so this is still a very refreshing experience for me. I especially enjoyed talking about my time at Nova and how I managed to get through all that and come to see language teaching as a life-long career. Many friendly and supportive people congratulated me on my talk afterwards. Slide show here

 

 

Audio here

 

 

Next was the first featured speaker or plenary talk by Keiko Sakui. Her talk was amazing, I would even say brilliant. She had it all, in perfect balance. She had up to date citations but she also knew her history, she had personal details and a story which connected with others in the audience. Another big theme of hers was Social Capital.  The main thing was lots and lots of time for discussion with fellow participants. This was very much a theme which characterized the whole conference. She also showed some great videos, which I will be using in my own classes next week. One of these which particularly stuck in my head was the way people had been encouraged to take the stairs rather than the escalator using gamification:

 

 

This is really relevant to me as it combines education with social issues. I told Keiko later on that her presentation had been very influential in making me more optimistic about the future, since generally I find myself quite pessimistic about people’s ability to adapt to the inevitable power-down we will be faced with in a post-carbon society (don’t get me started! I write about this under a nom-de-plume because it is rather emotive for me, but see here for information* BTW, Heinberg is not my nom-de-plume). As you can see, some of the most eye opening or enlightening topics Keiko Sakui picked up on were Fun in Learning and Gamification. I had, in truth, not thought gamification was something I would be interested in, seeing it as a fad, but what Keiko Sakui did was to put it in context for me and make it seem like something I could genuinely benefit from both as a teacher and as a learner. In her talk she also cited Nicole Lazzaro’s classification of 4 types of fun – Easy Fun, Hard Fun, People Fun and Serious Fun. She also talked about motivational inertia; doing things enough that they become habit and rewarding in themselves, which Bill Sykes who was sitting close to me pointed out was connected to Flow Theory. Bill wrote about Flow in the ELTJ and I also mentioned it in my talk.

