Sessions Schedule & Links
10th ELT Symposium Schedule – 16th March 2023
(All timings are in Muscat Time Zone, UTC/GMT+4)
| S. No. | Title | Abstract | Name and Brief Bio | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | Nurture Belonging & Deeper Learning by Leading with Global & Cultural Competence | At this time of profound uncertainty across every community on the planet, the need to teach and cultivate the knowledge, skills and dispositions of global and cultural competence has never been greater. The multiple crises, from COVID to endemic social injustice, demonstrate that the urgency goes beyond what you know, to something deeper – who you are. As overwhelming as global and personal demands may feel, research in neuroscience, pedagogy, and social sciences shows that certain key steps can make profound changes. This talk will explore the context and some of the lasting interventions and approaches leaders can take in order to respond meaningfully and with strategic foresight to the complex challenges of our time. It is informed by Homa Tavangar’s extensive work with education and business leaders around the world, and decades of research in cultivating meaningful global citizenship. | Mrs. Homa S Tavangar
Homa S. Tavangar is a global education expert, author and speaker, known for her bestselling book "Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World." She has worked with schools and organizations worldwide, promoting cultural understanding and global citizenship. Tavangar holds degrees from the University of Chicago and Harvard University. | |||||
| P2 | English Today and Tomorrow | For English teachers and learners, focusing on 'tomorrow' requires an understanding of the directions in which the language is moving today, which in turn requires a look at the recent past. The talk will begin with an overview: how many people use English around the world now, and how many will do so tomorrow? Then the presenter will focus on points of detail: what is happening to English as a result of its global reach? with examples of some changes - in pronunciation, grammar, and especially vocabulary, where the expression of local cultural identities in the 'new Englishes' of the world presents the greatest challenge to anyone navigating tomorrow. | Prof. David Crystal
David Crystal is a renowned linguist, author, and academic from the UK. He was born in 1941 and has written over 100 books on language and linguistics. He is particularly known for his work on the English language, and for his advocacy of language learning and linguistic diversity. He has a Ph.D in Linguistics from University College London | |||||
| 1 | Rich Vocabulary as a Step to Effective Communication | The 21st century skills are regarded as skills students need to work and live and the development of these skills should be thought of as training integrated across all the language skills. Collaboration, critical thinking, creativity and communication top the existing frameworks. If communication is possible without grammar, it is scarcely productive without vocabulary. Enriching students’ vocabulary in a foreign language is regarded in this presentation as an essential part of developing effective communication skills in a foreign language and with the right organization of the vocabulary learning process, as a means of developing other skills like problem solving, creativity, team building, and of course, digital skills that are thought to be the core of the 21st century skills. While "the mechanics of vocabulary learning” are still unknown, it’s clear that words are not instantaneously acquired. Rather, they are gradually learned over a period of time, from numerous exposures. Numerous exposures are one of the key approaches in this presentation as mastery of a word includes the meaning(s) of the word, the written form of the word, the spoken form of the word, the grammatical behavior of the word, the collocations of the word, the register of the word, the associations of the word, the frequency of the word (Schmitt, 2000).Other approaches involve both picture and text annotations, consistency, recurrence, collocations, paraphrase, word games, digital platforms, and proper timing for each of the exposures within a certain number of consecutive reading lessons. | Ms. Tetyana Brushko:
Tetyana Brushko is from Ukraine. She holds a Master's Degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from a Ukrainian university. She has more than 25 years of experience as a university lecturer. She is currently employed by UTAS Muscat. Her major interests include creative teaching methods, digital platforms for formative assessment, vocabulary acquisition and others. | |||||
| 2 | Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions about online education. | Online education has been explored by many researchers, who attempted to identify its effectiveness and its relation to other factors that include -but are not limited to- gender of the teacher, online teaching experience and qualifications. To give examples, some researchers explored the effectiveness of using a particular mode of teaching which includes face-to-face, online or blended mode. Despite the massive amount of research that encourages using some online platforms, it is noticed that although teachers had perceived teaching online positively, they were reluctant to move to the online platforms. Such a claim regarding teachers’ perceptions and implementation of the online courses lacks rigorous research that explores the disparity between teachers’ perceptions and their implementations of the online courses. Thus, the presenter will discuss the results of a study of an online teaching experience, in a higher educational context, in Oman, using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The presenter will also provide a detailed account of some challenges that were identified when implementing an online English course at tertiary level. The presenter will also shed light on the most challenging/ the least challenging English Language skill when teaching online based on the teachers’ survey. The presenter will outline the challenges that teachers faced in relation to their gender and the online teaching experience. Then, the presenter will share the teachers’ suggestions for better online experiences in future. In conclusion, some recommendations for further research and lessons that were learned from the research will be shared with participants. | Mr. Nasser Abdullah Al-Hindasi
