Books by Snezana Dabic
The book presents an in-depth study of the influence of Indian philosophical and religious though... more The book presents an in-depth study of the influence of Indian philosophical and religious thought on W.B. Yeats’s poetic and dramatic work. It traces the development of this influence and inspiration from Yeats’s early impressionistic work to the mature and elaborate incorporation of Indian ideas into the structure, themes and symbolism of his writing. It recognizes the importance of his Indian friendships, Indian essays, and shows the limits of his Indianness.
While providing a comprehensive analysis of Yeats’s poetry and his bizarre poetic play, The Herne’s Egg, from an Eastern perspective, the book examines how Indian philosophical concepts guided Yeats in constructing his characters, imagery, and symbology, and in shaping the structure of his dramatic narrative.
Articles by Snezana Dabic
A Review of Snežana Dabić’s Book W.B. Yeats and Indian
Thought: A Man Engaged in that Endless Re... more A Review of Snežana Dabić’s Book W.B. Yeats and Indian
Thought: A Man Engaged in that Endless Research into Life,
Death, God.
Reviewed by Pawan Kumar
Center for English Studies, School of Language, Literature, and Cultural Studies, Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Critical Discourse Studies, Jan 1, 2010
International Journal of Lifelong Education, Jan 1, 2008
The Wonder of China or how to fall in love with 1.3 billion people, 2006
China, land of a billion stories-and here are as many as Snezana Dabic could fit into 3000 words.... more China, land of a billion stories-and here are as many as Snezana Dabic could fit into 3000 words. Beside the Whiteboard Beside the Whiteboard Beside the Whiteboard Beside the Whiteboard Beside the Whiteboard Fran O'Neill talks to Lynne Matheson about the old days with Fine Print and her years with VALBEC.
The tension of re-Other-ing bodies, 2002
Papers by Snezana Dabic
This paper explores the efforts of migrant/refugee adult learners struggling to resettle by conti... more This paper explores the efforts of migrant/refugee adult learners struggling to resettle by continuing their education and/or finding employment in Australia. The learner is placed at the centre of analysis of identity formation and literacy as embodied cultural practice, which is guiding my research in
You know the scenario. The eloquent sigh. The stage exasperation, the eye roll, the toxic pout. I... more You know the scenario. The eloquent sigh. The stage exasperation, the eye roll, the toxic pout. Imagine you ask your P-plate daughter to return the car by midnight and Cinderella retorts, "whatever". You tell the waiter the ambient music is too loud and garcon rejoins, "whatever".
This is a personal account of a remarkable teaching experience in China, an extraordinary meeting... more This is a personal account of a remarkable teaching experience in China, an extraordinary meeting of the East and West, both real and imagined, a life-changing teaching experience, that cannot be separated from learning, traveling, being enchanted and immersing oneself in a new culture and language that demand a whole being in order to receive a full appreciation of they have to offer.
To teach or not to teach: Pronunciation challenge in ESL, 2010
This paper explores a range of critical issues in pronunciation tuition/acquisition in language l... more This paper explores a range of critical issues in pronunciation tuition/acquisition in language learning. The focus of the investigation is, first, on the autoethnographic study of language learning over an extended period of time. Then, the personal case study is juxtaposed to transferring the conceptual and practical skills of the author (as a learner) onto 'teaching' of pronunciation by the author (as a teacher). At the centre of the discussion are migrant learners of English as a Second Language in a metropolitan language classroom setting in Australia. The learners' diverse linguistic and educational background calls for flexible approaches to pronunciation tuition/facilitation, posing pedagogic dilemmas about how speech can be learnable or teachable. Particular attention is paid to issues of how language sounds and intonation construct meaning that interlocutors express in interaction. Key research questions are: What constitutes intelligible pronunciation and who decides? What amount of guidance is required for acquisition of communicative pronunciation? How does pronunciation proficiency lead to learner empowerment? The significance of the investigation is in attempting to find balance in pronunciation tuition between minimal and maximal guidance. Further, the study points to learner self-reliance on previous language learning experience as a source of skills in conceptualizing and acquiring new sounds and speech. Finally, it emphasizes a need for further research in how learner cognition of oral language skills and patterns of mutual intelligibility of sounds in learning one or multiple language/s can best be utilized in learning/teaching ESL.
Beliefs and Theories, Culture, Race and Community: Making It Work in the New Millennium, 2002
Acculturation challenges of migrant professionals: How do 'they' become one of 'us'? SNEZANA DABI... more Acculturation challenges of migrant professionals: How do 'they' become one of 'us'? SNEZANA DABIC The buzz word of the nineties in the corporate world, globalisation, has become a driving force behind the inescapable process of free market capitalism, the integration of nation states and the demise of multinational states, together with the communication revolution, the coexistence of all cultural patterns and the creation of new world order. Along with the free flow of capital, the free flow of labour in the form of migration is another indication of the phenomenon of globalisation. In the course of forming global markets the workforce mobility accelerates, cultures meet cultures and changes occur at both population and individual levels. Australia is still seen as a land opportunity with a less racist social and political climate which makes her attractive to migrants worldwide. The ideology of 'competitive advantage' along with 'economic rationalism' puts extra pressure on both the Australian-born and migrant workforce in terms of productivity, multi-skilling and innovation. Survival in employment is often contingent upon the workers' flexibility and competitiveness.