EFL Teacher Journeys Kyoto
EFL Teacher Journeys Kyoto

After the first plenary, a big group of us went to find lunch, but we all split up when it came time to buy food and not all of us were able to regroup in the labyrinthine underground networks of shops near Kyoto station. I thought it was interesting how we were all very aware of each other’s individual preferences and yet there was very much a desire to stay together as a group as well. Lunch was also a great learning experience for me, and I met interesting people and talked with them, doing some networking which in itself was also a big feature of this (and all) conferences. After lunch I went to see Ethan Taomae who gave a great speech about a piece of research he had done by collecting reflective papers from colleagues who were all teaching a new discussion course. He found that teacher’s beliefs were influenced greatly by contextual factors, and his presentation gave further weight to reflexive practice in general and was eagerly discussed by all the participants, although I think Ethan got kind of bombarded at the end of his talk with questions! I should also mention Michael Hollenback, whose talk was about embracing English as a Lingua Franca. I really wanted to see that, but I did at least get the chance to chat with Michael later. Afterwards I watched Tanja McCandie who talked about how teachers are influenced by those who taught them, and how teachers’ experience as students shapes how they form their identity as teachers. The second featured speaker was by Bill Snyder, whose article all about Flow I found very interesting and am citing in my PhD. His talk was about the importance of informal learning, and he cited the work of Jimmy Cross who says that 80% of learning at work takes place in informal contexts.  He stressed the importance of communities of practice and explained that learning is not about a producer and consumer model, but about interactions between practitioners. He also talked of Social Capital and encouraged us to reflect on our own experience at the conference. I remember that at one point he said that “we actually don’t remember that much” which made us engage with what we might remember from the conference in a week, a year or even ten years. For me, the thing that I would remember was the people and the informal community building which is so essential to any profession, but perhaps especially teaching and certainly language teaching which is all about that rare and essential type of communication that takes place between people with different cultural backgrounds. He said “teaching is grounded in uncertainty” which is something I felt I could relate to, especially since I also mentioned Chaos/Complexity Theory in my talk even though I was still getting to grips with it on the train down to Kyoto. Tired and keen to return home, I almost didn’t stay for the last session, but the topic of Cameron Romney’s talk was irresistible, and I was not disappointed with his very quirky and perfect-as-the-last-of-the-day style talk about using Japanese ( the student’s L1, his L2) in his class. Like all the talks, he framed this as a narrative into his own teacher development, but he made each of his slides in the theme of an internet meme, a format that was both funny and strangely effective in making mini-summaries of the most salient Meta observations from his story. I felt bad that I didn’t have an internet connection since he was quite a high-tech person. Cameron had been live-tweeting my talk and I wanted to return the favour. Sadly, he was a bit ahead of us all there, but we all sat and listening attentively, laughing regularly as he told about how he had always been told not to use Japanese in his class, but  as his Japanese improved he found it essential. He had conducted some action research and found that his use of Japanese in the class was vital in forming connections with the students and that they used English with him more when they knew he spoke Japanese, whereas they used English less even when he had enforced an English only policy. For me this rang a lot of bells with my own experience, which I had written about in one of my first articles. By acknowledging students as Bilinguals rather than people who should leave behind their L1 (and with it their cultural identity) when they attempt to learn an L2, I was able to value the students more and see them as people with their own Cultural Capital. I also like to find common ground with my students, and when they know I too am  a language learner, this is a vital part of the rapport I try to build with my students. Since language is central to what we teach, it seems absurd to leave L1 out of the class. Overall the conference was unforgettably enlightening, and made me really respect the context in which I teach. As an EFL teacher in Japan I am extremely lucky that there is such a thriving community of practice here, and I think I have finally found my people at the EFL Teacher Journey conference. I would like to thank Mike Ellis, Thomas Amundrud, Catherine Kinoshita and Mizuka Tsukamoto as well as Dominic Edsall and Martin Hawkes who made up the conference team. Particularly Mike for his kind and encouraging words  to me at the start of the day. I’d also like to thank those people who came to my talk, and those whose talks I watched. Sharing my story was almost as much fun as listening to other people’s, but the whole experience of sharing and reflecting on our teaching journeys and feeling that I could join a thriving and vibrant community of practice in Japan made me very happy and I will certainly be going again next year and joining the TD SIG as well. A journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step, as Lau Tzu (Laozi) says, but I would be happy to hear each step described in detail by colleagues as long as they were able to contextualize and personalize them as well as we did at the EFL Teacher Journeys conference.

Authenticity as a Continuum

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My most recent publication is in the ELTED Journal, all about Authenticity in English Language Teaching.

This paper outlines a workshop which I conducted in Tokyo and Osaka in 2013 as part of an INSET program accredited by the Japanese Ministry of Sports, Education and Culture (MEXT). The course, entitled Using and Adapting Authentic Materials to Help Motivate Students, aims to give teachers a better understanding of the concept of authenticity as it realigns itself with the way English is used and taught around the world for international communication. My aims as the teacher/researcher were to understand more about how L2 teachers of English perceive the notion of authenticity and how this concept could be broadened to try and empower L2 users of English by helping them to start reconceptualising authenticity from a more international perspective. This paper first looks at some of the issues that arise when attempting to define authenticity and then, building on the distinctions laid out by Widdowson (1978), that authenticity is not something absolute but relative to learners, I suggest that authenticity might be best viewed as a continuum which incorporates international voices and moves away from culturally embedded definitions. With that in place I will describe the contents of the workshop, followed by an explanation of the data I collected as part of the workshop and how analysis showed that participants reported the notion of an authenticity continuum to be empowering and even increased their motivation to try and make their own classes more authentic.

In order to develop a more inclusive concept of authenticity, rather than trying for a single definition, authenticity should perhaps be seen as a continuum with various dimensions.

The Authenticity Continuum
The Authenticity Continuum

Read the full article here

Upcoming talks and conferences

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I have been busy lately. So busy in fact that I still have not written up my report of the lecture I went to see by Jenny Jenkins at Waseda University’s 3rd English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) International Workshop. Coming soon

One of the reasons I have been busy it that I recently completed a proposal for a large writing project which has been accepted to my great astonishment and delight. Again, I will post up more details at a later date when things are confirmed. I have also been sending proposals to international conferences and conferences here in Japan and I just wanted to share some of those here since I am hoping to meet the rare and wonderful people who read this blog and thank them for their support.