Mr. Nasser works as English lecturer at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences, Shinas in the General Foundation Program (UTAS) Oman. He holds two masters, one in Education; Educational Psychology: (Sultan Qaboos University, Oman) The second master is in Education: English Language Teaching (Kingston University/ London). He has worked in various Higher Educational Institutes. Over the last 22 years. His main interests include students’ voices, online education, equity, and internationalization of education. | |||||
| 3 | Effects of a Writing Intervention Program on Developing Moroccan college students' writing skills. | This study investigated the effects of two approaches to teaching writing (process approach and product approach) on the development of writing skills of 86 Moroccan EFL college students. The participants in this study were divided randomly into two groups: a control group and an experimental group. At first, all the participants took a pre-test to measure their writing competence in expository essay writing. Then, each of the two groups was subjected to a special process of learning writing. Students in the experimental group used a syllabus based on the process approach, while the students in the control group used the original product-based syllabus designed for the course. The process syllabus which was designed especially for this study involved training the student writers to follow the stages of the writing process through different activities such as brainstorming, paired-student and small-group language problem solving activities, free writing, multi drafting, structured peer-feedback, and teacher-student conferencing. The Product syllabus involved teaching writing mainly through analysis of models, writing exercises, and structured teacher-student feedback sessions. After the process, students took a post-test to identify the effects of both methods on the development of their writing skills. A Paired Samples T-test and an Independent Samples T-test were applied to the results in order to identify any significant difference between the effects of the two methods. This revealed that both approaches were successful in developing students’ writing performance, but that the process approach was significantly more effective than the product approach. Key words: Process approach; Product approach; Effectiveness. | Mr. Youssef El Ouidani
Youssef El Ouidani is a PhD candidate in Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Ibno Zohr University, Morocco. He has a diploma of International Leader in Education from Indiana University, PA, USA. He has participated in several regional, national, and international conferences and his contributions have been published in their proceedings. He has also published papers in various international journals. His research interests lie in second language writing, ICT, and second language acquisition. He has 13 years of experience as an ELT professional in secondary education. | |||||
| 4 | Using movies to encourage critical thinking in the elementary classroom | Using movies is one of the ways to engage students in the study of children’s literature. Media is used as a bridge to acquire skills in literary analysis and critical thinking. One of the ways is compare and contrast activity – where students challenge visual versus written and it gets them to think about the mechanics of compelling plots. Also, apps such as padlet and quizizz can enable interactive whole-class discussions in real time and it allows teachers to pose questions and probe for comprehension in the classroom as the story unfolds. By introducing movies such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and Charlotte's Web in the classroom, it evokes emotions towards characters, captures students' imagination and further develops their critical thinking skills. Students better comprehend and empathize with the life experiences of other people by providing diverse views in compelling and emotional ways. It is no doubt that students will inherently show more interest in media than in literary texts. By introducing movies in the classroom, it engages students and helps them better appreciate literature and enables students to bring the diversity of their life experiences into the learning environment. | Ms. N Selvakumari
Ms. Selvakumari has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and English Literature. She began her journey as a teacher in 2007. She has a passion for helping all students reach their potential and loves to challenge students to be curious and take chances when learning. Her philosophy of education is that all children are unique and must have a stimulating educational environment where they can grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. Through the teaching of critical thinking, it is her desire to create this type of atmosphere where students can meet their full potential | |||||
