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macedonianmike
Joined: 28 Jun 2007
Posts: 64
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 Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 11:47 am Post subject: Conference in Kayseri, Turkey |
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See some great speakers, give a presentation or workshop, and see a beautiful area of the world.
http://events.agu.edu.tr/agusl15/ |
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Dedicated
Joined: 18 May 2007
Posts: 972
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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| So who are the great speakers? It says details to follow.... |
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Hod
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 1613
Location: Home
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| Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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I'm not alone in this opinion, so here goes.
What's the purpose of these conferences?
If it's networking, then fine. That answers my question.
If, however, it's a platform for so-called researchers, then count me out. What exactly is being researched right now in English Language teaching after all these years?
I also worked with so-called researchers who couldn't have taught their grannies to suck eggs. They stunk the place out, and it was an insult to the proper teachers they worked with that they even used any school resources for this worthless nonsense, which they didn't even share. |
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water rat
Joined: 30 Aug 2014
Posts: 1098
Location: North Antarctica
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2014 1:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Hod wrote: |
I'm not alone in this opinion, so here goes.
What's the purpose of these conferences?
If it's networking, then fine. That answers my question.
If, however, it's a platform for so-called researchers, then count me out. What exactly is being researched right now in English Language teaching after all these years?
I also worked with so-called researchers who couldn't have taught their grannies to suck eggs. They stunk the place out, and it was an insult to the proper teachers they worked with that they even used any school resources for this worthless nonsense, which they didn't even share. |
To be fair, many of their grannies already know how to suck eggs - with no help from them. |
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rtm
Joined: 13 Apr 2007
Posts: 1003
Location: US
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2014 6:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Hod wrote: |
| If, however, it's a platform for so-called researchers, then count me out. What exactly is being researched right now in English Language teaching after all these years? |
You seem to have a very narrow definition of research. At many pedagogically-oriented conferences, the research presentations introduce specific kinds of activities that can be used in a classroom, and how students performed on the activities. That can be very useful information, and I've learned quite a few new techniques from such conferences that I've used in my own classes.
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| I also worked with so-called researchers who couldn't have taught their grannies to suck eggs. |
Yes, it's a mistake to even think that a good researcher would necessarily make a good teacher. The two are very different activities and skill sets. Some people might be good at both, but being good at one doesn't necessarily result in being good at the other. |
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Hod
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 1613
Location: Home
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2014 10:17 pm Post subject: |
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| rtm wrote: |
Yes, it's a mistake to even think that a good researcher would necessarily make a good teacher. The two are very different activities and skill sets. Some people might be good at both, but being good at one doesn't necessarily result in being good at the other. |
It's wrong, though.
I like football aka soccer, and if I could get paid to go and talk about it, I would. The trouble is, I'm rubbish at football so not only would no one take me seriously, I'd feel a fraud.
I have observed such so-called teachers attempting to teach very basic grammar to small groups of students and having no teaching skills or classroom techniques. How then can these so-called teachers have any research worth bothering with? If someone was a half decent teacher, then maybe their research may have been tried and tested in a real environment, but for someone who just can’t teach, it’s an embarrassment to the industry that such people have any platform. |
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rtm
Joined: 13 Apr 2007
Posts: 1003
Location: US
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2014 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Hod wrote: |
| I like football aka soccer, and if I could get paid to go and talk about it, I would. The trouble is, I'm rubbish at football so not only would no one take me seriously, I'd feel a fraud. |
It's not a matter of just liking something. It's a matter of having extensive knowledge about how something works. If you had extensive knowledge and training in football/soccer strategy, had done research on that area, and your research was recognized by other football/soccer experts, then yes, people would listen to you talk, even if you were not a star player yourself.
| Hod wrote: |
| How then can these so-called teachers have any research worth bothering with? |
Educational researchers can do this because they understand the theories of what underlies teaching and learning, and can design ways to apply those theories in a classroom. To do research, however, one does not need to be the most adept at actually conducting the lesson in the classroom.
Problems arise when employers hire researchers to be teachers, and teachers to be researchers. |
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Hod
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 1613
Location: Home
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| Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2014 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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| rtm wrote: |
| It's not a matter of just liking something. It's a matter of having extensive knowledge about how something works. If you had extensive knowledge and training in football/soccer strategy, had done research on that area, and your research was recognized by other football/soccer experts, then yes, people would listen to you talk, even if you were not a star player yourself |
You don’t do research to be an expert on sports. It’s something you grow up with. People appear on the UK television quiz Mastermind alongside professors and the classically educated to answer questions about Manchester United or Liverpool. These people are world experts on football but wouldn’t fill a telephone box if they tried to get people to listen to them.
English Language Teaching is different as you will get people who just can’t teach trying to show off their research with the audience nodding politely. In any other profession, they’d be booed off the stage.