I am very excited to announce that I will be attending this year’s EFL Teachers Journey’s Conference which will be held in the historical city of Kyoto on June 22nd. My presentation will be in the category of  Narratives of teacher development and change in which I will talk about my professional development and how this has shaped and evolved with my beliefs about teaching and learning. I am especially excited about this conference because here in Japan I feel sometimes out of touch with the wider EFL community, and this conference seems to share some of my passions for narratives and research which focuses on individuals and their beliefs.  You can view the abstract here.

EFL Teacher Journeys Conference, Kyoto June 22, 2014
EFL Teacher Journeys Conference, Kyoto June 22, 2014

I will also be presenting at the British Association of Applied Linguists (BAAL) Conference in September. This conference is being hosted by the University of Warwick where I am a PhD student at the moment, so I am glad to be able to participate and present. My piece will be about a research project I conducted last year. I took the data from a teacher training session which is part of the Ministry of Education’s teaching licence renewal. I worked with Japanese high school teachers in Osaka and Tokyo and the research focuses on reactions to authenticity and an attempt to move away from the dominant culture of native speakerism by shifting the focus of authenticity into the realm of English as an international language. This will also be a published article which will come out later in the year:

Pinner, R. S. (forthcoming). The Authenticity Continuum: Empowering international voices English Language Teacher Education and Development, 16(1).

BAAL 2014: Learning. Working and Communicating in a Global Context 4 September - 6 September 2014
BAAL 2014: Learning. Working and Communicating in a Global Context
4 September – 6 September 2014

Finally, I will also be presenting at the JALT conference in Tsukuba in November. This presentation will be similar to the one I’m giving at BAAL – I’m too busy to do three completely different presentations. Having said that, I have already given two presentations this year which I failed to mention on my blog. I spoke at the fantastic LiberLit conference (click here for the full schedule) and I also participated as a speaker and panel member at the International CLIL Research Journal Symposium in April.

I've been busy
I’ve been busy

So, I’ve been busy. The PhD, the teaching and being a father is taking its toll on my hair colour and sanity, but at least I’m still passionate and enthusiastic about my work and my professional identity. If you have any comments please feel free to share and also, let me know if you will be attending any of these events or can recommend ones I am missing!

 

 

Vizualize Me

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This is a great site which takes information from your social networks and builds an infographic. It has a very neat feature in which it shows a world map of the languages you speak and the countries where they are spoken.

vizualizeme

 

 

Mind the Gap

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Do you need an MA to be a better teacher? How does learning about theory help you improve your practice?

There is a big gap in language between theory and practice. This is not just true of language teaching, but of many professions and especially more generally in the field of education. There are obvious exceptions, and we try to be one of them here at engnet-education, but for the most part practitioners are too busy with planning and marking to keep up to date on the theoretical side, especially when they perceive it has no relevance for their actual teaching. A good example would be the classic debates about things such as Universal Grammar, X-Bar theory and of course the critical period hypothesis. If you are teaching adults, the critical theory hypothesis – which states that there is a particular age after which learning a second language becomes much more difficult – will be of no use to you because you can’t simply tell your adult learners to all go back in time and study hard when they were children. In the same way, X-Bar theory is of no use to someone, even if you are teaching grammar specifically, because X-Bar theory is only useful to fill holes and add credibility to the idea of Universal Grammar. Even if you agree with Universal Grammar, it doesn’t help you teach a language. Why should teachers and practitioners trawl through peer reviewed research journals about these issues unless they can be fed back into class?

In the same way, theorists will have little or no contact with practitioners when they are researching abstract concepts such as whether language is innate or whether chimpanzees can be taught sing language. However, the examples I have just presented above are in fact extreme and they are really not illustrative of the field of applied linguistics and language teaching. There are countless theories from applied linguistics and even linguistics which have direct relevance on the things we do in the classroom to help our learners acquire language. The Involvement Load Hypothesis is a good example, it can directly influence materials design and the way we structure tasks in the classroom because it shows what type of activities are better for learners in retaining the vocabulary they have learned. For a summary see my essay here. Also, Speech Act theory, although in itself a rather abstract and yet at the same time obvious set of characteristics about how discourse works and what effect it has, can be adapted for the use of developing authentic materials with realistic dialogue and context.