| 5 | Demystifying the ways a non-native English speaker (NNEST) learns the English language | This is a case study of a better understanding of the nature of learning English in the Philippines. The researcher utilized the case study method to create an exhaustive, multi-faceted consideration of the way English is learned and taught in the Philippines in its real-life context. It was selected as a research design because it is used extensively in a wide spectrum of fields in the social sciences. Linguistics is the study of language, its structure, and the rules that govern its structure. The study found that the study of the English language for NNEST follows the underlying linguistic and structural rules that make meaningful communication possible among individuals and address reading and listening difficulties. The study recommends that this structure be considered in teaching English as a foreign/second language (EFL/EFL) | Dr. Aldrin L. Apolonio:
Aldrin L. Apolonio, PhD, is a Lecturer at the English Language Center at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences, Shinas, Oman since 2013. His research interests are in linguistics and pedagogy. | |||||
| 6 | Experienced and Novice Teachers’ Cognitive Construction of Noticing Concept in Language Teaching | Language teaching literature has developed plenty of compelling evidence to impress the need for attention to language form but this solid knowledge has not included teachers’ perception of noticing in teaching language form, thus teachers’ cognition in conceptualizing noticing concept was the main aim of this research. It also tried to find out teachers’ experience tenor in conceptualizing noticing. For this purpose, a noticing concept inventory (NCI) was developed. Therefore, a total population of 689 male and female English teachers were assigned to the study through two phases of factor analysis. Then, 60 teachers from both groups did the questionnaire and a t-test was carried out. The empirical findings from the first phase of the study revealed seven noticing constructs namely 1) Pedagogical effect, 2) Learners’ characteristics, 3) Type of input, 4) Skill type, 5) Task type, 6) Time and 7) Measurement. In the second phase of the study, the result showed that teaching experience is assigned as a dividing line between experienced and inexperienced teachers in the conceptualization of noticing in teaching. Teaching experience is a dynamic entity and other operational definitions might change the result; however, the findings of the research will be of a valuable pedagogical framework. | Dr. Zahra Zargaran:
Mahsa Zargaran is a Ph.D. holder in TEFL. She has 19 years of teaching experience in different fields of study ranging from General English to IELTS and PTE. She has been teaching many online courses to students in and outside Iran. She is an accredited and certified trainer by the British Council, IDP Australia, and Cambridge. She has been actively involved in professional teaching, curriculum design, materials development, and educational management in both private and public sectors at language schools and universities. She enjoys doing research in the areas of teacher education, learning strategies, language teaching, and psycholinguistics. | |||||
| 7 | English Language Teachers’ Self-evaluation Practices: The Case of UTAS-Salalah | Teaching is a demanding profession that requires skills, knowledge, expertise and values on the part of the teacher. In order to discharge their duties in a proper way, teachers have to refine their way of teaching, evaluate their performance and regulate their behaviour. It is only through evaluating their own work in the classroom and identifying the areas of strengths and weaknesses; teachers can be able to develop themselves. Self-evaluation can be defined as a set of techniques and strategies teachers adopt to examine their work with a view to finding out what has been achieved and what is still to be achieved. It is mainly done to improve a current situation. English language teachers in the English Language Centre, University of Technology and Applied Sciences-Salalah embrace a variety of processes for self-evaluation. For instance, check lists, self-monitoring and interviews are commonly used techniques by teachers to self-reflect. The purpose of this study was to investigate the self-evaluation practices of the English language teachers in the English Language Centre, University of Technology and Applied Sciences-Salalah. The study specifically aimed to find out the strategies teachers use for self-reflection. Moreover, it attempted to explore the reasons for their self-evaluation. To achieve this, a questionnaire was designed, based on the 5-point Likert scale. 42 teachers participated in this study. The results reveal that teachers adopted various techniques and strategies to evaluate themselves. Moreover, the results show that there are many reasons for teachers’ self-evaluation. | Dr. Mohammed Mahdi Al-Raimi:
Dr. Mohammed Mahdi Al-Raimi holds a PhD in TESOL from the University of Pune, India (2000), an MA in Linguistics from Deccan College, Post-Graduate and Research Institute-Deemed to be a University, India (1997) and a B Ed in Curriculum and English Language Teaching Methodology from Sana’a University, Yemen (1990). From 2009 to 2011, Dr Al-Raimi held various positions--Head of the English Department, Vice-Dean for Academic Affairs and Student Affairs, and Dean in Sana’a University and Amran University, Yemen. Currently, Dr Al- Raimi has been teaching English at the English Language Centre, University of Technology and Applied Sciences-Salalah since 2011. Also, he is the Technical Writing Course Coordinator in the Post-foundation Program. In the span of 22 years, Dr Al Raimi has been teaching different courses in the graduate and post-graduate programs at many colleges and universities. His research interests include assessment, teacher education, language skills and learning strategies. | |||||