Conference Presentations by Snezana Dabic
This presentation focuses on enduring challenges of educators, more specifically language teacher... more This presentation focuses on enduring challenges of educators, more specifically language teachers who are keen to engage in continuing professional development (CPD) but are faced with frequently prescriptive choices, defined by education policies and funding requirements.
Two key questions guide my discussion: How do we conceptualise CPD as active, democratic and inquiry-based reflective learning? How can we integrate practice and research to achieve meaningful and effective CPD in a highly digitalized age?
The site of inquiry is a VET institution in metropolitan Melbourne, yet the dilemmas posed call for a wider investigation in CPD teacher practices within the context of their educational institutions, diversity of student needs and professional career advancement. Education management is driven by policies, accountability and/or survival – considerably so in the case of Australia, student needs are decided by their career objectives and labor force opportunities and teacher professionalism in daily practice is restricted by both. Arriving at winning solutions demands vigour, a clear vision and taking action towards developing a capacity to revive teaching as emancipatory praxis.
The discussion reveals the importance of promoting the complexity of teacher CPD practices as part of their professional career and lifelong learning, contesting unreasonable demands and creating new opportunities. Teachers and students equally deserve engaged, expert teaching practice based on research, critical thinking and innovation.
Key words: CPD, collaborative learning, reflective practice, teaching
This talk investigates the infinite capacity of learner identity for metamorphosis, expressed wit... more This talk investigates the infinite capacity of learner identity for metamorphosis, expressed within different language, societal and cultural contexts. At the centre of examination are migrant students as a unique multicultural group in an ESL classroom, struggling to master new language skills and discourses in order to ‘fit into’ the fabric of their chosen new community - Australia. That struggle in turn destabilises their old/existing identities in multiple ways, keeping educators alert as to continuous reshaping of language learning pedagogies.
The main obstacles to student integration are perceived to be related to the English language proficiency, the recognition of overseas qualifications or lack of work and ‘other’ skills and little knowledge of Australian culture, including legendary Aussie lingo.
The notion of identity is pluralised here, thus reflecting a range of practices to which it responds. It is closely related to ethnicity, gender, class and other factors. Communication, verbal (either in English or other languages) and non-verbal, digital or non-digital, impacts on one’s sense of self, self talk and identity creation. Successful learner intercultural communication and cross-cultural competence depend on increasing the shared knowledge of interlocutors coming from different discourses as well as on sharing the assumptions of what they mean by what they say.
In the classroom under examination, learners are given a voice to articulate what their experiences of Australia are, how they perceive themselves and how they understand the concept of a ‘good teacher’, which then brings the practitioner to a new question of challenging the notion of an ‘expert teacher’. Some learners are faced with the difficulty of externalising their experiences, while others with internalising new language. In the course of their studies we deal with the issues of mastery and appropriation of and resistance to new genres and discourses in English regardless of how transliterate these learners may be. The practitioner makes informed choices of pedagogies based on what orients and enables learners’ learning most effectively.
In addition, I shall look at discourses that strongly impact on identity constructs that are either imposed or self-imposed and how acculturation stress and stressors that accompany learners’ lives require emotional intelligence and coping strategies that work.
Finally, I shall endeavour to see my own views and knowledge on /cultural/ identity as contestable and judge them against Mikhail Epstein’s concept of transculture as a model of cultural development that, he believes, ‘transcends the borders of traditional cultures’ from which the most precious freedom arises, ‘the freedom from one’s own culture, in which one was born and educated’.
In this talk I examine the relationship between the notions of literacy, identity and pedagogy an... more In this talk I examine the relationship between the notions of literacy, identity and pedagogy and how they shape learners’ engagement in classroom instruction, leading to constructive behaviour in authentic life/work situations. The site of tensions is a communication skills classroom, i.e. English for professional employment. At the centre of discussion are overseas qualified professionals as recent migrant learners from culturally and linguistically diverse background (CALD). They are more or less fervently trying to master desirable English language comskills, rooted in essential employability skills, and become competitive in a highly technologised and unpredictable labour market.
My investigation focuses on the complexities of emerging and existing learner identities whose literacy practices aim at developing acceptable personal and work narratives in English. Their ultimate goal is to obtain a professional job in their area of expertise. Manifold challenges they experience in communicating reveal their efforts to bridge the gaps of schooling differences and of transferring skills and knowledge/s to meet Australian requirements and global standards. But most of all, their challenge is to understand, appropriate and apply cultural practices embedded in language use. The lack of such practices stigmatises them as outsiders to the local culture, irrespective of its global claims, which may have multiple unfavourable consequences.