There is a lot more cohesion these days between theory and practice, but people still talk about the gap as if it were a chasm. It is much closer to a simple step like the one on the London Underground – as long as you know it’s there it is not hard to step over it.

If you would be interested in doing a course all about language learning theories that can directly influence your teaching please get in touch with us. I also heartily recommend doing a Masters’ Degree if you are particularly keen and want to seriously enhance your career. King’s College London, the University of Warwick, Manchester all offer good programs which are well respected. Feel free to use the comments box below to add any other programs and thoughts on this topic.

IATEFL 2011 Brighton, UK

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I’m going to be attending IATEFL 2011 from the comfort of my own home this year. To be honest I’d rather be there in person, but as a technology enthusiast I am very pleased to have the chance to attend the conference virtually.

Anyone who can’t go this year should definately check out the amazing things on offer for those people who wish to attend virtually.

Below are the links you need, and also the IATEFL livestream video.

Watch live streaming video from iateflonline at livestream.com

Visit the Brighton Online conference site here.

The conference will be kicking off with live coverage of the opening ceremony and plenaries at 09:00 to 17:00 BST from the 15th to 19th of April. I really hope everyone, be they real life or virtual delegates, has a great time and a big thank you to all the organisers, presenters and professionals whose hard work makes it possible each year.

Computer-Based Testing Vs. Paper-Based Testing

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What are the advantages, disadvantages and what is the future of language testing?

The situation now

On the 25th of February 2011 the BBC Today Programme invited Isabel Nisbet, the outgoing chief the UK based qualifications watchdog, Ofqual, to come on and discuss the issue of computer-based testing (CBT). Ms Nisbet stated that the general attitude to CBT had been that it was too difficult a topic to raise, because of the number of various pitfalls, complications and opposition. However, as outgoing chief she had decided to ‘move it off the too difficult pile’ and try and get the subject addressed because she felt it was indeed an important issue. Her explanation was that because children do much of their learning and exploring digitally, they should be assessed in the same way. Her exact words were‘In the future, how things are tested should match how people learn and how they act.’ This echoes back to one of the most important issues with language testing, as raised by Bachman and Palmer (1996) that tests should resemble the real thing for which they are testing. This was one of the criteria for test usefulness; authenticity. Because the way people, especially younger generations, interact with the world is largely going to be through a computer, testing and assessment should reflect that. This is certainly something which is worth discussing as it will undoubtedly have international repercussions across all areas of education.

The advantages

CBT allows for more accurate, secure, rapid and more controlled test administration. From students sitting the test, to tests being marked and results being published, all the way through to researching those data and evaluating the test. This is perhaps something critics of CBT would argue against, but I think any scepticism on this part would be aimed at a mistrust of technology rather than a genuine belief that paper-based testing (PBT) is actually better in these respects. As long as the computers are reliable and secure there is no reason to doubt the claim that CBT is far superior in these respects. I will address the problems here in the next section.
Another great advantage would be that voiced by Nisbet of the authenticity of the tests and the fact that it reflects the real world situational use of the topics being tested. In language teaching, these were referred to as Target Language Use (TLU) domain. It also applies to fields other than language testing. If, upon graduation, you mainly compose emails in French to colleagues and rarely compose postcards on paper, then the test you sat to graduate should reflect this. For my GCSES I wrote a postcard in French as part of the test. I remember I wrote a nice little postcard and then turned to page only to discover to my horror that there was a whole other page of blank space in which to write the ‘postcard’. I was incredibly angry about this, because postcards are short. The test didn’t even match what a ‘postcard’ was in reality. If I was taking that test today, I would be equally annoyed if I was asked to compose and ‘email’ and in fact I was writing it with a pen. I have seen many such examples of this inauthenticity caused by writing on the incorrect media in test preparation courses that I have used as a teacher. This lack of authenticity not only damages the students by not testing them in the context for which they will use their skills, but also damages the face validity of the tests itself, which could lead to resentment and loss of motivation.