| 8 | An Inventory of Types of Errors in Future English Language Teachers: Rustaq College of Education Students. | Accumulated inventory of types of errors which are common among Omani future teachers is a necessity. It will provide enough data for error recognition and analysis to detect whether these errors are interlingual errors, i.e., impacted by the L1 -Arabic language in our context, or intralingual errors resulting from English language, L2, itself. This categorization of the source of errors will certainly help in devising methods to correct errors and eliminate the probability of their becoming focalized. Moreover, the inventory will provide future teachers with a reservoir of examples to draw from while preparing their lesson plans. A future teacher will have knowledge that they are being supported by an inventory which elicits errors produced by their fellows and themselves, along with adequate analysis and feasible suggestions for teaching, to reduce errors, will enhance these teachers’ confidence and empower them to better performance. | Dr. Nagham Al-Azzawi:
Dr. Nagham Al-Azzawi is an assistant professor at UTAS-Rustaq. Her PhD was in Linguistics and translation. Her interests are in the areas of QA in higher education with a growing interest in online assessment, educational technology and continuous professional development. | |||||
| 9 | Fostering Critical Thinking Using Language of Literature – A Pedagogical Perspective | Teaching of Literature is always a rewarding and learning experience for both the teacher and learner, as it offers scope to broaden the horizons of thinking by virtue of open-ended discussion in the classroom. Literature is taught at different levels and based on the level and contextual requirement the teacher uses the text and sometimes goes beyond the text to critique, analyse, evaluate and conceptualize. The participant in the classroom is likely to receive multiple benefits such as developing a sense of appreciation, aesthetic thinking and critical acumen. Literature and its language is often a linguistic treat as language in literature is used creatively and authentically used. The situations in novels, poems and plays provide a plethora of ideas which contribute towards enhancing the sense and sensibility. Language used by creative writers comes with many connotations and denotations giving an opportunity for the teacher to foster critical thinking which demands reasoning, clarity of thought, accuracy in thinking, logic and fairness in inference etc. The current paper Fostering Critical Thinking Using Language of Literature – A Pedagogical Perspective aims at exploring and citing lines from literary texts where in a teacher can judiciously use them to inculcate sense of critical thinking. The paper attempts to bring into context proverbial sayings, idiomatic expressions and certain verses penned by thinkers wherein the language lends varied meanings and opportunities to enrich the much-desired critical thinking. ( Key words: Critical Thinking, Language, Literature, meaning, analysis, evaluation, reasoning) | Dr. R.V. Jayanth Kasyap:
Dr. R.V. Jayanth Kasyap, is presently working as Associate Professor in the Department of English, Yogi Vemana University, Kadapa, India. He joined the university in 2009 and earlier he worked in Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India. His areas of interest are ELT, Soft Skills, IWE (Indian Writings in English) and Language Labs. | |||||
| 10 | STREAM Language and Study Skills, a Curriculum for all Omani English Language Learners | The General Foundation Programs (GFP) in Oman have been facing a range of challenges in executing English language programs. One of the biggest challenges is getting English language learners to acquire academic English skills within one or one and a half years. However, this has been far from reach due to several obstacles, including the textbooks. Commercial textbooks may or may not have been helping Omani students advance in their English because of the nature of their methodology, divisions, topics, and visuals. In addition, commercial textbooks need to be heavily supplemented or adapted. While designing in-house materials could be a solution for this, it requires many resources and has been criticized for being time-consuming. As a result, numerous studies have emphasized the need for a contextualized English language curriculum tailored specifically to Omani learners. That is why STREAM Language and Study Skills was designed. It is a curriculum that has been carefully tailored for Omani English language learners and designed based on needs analysis. It is mapped with Oman Academic Standards, CEFR and IELTS. STREAM Language and Study Skills also comes with a digital platform called RoznaHub which is home to several applications that would be of great benefit to both teachers and students. The curriculum is currently being piloted at several educational institutions, and the current results reveal tremendous outcomes. Research on the effectiveness of STREAM Language and Study Skills will continue to be conducted. | Mr. Salah Alhanshi:
Salah Al-Hanshi is an Instructional Designer and a Lecturer. He has a B.Ed. in ELT from SQU, an MA in TESOL from St. Cloud University, the US and the CELTA. Salah has been teaching since 2008. | |||||