Clearly, some of the views that arise from the analysis reflect the transcultural differences, ideological basis of learning, migration as a traumatic event frequently reflected in a loss of voice and an inability to fit in. Yet, the learners can take control of their position by mastering new knowledge/s and skills and by entering new discourse communities through applying diverse strategies and by re-imagining their future. Flexibility and openness, as well as continual reshaping of existing and newly appropriated language and other skills lead to learner resilience and to fluid synergies that help us understand somewhat better the process of knowing and becoming.
Ultimately, the three critical questions that I am interested in are:
What happens to learner identities while acquiring and/or appropriating privileged forms of knowledge through language?
Would transculturation aid or hinder the process of integration into Australian society?
How do learner collaboration and online networks enhance their language learning?
These questions have relevance for all English language learners with ‘global’ passports or intentions of becoming global citizens, interested in working in companies or organisations which use English in professional communication. From a transcultural perspective of Mikhail Epstein, the learner diversity, or rather differences, ‘complement each other and create a new interpersonal transcultural community to which we belong’...where ‘the global society can be viewed as the space of diversity of free individuals’ and, as Epstein optimistically believes, become ‘an alternative to the clash of civilizations and a hope for lasting peace.’
This talk will initially focus on the current challenges and issues teachers commonly face, befor... more This talk will initially focus on the current challenges and issues teachers commonly face, before and while engaging in professional learning / CPD that is often prescriptive and defined by government policies rather than specific to teacher needs and desires. Whether we talk about secondary schools, vocational education institutions (VET) or higher education (HE) in Australia, intense demands are made on the teacher skills and expertise, without always sufficiently taking into account their own choices and voices. There is clearly a need to recognize the complexity of teacher CPD practices and how they fit in with their work and overall career, life goals and wellbeing. Further, the discussion will look at scholar-practitioners as having a dual role and responsibility of a teacher and researcher in a mixed sector VET/HE and how they compare to teachers engaged in teaching with no research duties.
Three questions guide my discussion: What is regarded as effective CPD for teachers/scholar-practitioners today and how do we know? How can teachers/scholar-practitioners be best supported and resourced to engage in CPD of a collaborative nature? How can we establish a balance between what is regulated/imposed and what is desired and deemed as critical by both within their respective environments?
Dilemmas posed call for an investigation into CPD teacher practices within the context of their educational institutions, professional career advancement and diversity of student needs. Education management is often driven by policies and survival – considerably so in the case of Australia, student needs are decided by their objectives and employability climate and teacher professionalism in daily practice is constricted by both. Breaking free seems to demand energy, a clear vision and taking action towards developing a range of capabilities that can reinvigorate the teaching profession and eventually lead to emancipatory praxis, based on shared scholarly culture.
I shall present, furthermore, a case study of a model of a CPD framework applied in the Faculty of Further Education of Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE in Melbourne, which is trying to incorporate the principles and ideas of collaborative and reflective learning. This model also offers an open learning exchange via an online share point as a platform for collaboration that reflects collective skills, knowledge/s and intelligence of teachers. Such a model points to a more democratic approach to teachers’ CPD from their expression of interest, to self-regulation and ultimately CPD realisation, which embraces a lifelong learning perspective as a continuous process of professional and other learning.
This presentation explores the relationship between the notions of literacy, identity and pedagog... more This presentation explores the relationship between the notions of literacy, identity and pedagogy and how they shape learners’ engagement in classroom instruction, leading to constructive behaviour in authentic life/work situations. The site of tensions is an Australian metropolitan institute of technical and further education. At the centre of this discussion are recent migrant learners - overseas qualified professionals - from culturally and linguistically diverse background (CALD). They are desperately trying to master English language skills embedded in essential employability skills and become competitive in the highly technologised labour market.
My investigation focuses on the complexities of emerging and existing learner identities whose literacy practices aim at developing acceptable personal and work narratives in English. Their ultimate goal is professional employment. The conflicts they experience in communicating reveal their efforts to bridge the gaps of cross-cultural schooling differences and transferring skills and knowledge/s to meet Australian requirements and global standards.
Some of the views that arise from the analysis reflect the ideological basis of learning, migration as a traumatic event often reflected in loss of voice and disempowerment by exclusion. Yet, the learners can take control by mastering new knowledge/s and by entering new discourse communities. Continual reshaping of existing and newly appropriated skills leads to synergies that help us understand a little better the process of knowing and becoming.
But my key question is: What happens to learner identities while acquiring and/or appropriating privileged forms of knowledge and language?
In this discussion I explore a range of critical issues in pronunciation tuition/acquisition in l... more In this discussion I explore a range of critical issues in pronunciation tuition/acquisition in language learning. The focus of the investigation is, first, on the autoethnographic study of language learning over an extended period of time. Then, the personal case study is juxtaposed to transferring the conceptual and practical skills of the author (as a learner) onto ‘teaching’ of pronunciation by the author (as a teacher).