In addition, by administering a test on the computer, the use of paper printing is minimised, almost entirely. This could reduce administration costs as well as environmental impact. Of course, that is assuming the institution does not have to buy computers especially for the test. Also, because computers can successfully mark any objective sections (where answers have a clear, binary right or wrong answer) almost instantaneously, the need to pay humans to go through with marking grids is erased. This increases the speed of the results and feedback, as well as cutting costs and of course improving the accuracy of marking.
Other studies have investigated the difference between CB and PB tests (see further reading). Most of them conclude that CBT is advantageous for students and test administrators alike. So, why the opposition to CBT? What are the dangers and what is holding us back?

The disadvantages

expense. technical issues. takes away something from pbt? too dependent on computers. cuts cost of paper and administration
Earlier I mentioned a possible mistrust in technology which deters both students and institutions from implementing CBT. I have experience of this myself, so I don’t want to come across as a blind technology advocate claiming that we do away with all paper-based tests. I remember coaching Diego, a Spanish students for his TOEFL iBT. The system we used was an internal practice test whose server recorded audio from the students’ microphone. We were in the UK and the server was in the US. On top of that, we had a very slow connection and as we were in a very built up area internet contention was also very high. For this reason, at least two or three times every practice test we did, a few students would lose their speaking test answers. Many students experienced irritation at this poor and unreliable technology, especially because they were paying a lot for their courses. I always used to say ‘it won’t happen when you take the real test’. Sadly, it did happen to my Diego. The computer in which he was working during the real test shut-down in the middle of the exam. He was not allowed to re-take and had to pay again to do the test.

Of course, another problem here is that human error can never be completely accounted for when using computers. Diego was the kind of student who was often on the receiving end of inexplicable technical errors. He once kicked the power-switch at the socket by mistake and shut down a neighbour’s computer. However, part of setting up computers for use in class is ensuring that the computers are secure and the workstation is appropriate (ie, power sockets and cables cannot be removed accidentally). Therein lies the problem. CBT does not eliminate human error, but the line between computer error and human error is very fine. In addition, computers do often go wrong, especially older machines and public computer terminals which have hundreds of different users. Administering even thirty or so networked public machines is a full-time job. Computer viruses, bad configuration, faulty hardware and unreliable internet connections all contribute to this. On top of which, students and teachers need the training to use the machines and the specific software. So, computers are no panacea in education.

However, let me point out that humans are just as prone to error. Test results being lost in the post, teachers taking home essays to mark and never returning them. The look on a student’s face when you hand out everyone’s homework except theirs, but they swear they handed it in. Yes, there are plenty of reasons to look for a more secure and reliable alternative to paper-based tests.

As long as there is a skilled and reliable technician on hand before the test (in order to check the machines are correctly set-up and maintained) and during the test. Also, test instructions and support on the use of the computers must be clear and easy to use regardless of your level of computer or language ability. The connections through which information is being sent must be secure and reliable in order to send through answers and results. Where possible, the machines should be up-to-date and have been regularly serviced to avoid malfunctions. These are things which don’t just apply to CBT but any use of computers in general, however where the stakes are higher (as in with an institutionalised language test) the need to ensure all these things are in place increases.

The future

The last ten or fifteen years have seen computers fall in price and rise significantly in terms of reliability and power. Most schools, universities and private language institutions in developed countries around the world are well equipped to offer students computer and internet access. For this reason, it seems fitting that people such as Isabel Nisbet should raise the issue of introducing computer-based testing to replace traditional paper-based tests on a national scale. As with many technological advances, language teaching may well be in the vanguard of this conversion to CBT, however that means it is more likely the technology will be tried and tested by the time it takes over. It is not likely to happen overnight, or even within the next 5 years. What is certain is that large institutionalised tests will have to offer the option to students to take the test on the computer, and gradually the PBTs will be phased out. Already, TOEFL iBT is doing this, with TOEFL PBT fast becoming obsolete. However, ETS has had to redesign much of the test and the way it is administered in order to maximise the computer-based format. For this reason I have a lot of respect for the TOEFL iBT. However, TOEIC remains purely paper-based. The Cambridge ESOL suite offers both PBT and CBT versions of all its tests, except IELTS. IELTS can be taken on the computer only in the Delhi centre, although it is likely the IELTS CBT will be rolled-out worldwide very soon (please continue to check www.engnet-education.com for updates and news on this).