| 11 | ChatGPT- From Foe to Friend | ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since it was rolled out in November 2022. More than anyone else, teachers are skeptical of this AI Tool as it can easily be used by students to generate high-quality classwork, homework, and assignments. One way to deal with this foe is to make it our friend and incorporate it into our daily teaching. This workshop will share classroom activities that the presenter has designed/researched after spending countless hours in the rabbit hole of ChatGPT. The workshop will also give some fresh ideas on how teachers can use ChatGPT to generate lesson plans, activities, infographics, and worksheets. | Ms. Fazilat Jahan:
Ms. Fazilat Jahan is a lecturer in English at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences, Oman. She has an MA in TESOL from the University of Sunderland, UK. She has conducted workshops and training sessions at several local and international conferences. Her research interests include student behavior, and technology in ESL classrooms. She enjoys teaching every skill, but she is at her happiest when teaching listening and speaking. | |||||
| 12 | What are errors and how should we deal with them in the Contemporary Dynamic ELT Classrooms? | As the famous Shakespearean saying "To err is human" we know that it is natural to make mistakes when something new is learned. From error being seen as a sin to viewing error as an opportunity to learn, errors and correction have been a hotly debated topic in the ELT world. Errors, in Krashen's perspective (1983), were indications that language development was taking place. However, Moerk (1994) emphasized on more formal way of teaching and learning in which error correction is an integral part of language learning. So what are errors and how should we deal with them? Regarding speaking, the question is, how often should we correct errors and whether we should compromise accuracy over fluency? Which way is better- immediate correction or delayed correction? And in the case of correcting writing, do we give freedom to the students to follow the hints provided by the teacher to self-correct or teacher correct the entire writing for the students to check. There are also some teaching experts who identify the common mistakes and error correction is done as a group activity. However, some language experts believe that the impact of too much feedback can have an opposite effect on the level of motivation for the students. Hence, this presentation will focus on errors, how and when to correct them in English language teaching and learning. We will investigate the possibility of balancing the act of error correction, so that it doesn’t have a negative effect on either the students or the teachers. | 1. Mr. Manoj Manuel
1-Manoj Manuel has over 20 Years of experience in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. He has worked at various institutions in Oman and India. Presently, he has been working at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences, Muscat for the last twelve years. In addition to teaching, he also serves as the Quality Assurance Coordinator and the Policy Management Coordinator at the University. He has recently done many webinars and presentations on various topics. He has also published a number of journal articles on language teaching and literature.
2-Sumita Grewal is a Lecturer of Language Education at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences, Muscat. She has 14 years of teaching experience primarily in Language Teaching and Learning and communication skills in the Education industry. She has worked in India and Oman in numerous Education Organizations. Apart from teaching, she has also mentored students during soft skills development programs, work placements and internships. She has a Master of Philosophy in English and attained her Master of Arts in English from Panjab University. She is a CELTA certified professional from the University of Cambridge, U.K. She has published research papers related with materials development for language teaching, Language teacher education, Creativity in language learning and teaching, second language acquisition and assessment. | |||||
| 13 | Exploring factors affecting students’ writing performance while studying on the foundation program at Vocational colleges in Oman | Students’ difficulties in writing skills have become a thought-provoking issue for many stakeholders, including institutions of education, lecturers, parents and even students themselves. Many students at Vocational Colleges in Oman are unable to produce a single correct paragraph. The current study aims to explore (1) writing difficulties, (2) factors causing these difficulties and (3) suggestions to improve writing skills for EFL learners studying on the foundation program at Vocational Colleges in Oman. A total number of 9 teachers for semi-structured interviews and 122 students were randomly selected from Omani Vocational Colleges in Al Batinah North Governorate. The current study was generated by a sequential mixed method model. In the quantitative phase, a questionnaire was analysed descriptively using the Microsoft Excel program. Then, the second phase of qualitative study was used for semi-structured interviews. The interviews were analysed thematically. Based on the students’ perception, the most serious problem in writing was word choice followed by misspelled words, lack of ideas, poor organisation / illogical sequence, and grammatical mistakes. While, EFL teachers and learners believe that students are facing these difficulties due to lack of extensive reading, losing reading habits, lack of practice, mismatch of themes between reading and writing, lack of vocabulary and low English proficiency, social environment and limited exposure to English language, lack of motivation, inappropriate teaching methods, lack of written feedback, unavailability of course books, heavy testing and time constrain, a gap between teaching and assessing, and assessment system. Teachers and students provided suggestions to improve the situation. The study concludes with the pedagogical implications to develop English writing skills for the students. | Mrs. Khaloud Yaisr Ibrahim Al Sadrani:
She has been working at Saham Vocational College since 2013. Teaching and coordinating foundation program levels. She had been involved in Curriculum Reviewing Team in the Ministry of Manpower for three years 2015–2018. She worked as an English teacher for a year, teaching Grades 3 and 7 in schools related to the Ministry of Education, in 2012. The latest academic degree is a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics with Distinction - Bedfordshire University, UK, | |||||
| 14 | Injecting Critical and Creative Thinking in Language Teaching | Injecting critical and creative thinking in teaching is both a necessity and fun to do. Some practical and useful tips, techniques and activities will be shared with participants that they can adapt and use in their contexts. The presenter will showcase how to inject and get learners to use analogies, acronyms, riddles, puzzles, jokes, grabbers and more in their written and oral communication. For example, the 'WATER' and the 'FAMILY' analogies that were coined and some favourite elephant riddles will be used to distinguish between simple, critical and creative thinking. Participants may come up with their own. The presentation will be very informative, practical and fun. | Mr. Abdelaziz Tifouti:
He is an ELT expert and author. He has designed and implemented numerous courses and led teams of teachers in various educational institutions. He holds an MA in English Language Teaching from TVU, London and took the Doctorate of Education Course with the University of Exeter. He has recently completed a teacher trainer course with International House, UK. | |||||
| 15 | E-Learning Strategies and Tools for Enhancing Foundational Linguistic Competence in English. | English is one of the most widely used and recognized languages. Many countries are increasingly including it into early childhood education and socialization. Reading, writing, listening, and speaking are only a few of the numerous English language skills that may be acquired via the usage of E-learning methodologies. E-learning, which involves the use of various internet resources for the purpose of academic instruction, is a method that has recently gained popularity for teaching and learning English. In this study, the benefits of e-learning and its function in enabling students of English as a foreign language (EFL) to improve their language proficiency and self-directed learning are discussed. These qualities are the most important in determining an individual's English competence, vocabulary expansion, and accent reduction. Non-native English speakers can benefit substantially from a variety of E-learning tactics, software, Internet-based Apps, websites, and YouTube. This research focuses on how to use these strategies to successfully acquire, practice, and perfect these fundamental English language abilities. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the usefulness of a blended-learning environment, which combines one type of e-learning with regular classroom education, to see if students' language skills and perceptions of this program improve. | Mr. Iliyas Ali Shaik:
Mr. Iliyas Ali Shaik is an expert in his field of ELT, and English literature, serving as an Assistant Professor of English and Head of Humanities and Sciences at SV College of Engineering in Balaji Nagar, Kadapa. He worked at various reputed institutions for over a decade. He has authored over a dozen scholarly articles for academic journals and conference proceedings (including those with Scopus and non- Scopus indexes). | |||||
| 16 | Teaching with Infographics | In this presentation about teaching with Infographics, the presenter will attempt to touch upon the topic of the significance of teaching with infographics, their benefits and the research done in using them in teaching the four English skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) , the drawbacks of using them in teaching English if any, and will provide some useful tools for teachers to help guide them to best websites to utilize, for designing and using infographics in their teaching. Teaching and learning has undergone a lot of development and improvement over the last century or so, moving from traditional passive rote -learning, large classrooms, ignorance or lack of awareness of students’ varied learning styles, learning readiness and needs, to sophisticated teaching tools such as VR, digital learning, varied curriculums and smaller classrooms that satisfy student’s learning styles and needs. Using infographics is another way of providing varied media in the classroom. Research has proven that the human brain processes visual information much faster than text. This can be achieved by using infographics which help transfer knowledge, at times difficult, complex and abstract information, more effectively through easy to grasp visuals. As a result, this eases the frustration on the part of the teacher in teaching the hard-to-understand concepts, and it helps the students understand and so retain the information faster and longer. My presentation will also look at the research done on using infographics in various age groups, subjects and English skills in various countries. | Ms. Maryam Salah Karim Aziz:
She is an Omani English teacher with almost 10 years teaching experience of both school age students, but her main experience is with college level students, amounting to 7 years. Her current place of work is the Militarily Technological College in Muscat. This is her first attempt at presenting in a conference and she hopes it won't be the last. | |||||