At the centre of the discussion are migrant learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in a metropolitan language classroom setting in Australia. The learners’ diverse linguistic and educational background calls for flexible approaches to pronunciation tuition/facilitation, posing pedagogic dilemmas about how speech can be learnable or teachable. Particular attention is paid to issues of how language sounds and intonation construct meaning that interlocutors express in interaction.
Key research questions are: What constitutes intelligible pronunciation and who decides? What amount of guidance is required for acquisition of communicative pronunciation? How does pronunciation proficiency lead to learner empowerment?
The significance of the investigation is in attempting to find balance in pronunciation tuition between minimal and maximal guidance. Further, the study points to learner self-reliance on previous language learning experience as a source of skills in conceptualising and acquiring new sounds and speech. Finally, it emphasises a need for further research in how learner cognition of oral language skills and patterns of mutual intelligibility of sounds in learning one or multiple languages can best be utilised in learning/teaching ESL.
Keywords: ESL/EFL, pronunciation, sound reconceptualisation, communication, minimal guidance
Learn a new language and get a new soul.
Czech Proverb
How many new souls do we really want... more Learn a new language and get a new soul.
Czech Proverb
How many new souls do we really want or need to have? Frankly, do we have a choice? But then, what IS actually the purpose of collecting souls?
This Third Millennium of ours, provided we all agree on the common concept of time, asks for brave new learners and teachers who would audaciously yet wisely take on a myriad of life and work challenges. Being caught up in the midst of globalisation bang, we are about to face what Peter Ellyard, one of Australia’s leading futurists and strategists, calls Planetism (Ellyard 2010a) , a new emerging paradigm likely to take over the world with all our diversities and vulnerabilities. This new global culture will promote sustainability in all areas of life, democracy, communitarianism, gender equality, safekeeping and much more, Peter would have us believe, becoming our imagined future. Even if this utopian-sounding age comes into being with all its more or less celebrated humane ideals – the age not bereft of transitional difficulties – how would we redesign our lives to fit in? Or, can we choose not to?
For educators, researchers, learners and other practitioners language is at the centre of our communication and the subject of our study. Whether we learn a language out of need or desire, whether we choose an indigenous, ancient or modern language or whether we teach a language, we are still confronted with the same critical issues and debates, chasing us down the corridors of history. Clearly, they are the issues of ideological positioning, inclusion and exclusion, hybridity and nationalism, ethnicity and idigeneity, centring and decentring, locality and globalism, the body and sexuality, employability and marginality, security and paranoia and many others nested in different discourses – issues largely dichotomised and imprinting values on our language use and development. And these issues are not likely to disappear in the promising new era of Planetism or Spaceship Culture.
The key question of the 21st century language learner and teacher then, I believe, should be: how can we deal with these issues within our own environments and master the language/s of our choice for our own purposes? Our experiences would reflect specific life/work-worlds and our responses would be just a scratch in this field of infinite possibilities. In my own teaching environment I am often puzzled by the vitality of the disadvantaged language learners, and passionate about creating opportunities for their whispers and voices to be heard. This poses questions about teacher roles and pedagogies as well as the sensitive issues of choice of topics and texts in cross- and trans-cultural communication with/in diverse classrooms and groups. In promoting learner multiliteracies for learning, living and working to achieve wellbeing, we should also consider student needs, confidence, self-esteem and motivation levels, if they are to become happy global citizens.
Thus, collecting souls, from the Czech proverb, is about creating and recreating identities for new roles and goals in our ever-changing troubled world that timidly casts a hopeful eye over us all.
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Books by Snezana Dabic
While providing a comprehensive analysis of Yeats’s poetry and his bizarre poetic play, The Herne’s Egg, from an Eastern perspective, the book examines how Indian philosophical concepts guided Yeats in constructing his characters, imagery, and symbology, and in shaping the structure of his dramatic narrative.
Articles by Snezana Dabic
Thought: A Man Engaged in that Endless Research into Life,
Death, God.
Reviewed by Pawan Kumar
Center for English Studies, School of Language, Literature, and Cultural Studies, Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Papers by Snezana Dabic
Conference Presentations by Snezana Dabic
Two key questions guide my discussion: How do we conceptualise CPD as active, democratic and inquiry-based reflective learning? How can we integrate practice and research to achieve meaningful and effective CPD in a highly digitalized age?
The site of inquiry is a VET institution in metropolitan Melbourne, yet the dilemmas posed call for a wider investigation in CPD teacher practices within the context of their educational institutions, diversity of student needs and professional career advancement. Education management is driven by policies, accountability and/or survival – considerably so in the case of Australia, student needs are decided by their career objectives and labor force opportunities and teacher professionalism in daily practice is restricted by both. Arriving at winning solutions demands vigour, a clear vision and taking action towards developing a capacity to revive teaching as emancipatory praxis.