Conclusion

It is a gradual process, much like the way CDs replaced cassette tapes. Of course, language teaching is one of those rare professions where teachers still can be seen running to and from the staffrooms around the world clutching pre-wound cassettes where the rest of the world is using mp3s. There are exceptions of course, but my point is there will not be an overnight switch to CBT even if there is a national government level initiative. For this reason it is important to continue researching and promoting the use of CBT because it does reflect the way things are going. It is true that we use computers more and more for communication, and as such our tests should reflect that.

Further reading

Bachman, L.F., Palmer, A.S., 1996. Language Testing in Practice. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Extended Bibliography

Bachman, L. 1990: Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Bachman, L.F., Palmer, A.S., 1996. Language Testing in Practice. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Bachman, L. 2001 Designing and developing useful language tests in Elder, C. Brown, A. Grove, E. Hill, K. Iwashita, N. Lumley, T.

McNamara, T. O’Loughlin, K. (Eds.) Studies in Language Testing 11: Experimenting with uncertainty. Essays in honour of Alan Davies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Brown, H. Douglas. 2004 Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices Longman : New York

Chalhoub-Deville, Micheline & Deville, Craig 2005 A look back at and forward to what language testers measure In Hinkel, Eli (Ed.) Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning Routledge

Chapelle Chapelle MaryK . Enrigh Jonn M. Jamieson 2008 Building A Validity Argument For The Test Of English As A Foreign Language Routledge, New York

Douglas, Dan 2001 Three problems in testing language for specific purposes: Authenticity, specificity and inseparability in Elder, C.

Brown, A. Grove, E. Hill, K. Iwashita, N. Lumley, T. McNamara, T. O’Loughlin, K. (Eds.) Studies in Language Testing 11: Experimenting with uncertainty. Essays in honour of Alan Davies:

Downey, R. Farhady, H, Present-Thomas, R. Suzuki, M. Van Moere, A. Evaluation of the Usefulness of the Versant for English Test: A Response Language Assessment Quarterly, Volume 5, Issue 2 April 2008 , pages 160 – 167 Cambridge :

Fulcher 2000 The ‘communicative’ legacy in language testing System, 28 (4), p.483-497, Dec 2000 doi:10.1016/S0346-251X(00)00033-6

Hughes, A. 1989 Testing for Language Teachers Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Lewkowicz, J.A., 1997. Authenticity for whom? Does authenticity really matter? In: Huhta, A., Kohonen, V., Lurki-Suonio, L.,

Luoma, S. (Eds.), Current Developments and Alternatives in Language Assessment. Jyvaskyla University, Finland, pp. 165-184.

Lewkowicz, J.A., 2000. Authenticity in language testing: some outstanding questions. Language Testing 17 (1), 43-64. Cambridge University Press DOI: 10.1080/15434300801934744

Lynch, Brian K. 2003 Language Assessment and Programme Evaluation Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh

McNamara 2006 Validity in Language Testing: The Challenge of Sam Messick’s Legacy Language Assessment Quarterly, Volume 3, Issue 1 January 2006 , pages 31 – 51 DOI: 10.1207/s15434311laq0301_3

Messick, S., 1989. Validity. In: Linn, R.L. (Ed.), Educational Measurement. Macmillan, New York, pp. 13 -103.

Morrow, K., 1979. Communicative language testing: revolution of evolution? In: Brumfit, C.K., Johnson, K. (Eds.), The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 143-159.