If you can’t teach, you’ve no business even going to a conference.
| rtm wrote: |
| Educational researchers can do this because they understand the theories of what underlies teaching and learning, and can design ways to apply those theories in a classroom. To do research, however, one does not need to be the most adept at actually conducting the lesson in the classroom. |
Of course you do. How can you even do the research in the first place if your students don’t want to be in your lessons because they’re so bad? It shows a lack of basic knowledge and lesson planning, so the only way for these researchers to apply their theory in a classroom is to get a proper teacher to do it for them. |
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rtm
Joined: 13 Apr 2007
Posts: 1003
Location: US
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| Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2014 1:55 am Post subject: |
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| Hod wrote: |
| You don’t do research to be an expert on sports. It’s something you grow up with. People appear on the UK television quiz Mastermind alongside professors and the classically educated to answer questions about Manchester United or Liverpool. |
I wasn't talking about appearing on a quiz show. I was talking about developing expert knowledge in academic disciplines of sport, such as sports psychology, sociology of sport, sports coaching, sports management, etc. One could do research and publish it in, e.g., the International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, and present at conferences, but still be horrible at actually playing the game. In any case, analogies generally aren't so useful, so I'm not going to pursue this one any more.
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| Of course you do. How can you even do the research in the first place if your students don’t want to be in your lessons because they’re so bad? It shows a lack of basic knowledge and lesson planning, so the only way for these researchers to apply their theory in a classroom is to get a proper teacher to do it for them. |
I don't see what knowledge of lesson planning has to do with doing research. My point is that researchers can still provide information that is valuable for teachers, even if the researchers are not good teachers themselves. Research and teaching are complimentary, but separate activities. |
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Hod
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 1613
Location: Home
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| Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:46 am Post subject: |
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It must be very disheartening then for these researchers presenting their work to know they can't teach.
You don't like analogies, but this bizarre discrepancy wouldn't happen in other industries. Would you be happy to watch a cooking demo only to find the chef couldn't even fry an egg? And that's an analogy, no need to discuss eggs or cooking. Back to teaching, I question the value of such research if the researcher hasn't the first clue about basic teaching. |
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Hod
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 1613
Location: Home
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| Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:53 am Post subject: |
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| rtm wrote: |
I don't see what knowledge of lesson planning has to do with doing research. |
Lesson planning is fundamental and a sign of a good teacher. If these teacher/researchers can't get this right, and that's what I've observed, they need to go back to basics before attempting anything more advanced. |
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mitsui
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 1562
Location: Kawasaki
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| Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 7:02 am Post subject: |
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Perhaps what happens at this kind of conference are people selling books
and people presenting their research.
Hopefully it is relevant to teaching but often what passes as research is just pushing one's philosophy or using fancy words.
It is like selling a used car.
Often the research is about as far away as what goes on in the classroom and is just a pet project of said researcher: CALL, technology, gender, etc.
What happens a lot in Japan and in the US are people who are allowed to teach just because they did enough research. |
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water rat
Joined: 30 Aug 2014
Posts: 1098
Location: North Antarctica
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| Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 7:08 am Post subject: |
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| mitsui wrote: |
Perhaps what happens at this kind of conference are people selling books
and people presenting their research.
Hopefully it is relevant to teaching but often what passes as research is just pushing one's philosophy or using fancy words.
It is like selling a used car.
Often the research is about as far away as what goes on in the classroom and is just a pet project of said researcher: CALL, technology, gender, etc.
What happens a lot in Japan and in the US are people who are allowed to teach just because they did enough research. |
Oh mitsui-sensei. So young, so cynical...   |
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Hod
Joined: 28 Apr 2003
Posts: 1613
Location: Home
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| Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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I've actually been to one conference, and I even presented.
Back at my school, a British Council no less, I noticed the teachers had no knowledge of pronunciation or how to teach it. The little pronunciation boxes in each chapter were just the right size for a Post-it note it seemed.
Occasionally (several times a week), I would cover for a sick teacher, sometimes peeling off the Post-it notes and teaching some pronunciation. I soon decided to have a Post-it note amnesty and held two pronunciation workshops for the teachers. It was basic stuff such as the phonemic chart, word and sentence stress and the shocking revelation that teachers are rubbish judges of pronunciation because they are so accustomed to poor English.
Word got round of this, and I was invited to a conference in Ouarzazate, Morocco. The brochure looked nice, the hotel had a bar and it was a few days less of my life spent in Casablanca.
As expected, my presentation was rubbish. The Moroccans thought I was teaching them how to pronounce properly and not how to teach it. None of them knew what the phonemic chart was and one walked out when I said teachers are rubbish judges of pronunciation. At least that’s what I thought she said. Maybe she forgot her Post-it notes. A few others asked for my contact details and offered to buy me a beer. OK, I made up that last bit. They asked me to buy them beer.
It was an enjoyable experience with a trip to the film studios, more beer and I met a camel. As for the presentations, all garbage including mine, but at least mine was loosely related to teaching and not trying to make myself look good (failed). |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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