The discussion reveals the importance of promoting the complexity of teacher CPD practices as part of their professional career and lifelong learning, contesting unreasonable demands and creating new opportunities. Teachers and students equally deserve engaged, expert teaching practice based on research, critical thinking and innovation.
Key words: CPD, collaborative learning, reflective practice, teaching
The main obstacles to student integration are perceived to be related to the English language proficiency, the recognition of overseas qualifications or lack of work and ‘other’ skills and little knowledge of Australian culture, including legendary Aussie lingo.
The notion of identity is pluralised here, thus reflecting a range of practices to which it responds. It is closely related to ethnicity, gender, class and other factors. Communication, verbal (either in English or other languages) and non-verbal, digital or non-digital, impacts on one’s sense of self, self talk and identity creation. Successful learner intercultural communication and cross-cultural competence depend on increasing the shared knowledge of interlocutors coming from different discourses as well as on sharing the assumptions of what they mean by what they say.
In the classroom under examination, learners are given a voice to articulate what their experiences of Australia are, how they perceive themselves and how they understand the concept of a ‘good teacher’, which then brings the practitioner to a new question of challenging the notion of an ‘expert teacher’. Some learners are faced with the difficulty of externalising their experiences, while others with internalising new language. In the course of their studies we deal with the issues of mastery and appropriation of and resistance to new genres and discourses in English regardless of how transliterate these learners may be. The practitioner makes informed choices of pedagogies based on what orients and enables learners’ learning most effectively.
In addition, I shall look at discourses that strongly impact on identity constructs that are either imposed or self-imposed and how acculturation stress and stressors that accompany learners’ lives require emotional intelligence and coping strategies that work.
Finally, I shall endeavour to see my own views and knowledge on /cultural/ identity as contestable and judge them against Mikhail Epstein’s concept of transculture as a model of cultural development that, he believes, ‘transcends the borders of traditional cultures’ from which the most precious freedom arises, ‘the freedom from one’s own culture, in which one was born and educated’.
My investigation focuses on the complexities of emerging and existing learner identities whose literacy practices aim at developing acceptable personal and work narratives in English. Their ultimate goal is to obtain a professional job in their area of expertise. Manifold challenges they experience in communicating reveal their efforts to bridge the gaps of schooling differences and of transferring skills and knowledge/s to meet Australian requirements and global standards. But most of all, their challenge is to understand, appropriate and apply cultural practices embedded in language use. The lack of such practices stigmatises them as outsiders to the local culture, irrespective of its global claims, which may have multiple unfavourable consequences.
Clearly, some of the views that arise from the analysis reflect the transcultural differences, ideological basis of learning, migration as a traumatic event frequently reflected in a loss of voice and an inability to fit in. Yet, the learners can take control of their position by mastering new knowledge/s and skills and by entering new discourse communities through applying diverse strategies and by re-imagining their future. Flexibility and openness, as well as continual reshaping of existing and newly appropriated language and other skills lead to learner resilience and to fluid synergies that help us understand somewhat better the process of knowing and becoming.
Ultimately, the three critical questions that I am interested in are:
What happens to learner identities while acquiring and/or appropriating privileged forms of knowledge through language?
Would transculturation aid or hinder the process of integration into Australian society?
How do learner collaboration and online networks enhance their language learning?
These questions have relevance for all English language learners with ‘global’ passports or intentions of becoming global citizens, interested in working in companies or organisations which use English in professional communication. From a transcultural perspective of Mikhail Epstein, the learner diversity, or rather differences, ‘complement each other and create a new interpersonal transcultural community to which we belong’...where ‘the global society can be viewed as the space of diversity of free individuals’ and, as Epstein optimistically believes, become ‘an alternative to the clash of civilizations and a hope for lasting peace.’
Three questions guide my discussion: What is regarded as effective CPD for teachers/scholar-practitioners today and how do we know? How can teachers/scholar-practitioners be best supported and resourced to engage in CPD of a collaborative nature? How can we establish a balance between what is regulated/imposed and what is desired and deemed as critical by both within their respective environments?
Dilemmas posed call for an investigation into CPD teacher practices within the context of their educational institutions, professional career advancement and diversity of student needs. Education management is often driven by policies and survival – considerably so in the case of Australia, student needs are decided by their objectives and employability climate and teacher professionalism in daily practice is constricted by both. Breaking free seems to demand energy, a clear vision and taking action towards developing a range of capabilities that can reinvigorate the teaching profession and eventually lead to emancipatory praxis, based on shared scholarly culture.
I shall present, furthermore, a case study of a model of a CPD framework applied in the Faculty of Further Education of Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE in Melbourne, which is trying to incorporate the principles and ideas of collaborative and reflective learning. This model also offers an open learning exchange via an online share point as a platform for collaboration that reflects collective skills, knowledge/s and intelligence of teachers. Such a model points to a more democratic approach to teachers’ CPD from their expression of interest, to self-regulation and ultimately CPD realisation, which embraces a lifelong learning perspective as a continuous process of professional and other learning.