North, Brian. 2007 Expanded set of C1 & C2 Descriptors http://www.coe.int/T/DG4/Portfolio/?L=E&M=/documents_intro/Data_bank_descriptors.html

O’Malley, J. Michael & Valdez Pierce, Lorraine 1996 Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners: Practical Approaches for Teachers Longman

Phakiti, Aek. 2008 Construct validation of Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) strategic competence model over time in EFL reading tests Language Testing; 25; 237 DOI: 10.1177/0265532207086783

Popham, W. James 1990, Modern Educational Measurement Prentice Hall, Englewood

Stoynoff & Chapelle 2005 ESOL Tests and Testing Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. Maryland

Stoynoff, Stephen 2009 State-of-the-Art Article Recent developments in language assessment and the case of four large-scale tests of ESOL Language. Teaching. (2009), 42:1, 1–40 Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0261444808005399

Widdowson, Henry 1979: Explorations in applied linguistics. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Widdowson, Henry 2001 Communicative language testing: the art of the possible in Elder, C. Brown, A. Grove, E. Hill, K. Iwashita, N. Lumley, T. McNamara, T. O’Loughlin, K. (Eds.) Studies in Language Testing 11: Experimenting with uncertainty. Essays in honour of Alan Davies Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Widdowson, Henry 1983 Learning Purpose and Language Use. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Services Update

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Engnet-education was previously based in London, England and served clients in both London, Oxford and Cambridge as well as online clients and providing online resources. Now, engnet-education’s main operations will be based in Japan. I have moved back to Tokyo in order to accept a teaching position at Sophia University, and as such I will not be able to personally attend schools in the UK on a regular basis, although I still intend to attend annual conferences such as IATEFL and EUROCALL, as well as the bi-annual Antwerp CALL conference. However, engnet-education will still be able to continue its UK operations thanks to several well trained and experienced colleagues who are also well suited to offer training days and consultations. Also, VOIP (Video Over Internet Protocol) consultations can easily be arranged if one of our UK agents is not available or you are not based in Japan or the UK. Basically, we are expanding!

This is very exciting for me, as the founder of engnet-education, for many reasons. First, I’ve been astounded by the success of the company and am very grateful to all my clients for the positive responses, feedback and of course for their valued custom in the first place! Most of the clients who have used our services came to see our IATEFL presentation in 2010: Setting up Self-Access for students through eLearning. For those who did not attend, the full presentation is available to watch on Vimeo and there is a write up in the IATEFL 2010 Conference Selections book, as well as a forthcoming expansion article in English Teaching Professional. Sadly, neither I nor any engnet-education representatives will be present at IATEFL this year, but we will certainly be back for 2012.

Another reason why the move to Japan is exciting is that it offers the chance for new challenges, new connections and new working relationships in what is certainly an amazing country for language teaching, most notably English Language which is what I specialise in. Although the Eikaiwa (Private Language School) industry is a little rocky, there are still lots of schools out there, not to mention the state and private Junior and High-School sections. It is also a great joy for me to be working at Sophia University, a leading Foreign Language Education institute and one of the most prestigious universities in Japan. It has long been an ambition of mine to teach Academic English in Japan and this year that dream will be realised.

Japan is a country with an interesting relationship with English. This is a theme which I shall be exploring in a more dedicated section of the site all about eLearning and Language Learning in general here in Japan. There are many Computer Aided Language Learning (CALL) specialists here, such as Glenn Stockwell and Lawrence Anthony, creator of AntConc the free concordancing software. Not to mention Thomas Robb and of course the well-established Japan Association of Language Teachers (JALT) CALL Special Interest Group, with its own peer reviewed journal, conference and chapter events. Very much looking forward to participating there after having been a member for so long.

Despite the current economic climate, both globally and in Japan specifically, English Language Education is still of high importance in Japan, and so at engnet-education we are pleased to be able to offer our services to an industry which very much needs to stay on top of innovations in learning and teaching. We are also officially launching a new arm of the company, engnet-academy, which will provide both online and blended learning solutions to coroporate clients for their English Language Learning needs. We are also branching out further into materials development, producing a range of interactions for my former employee Kaplan International.

So, as you can see, 2011 certainly looks set to be a busy year for engnet-education. If you would like to learn more about what we are doing, or would like to get involved please send us an email, we would love to hear from you.