My investigation focuses on the complexities of emerging and existing learner identities whose literacy practices aim at developing acceptable personal and work narratives in English. Their ultimate goal is professional employment. The conflicts they experience in communicating reveal their efforts to bridge the gaps of cross-cultural schooling differences and transferring skills and knowledge/s to meet Australian requirements and global standards.
Some of the views that arise from the analysis reflect the ideological basis of learning, migration as a traumatic event often reflected in loss of voice and disempowerment by exclusion. Yet, the learners can take control by mastering new knowledge/s and by entering new discourse communities. Continual reshaping of existing and newly appropriated skills leads to synergies that help us understand a little better the process of knowing and becoming.
But my key question is: What happens to learner identities while acquiring and/or appropriating privileged forms of knowledge and language?
At the centre of the discussion are migrant learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in a metropolitan language classroom setting in Australia. The learners’ diverse linguistic and educational background calls for flexible approaches to pronunciation tuition/facilitation, posing pedagogic dilemmas about how speech can be learnable or teachable. Particular attention is paid to issues of how language sounds and intonation construct meaning that interlocutors express in interaction.
Key research questions are: What constitutes intelligible pronunciation and who decides? What amount of guidance is required for acquisition of communicative pronunciation? How does pronunciation proficiency lead to learner empowerment?
The significance of the investigation is in attempting to find balance in pronunciation tuition between minimal and maximal guidance. Further, the study points to learner self-reliance on previous language learning experience as a source of skills in conceptualising and acquiring new sounds and speech. Finally, it emphasises a need for further research in how learner cognition of oral language skills and patterns of mutual intelligibility of sounds in learning one or multiple languages can best be utilised in learning/teaching ESL.
Keywords: ESL/EFL, pronunciation, sound reconceptualisation, communication, minimal guidance
Czech Proverb
How many new souls do we really want or need to have? Frankly, do we have a choice? But then, what IS actually the purpose of collecting souls?
This Third Millennium of ours, provided we all agree on the common concept of time, asks for brave new learners and teachers who would audaciously yet wisely take on a myriad of life and work challenges. Being caught up in the midst of globalisation bang, we are about to face what Peter Ellyard, one of Australia’s leading futurists and strategists, calls Planetism (Ellyard 2010a) , a new emerging paradigm likely to take over the world with all our diversities and vulnerabilities. This new global culture will promote sustainability in all areas of life, democracy, communitarianism, gender equality, safekeeping and much more, Peter would have us believe, becoming our imagined future. Even if this utopian-sounding age comes into being with all its more or less celebrated humane ideals – the age not bereft of transitional difficulties – how would we redesign our lives to fit in? Or, can we choose not to?
For educators, researchers, learners and other practitioners language is at the centre of our communication and the subject of our study. Whether we learn a language out of need or desire, whether we choose an indigenous, ancient or modern language or whether we teach a language, we are still confronted with the same critical issues and debates, chasing us down the corridors of history. Clearly, they are the issues of ideological positioning, inclusion and exclusion, hybridity and nationalism, ethnicity and idigeneity, centring and decentring, locality and globalism, the body and sexuality, employability and marginality, security and paranoia and many others nested in different discourses – issues largely dichotomised and imprinting values on our language use and development. And these issues are not likely to disappear in the promising new era of Planetism or Spaceship Culture.
The key question of the 21st century language learner and teacher then, I believe, should be: how can we deal with these issues within our own environments and master the language/s of our choice for our own purposes? Our experiences would reflect specific life/work-worlds and our responses would be just a scratch in this field of infinite possibilities. In my own teaching environment I am often puzzled by the vitality of the disadvantaged language learners, and passionate about creating opportunities for their whispers and voices to be heard. This poses questions about teacher roles and pedagogies as well as the sensitive issues of choice of topics and texts in cross- and trans-cultural communication with/in diverse classrooms and groups. In promoting learner multiliteracies for learning, living and working to achieve wellbeing, we should also consider student needs, confidence, self-esteem and motivation levels, if they are to become happy global citizens.
Thus, collecting souls, from the Czech proverb, is about creating and recreating identities for new roles and goals in our ever-changing troubled world that timidly casts a hopeful eye over us all.
While providing a comprehensive analysis of Yeats’s poetry and his bizarre poetic play, The Herne’s Egg, from an Eastern perspective, the book examines how Indian philosophical concepts guided Yeats in constructing his characters, imagery, and symbology, and in shaping the structure of his dramatic narrative.
Thought: A Man Engaged in that Endless Research into Life,
Death, God.
Reviewed by Pawan Kumar
Center for English Studies, School of Language, Literature, and Cultural Studies, Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Two key questions guide my discussion: How do we conceptualise CPD as active, democratic and inquiry-based reflective learning? How can we integrate practice and research to achieve meaningful and effective CPD in a highly digitalized age?
The site of inquiry is a VET institution in metropolitan Melbourne, yet the dilemmas posed call for a wider investigation in CPD teacher practices within the context of their educational institutions, diversity of student needs and professional career advancement. Education management is driven by policies, accountability and/or survival – considerably so in the case of Australia, student needs are decided by their career objectives and labor force opportunities and teacher professionalism in daily practice is restricted by both. Arriving at winning solutions demands vigour, a clear vision and taking action towards developing a capacity to revive teaching as emancipatory praxis.
The discussion reveals the importance of promoting the complexity of teacher CPD practices as part of their professional career and lifelong learning, contesting unreasonable demands and creating new opportunities. Teachers and students equally deserve engaged, expert teaching practice based on research, critical thinking and innovation.
Key words: CPD, collaborative learning, reflective practice, teaching
The main obstacles to student integration are perceived to be related to the English language proficiency, the recognition of overseas qualifications or lack of work and ‘other’ skills and little knowledge of Australian culture, including legendary Aussie lingo.
The notion of identity is pluralised here, thus reflecting a range of practices to which it responds. It is closely related to ethnicity, gender, class and other factors. Communication, verbal (either in English or other languages) and non-verbal, digital or non-digital, impacts on one’s sense of self, self talk and identity creation. Successful learner intercultural communication and cross-cultural competence depend on increasing the shared knowledge of interlocutors coming from different discourses as well as on sharing the assumptions of what they mean by what they say.
In the classroom under examination, learners are given a voice to articulate what their experiences of Australia are, how they perceive themselves and how they understand the concept of a ‘good teacher’, which then brings the practitioner to a new question of challenging the notion of an ‘expert teacher’. Some learners are faced with the difficulty of externalising their experiences, while others with internalising new language. In the course of their studies we deal with the issues of mastery and appropriation of and resistance to new genres and discourses in English regardless of how transliterate these learners may be. The practitioner makes informed choices of pedagogies based on what orients and enables learners’ learning most effectively.
In addition, I shall look at discourses that strongly impact on identity constructs that are either imposed or self-imposed and how acculturation stress and stressors that accompany learners’ lives require emotional intelligence and coping strategies that work.
Finally, I shall endeavour to see my own views and knowledge on /cultural/ identity as contestable and judge them against Mikhail Epstein’s concept of transculture as a model of cultural development that, he believes, ‘transcends the borders of traditional cultures’ from which the most precious freedom arises, ‘the freedom from one’s own culture, in which one was born and educated’.
My investigation focuses on the complexities of emerging and existing learner identities whose literacy practices aim at developing acceptable personal and work narratives in English. Their ultimate goal is to obtain a professional job in their area of expertise. Manifold challenges they experience in communicating reveal their efforts to bridge the gaps of schooling differences and of transferring skills and knowledge/s to meet Australian requirements and global standards. But most of all, their challenge is to understand, appropriate and apply cultural practices embedded in language use. The lack of such practices stigmatises them as outsiders to the local culture, irrespective of its global claims, which may have multiple unfavourable consequences.
Clearly, some of the views that arise from the analysis reflect the transcultural differences, ideological basis of learning, migration as a traumatic event frequently reflected in a loss of voice and an inability to fit in. Yet, the learners can take control of their position by mastering new knowledge/s and skills and by entering new discourse communities through applying diverse strategies and by re-imagining their future. Flexibility and openness, as well as continual reshaping of existing and newly appropriated language and other skills lead to learner resilience and to fluid synergies that help us understand somewhat better the process of knowing and becoming.
Ultimately, the three critical questions that I am interested in are:
What happens to learner identities while acquiring and/or appropriating privileged forms of knowledge through language?
Would transculturation aid or hinder the process of integration into Australian society?
How do learner collaboration and online networks enhance their language learning?
These questions have relevance for all English language learners with ‘global’ passports or intentions of becoming global citizens, interested in working in companies or organisations which use English in professional communication. From a transcultural perspective of Mikhail Epstein, the learner diversity, or rather differences, ‘complement each other and create a new interpersonal transcultural community to which we belong’...where ‘the global society can be viewed as the space of diversity of free individuals’ and, as Epstein optimistically believes, become ‘an alternative to the clash of civilizations and a hope for lasting peace.’
Three questions guide my discussion: What is regarded as effective CPD for teachers/scholar-practitioners today and how do we know? How can teachers/scholar-practitioners be best supported and resourced to engage in CPD of a collaborative nature? How can we establish a balance between what is regulated/imposed and what is desired and deemed as critical by both within their respective environments?
Dilemmas posed call for an investigation into CPD teacher practices within the context of their educational institutions, professional career advancement and diversity of student needs. Education management is often driven by policies and survival – considerably so in the case of Australia, student needs are decided by their objectives and employability climate and teacher professionalism in daily practice is constricted by both. Breaking free seems to demand energy, a clear vision and taking action towards developing a range of capabilities that can reinvigorate the teaching profession and eventually lead to emancipatory praxis, based on shared scholarly culture.
I shall present, furthermore, a case study of a model of a CPD framework applied in the Faculty of Further Education of Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE in Melbourne, which is trying to incorporate the principles and ideas of collaborative and reflective learning. This model also offers an open learning exchange via an online share point as a platform for collaboration that reflects collective skills, knowledge/s and intelligence of teachers. Such a model points to a more democratic approach to teachers’ CPD from their expression of interest, to self-regulation and ultimately CPD realisation, which embraces a lifelong learning perspective as a continuous process of professional and other learning.
My investigation focuses on the complexities of emerging and existing learner identities whose literacy practices aim at developing acceptable personal and work narratives in English. Their ultimate goal is professional employment. The conflicts they experience in communicating reveal their efforts to bridge the gaps of cross-cultural schooling differences and transferring skills and knowledge/s to meet Australian requirements and global standards.
Some of the views that arise from the analysis reflect the ideological basis of learning, migration as a traumatic event often reflected in loss of voice and disempowerment by exclusion. Yet, the learners can take control by mastering new knowledge/s and by entering new discourse communities. Continual reshaping of existing and newly appropriated skills leads to synergies that help us understand a little better the process of knowing and becoming.
But my key question is: What happens to learner identities while acquiring and/or appropriating privileged forms of knowledge and language?
At the centre of the discussion are migrant learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in a metropolitan language classroom setting in Australia. The learners’ diverse linguistic and educational background calls for flexible approaches to pronunciation tuition/facilitation, posing pedagogic dilemmas about how speech can be learnable or teachable. Particular attention is paid to issues of how language sounds and intonation construct meaning that interlocutors express in interaction.
Key research questions are: What constitutes intelligible pronunciation and who decides? What amount of guidance is required for acquisition of communicative pronunciation? How does pronunciation proficiency lead to learner empowerment?
The significance of the investigation is in attempting to find balance in pronunciation tuition between minimal and maximal guidance. Further, the study points to learner self-reliance on previous language learning experience as a source of skills in conceptualising and acquiring new sounds and speech. Finally, it emphasises a need for further research in how learner cognition of oral language skills and patterns of mutual intelligibility of sounds in learning one or multiple languages can best be utilised in learning/teaching ESL.
Keywords: ESL/EFL, pronunciation, sound reconceptualisation, communication, minimal guidance
Czech Proverb
How many new souls do we really want or need to have? Frankly, do we have a choice? But then, what IS actually the purpose of collecting souls?
This Third Millennium of ours, provided we all agree on the common concept of time, asks for brave new learners and teachers who would audaciously yet wisely take on a myriad of life and work challenges. Being caught up in the midst of globalisation bang, we are about to face what Peter Ellyard, one of Australia’s leading futurists and strategists, calls Planetism (Ellyard 2010a) , a new emerging paradigm likely to take over the world with all our diversities and vulnerabilities. This new global culture will promote sustainability in all areas of life, democracy, communitarianism, gender equality, safekeeping and much more, Peter would have us believe, becoming our imagined future. Even if this utopian-sounding age comes into being with all its more or less celebrated humane ideals – the age not bereft of transitional difficulties – how would we redesign our lives to fit in? Or, can we choose not to?
For educators, researchers, learners and other practitioners language is at the centre of our communication and the subject of our study. Whether we learn a language out of need or desire, whether we choose an indigenous, ancient or modern language or whether we teach a language, we are still confronted with the same critical issues and debates, chasing us down the corridors of history. Clearly, they are the issues of ideological positioning, inclusion and exclusion, hybridity and nationalism, ethnicity and idigeneity, centring and decentring, locality and globalism, the body and sexuality, employability and marginality, security and paranoia and many others nested in different discourses – issues largely dichotomised and imprinting values on our language use and development. And these issues are not likely to disappear in the promising new era of Planetism or Spaceship Culture.
The key question of the 21st century language learner and teacher then, I believe, should be: how can we deal with these issues within our own environments and master the language/s of our choice for our own purposes? Our experiences would reflect specific life/work-worlds and our responses would be just a scratch in this field of infinite possibilities. In my own teaching environment I am often puzzled by the vitality of the disadvantaged language learners, and passionate about creating opportunities for their whispers and voices to be heard. This poses questions about teacher roles and pedagogies as well as the sensitive issues of choice of topics and texts in cross- and trans-cultural communication with/in diverse classrooms and groups. In promoting learner multiliteracies for learning, living and working to achieve wellbeing, we should also consider student needs, confidence, self-esteem and motivation levels, if they are to become happy global citizens.
Thus, collecting souls, from the Czech proverb, is about creating and recreating identities for new roles and goals in our ever-changing troubled world that timidly casts a hopeful eye over us all.