| 17 | Anthrogogic practices in the ESL/EFL class: An exploratory study | Adult learners perceive what is taught differently from how young learners do. They are more goal-oriented and pragmatic in all life matters, further extending into their educational experiences. Therefore, it is imperative that the methodology adopted to deal with an adult learning situation be neither pedagogic nor scaffolding in nature. This argument first took hold in the works of Knowles (1968) who referred to it as anthrogogy and suggested that with the ease of availability of information and resources, the teacher in an adult learning class becomes a facilitator, a ‘guide on the side’ rather than the ‘sage on the stage.’ In addition, adults bring a vast repertoire of world knowledge that enables them to engage with the task at hand differently from how a young learner does. For this reason, different adult learners perceive the same problem in various ways that are unique to each individual. Therefore, the process of knowledge transaction in an adult learning class is different. In this paper, the presenter has identified the anthrogogic practices implemented in adult teaching-learning scenarios to which he has been exposed to as a teacher in the ESL/EFL context. The findings suggest that with a bit of forethought, adult learners can emerge from their Peter Pan syndrome and become responsible for their language learning practices. The results of the study have implications for teachers who want to experiment with different modalities to make their classes more anthrogogic. Keywords: anthrogocity, ESL/EFL, adult learning practices, Peter Pan syndrome | Dr. Shravasti Chakravarty:
Dr Shravasti Chakravarty is an Assistant Professor in the Department of General Management, XLRI Delhi NCR where she teaches Managerial Communication. She has a PhD in English Language Education from The English and Foreign Languages University, India. She is skilled in research writing, developing speaking proficiency among learners, and teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language. Her areas of interest include language learning strategies, Extensive Reading, and Critical Thinking. | |||||
| 18 | Omani students & their teachers’ attitudes towards EFL Academic writing between foundation programs and post foundation courses: A bridge or a gap? | This study investigates the situation of academic writing taught at foundation programs in the colleges and universities in the sultanate of Oman. The study focused on probing the views and perceptions of students and their teachers about the academic writing skills of the first-year students and the teaching materials in relation to preparing them for higher education courses needs of academic writing tasks. In addition, the study aimed to gain insights into the students’ experiences of the writing taught at foundation programs and how it helps shape their academic skills. Also, the teachers’ lived experiences of the situation were considered. The study used three data collection instruments: questionnaires were constructed for both students and teachers, semi-structured interviews with teachers and document analysis. A total number of 80 students and about 49 teachers participated in answering the questionnaires. Sixteen interviews were conducted with teachers and heads of departments from the foundation and higher education. A sample of 15 students’ writing paper were used in the document analysis. The results showed the need for further enhancements in the academic writing taught for foundation students. The thesis ends by suggesting some practical teaching implications based on the findings of this study. | Mr. Ali Abdullah Al Bahri:
An Omani English language teacher who has been teaching in foundation and higher education programs for more than 15 years. He holds a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics from Bedfored University and a BA degree in Education- English language from Sultan Qaboos University. | |||||
| 19 | A novel approach for 21st-century skills for adult education | This article presents a novel approach to studying 21st century skills in education, learning, and teaching for adults. Rather than simply examining the skills themselves, this paper discusses a comprehensive view of the topic by considering how adult learners acquire and develop these skills, as well as the role of educators in supporting their development. To do this, the paper begins by exploring the characteristics of adult learners that may influence their acquisition of 21st-century skills. This includes examining the role of prior experiences, learning styles, and motivations in shaping adult learners' approach to learning. It also focuses on educators' role in supporting the development of 21st-century skills in adult learners. By analyzing how teachers can create inclusive and engaging learning environments that support the development of these skills, the paper aims to provide practical strategies for supporting adult learners' success in the 21st century. Finally, the paper addresses the importance of institutional support for developing 21st-century skills in adult learners. This includes examining the role of higher education institutions in providing access to resources and support for adult learners, as well as the need to create policies and practices that support the effective use of digital technologies for teaching and learning. Overall, this research paper offers a novel approach to understanding the development of 21st-century skills in adult learners and provides practical recommendations for supporting their success in education, learning, and teaching in the modern world. | Mr. Fawad Naseer:
He is a PhD Scholar and an Educator with over 10 years of teaching experience with industrial and academic projects supervision. He has a strong research background with national and international publications including Oxford university, IEEE and ACM. He won an International Max E. Lundquest Young Educator Award from University of Tennessee - USA along with that he was a formal International Mentor at New York Academy of Science NYAS – USA for student’s projects. He has been invited to various international webinars and panel discussion including IEEE and other prestigious platforms for sharing his expert opinion about robotics and intelligent systems and streamlined student’s perspective to prepare for 21st century skillset. He is an international certified robotics education trainer from Carnegie Mellon University – USA. He has founded Faisalabad Robotics Society with local and foreign experts to mentor students in robotics field. | |||||
| 20 | Language Learning and Critical Thinking | Critical thinking is not a novel idea. It is only today that the educators are innovating the idea of preparing students for this ever-changing and unpredictable world we live in. Our academia, today, has taken critical thinking on the driving seat. Literacy, numeracy and language development find their origin in a child’s ability to decode morphemes, develop the mechanics of phonetics, acquire the complex arrangement of grammatical items, and understand the semantics of text and discourse. The four skills of language and their sub-skills require language learners to apply skills like problem-solving, predicting, inferencing, evaluating, analysing and explicating, all of which are now understood and classed as critical thinking skills. The application of these skills to decode a language- and vice versa- is a complex and complicated process that learners activate with the help of language tailor-made language learning and practice tasks. The functional understanding of language learning and critical thinking lies in a teacher’s resourcefulness of activating the process of critical thinking. This is done by employing certain strategies in lesson planning, syllabus design, and task allocation to put students onto higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) that are induced as part of critical thinking. The collective process enables students to compare and contrast, demonstrate with rationale and logic, evaluate and analyse ideas, form opinions, introduce value judgment and exemplify. Research should help us unravel a practical correlation between language learning and critical thinking and enable educators to build their resources and effective teaching practice if they are to help learners learn a language with a purpose. | Ms. Zufishan Ghani:
She is currently working with the University of South Wales as an Academic Affairs Co-Ordinator and has been an ELT educator and expert for the last 9 years. As a professionally qualified English-language educator and educationist, she keenly focuses on language development. As a specialized ELT practitioner, language development has also been her focus in her passion and profession of writing, content development, and editorial roles. The endeavor to bring together language and education through teaching, educational management and public discourse through the last 10 years has been her mainstream trajectory. As a communications professional and freelance print journalist, she focuses on culture and heritage, social development, arts and entertainment, and educational development in mainly developing countries and derives from her academic and professional experiences attained in the United Kingdom. | |||||
| 21 | Teaching Creativity and Problem-solving in the EFL Class for STEM Undergraduates | This workshop focuses on implementing creativity and problem-solving tasks in the EFL class when teaching STEM students using problem-based teaching in higher education. The presenter will focus on how higher education EFL teachers can create lessons that promote creativity and problem-solving while executing a problem-based task in the classroom. This can be applied while teaching STEM students a variety of courses including report writing, presentation skills, science projects, etc. The workshop will also demonstrate how teachers can use some e-learning apps to add fun and engagement that could be used both online and in face-to-face classes. The workshop will begin with a brief introduction regarding problem-based teaching and teaching creativity and problem-solving. Then, the presenter tackles a variety of ideas and lesson plans to show how this could be done in a fun engaging manner. The participants are going to engage in group work and discussions online and use some e-learning applications to get a clear idea of how this could be implemented in the classroom whether F2F or online. | Dr. Mona Ahmed Sadek Abdelfattah:
Dr. Mona Sadek is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Languages and Translation at the English Department at Sadat Academy for Management Sciences. She is a PhD holder in Applied Linguistics with a master’s degree in TEFL from The American University in Cairo. She is also a CELTA certified EFL instructor and a certified teacher trainer with more than 15 years of teaching EFL bothF2F and online. Moreover, she has got a diploma in advanced TOT in E-learning from Nottinghill College, Manchester, UK. | |||||
| 22 | Students’ Perception on Using Blogger as E-Portfolios in Project-Based Learning in English Evaluation Course | Project-Based Learning (PjBL) is one of the methods proposed by the Indonesia curriculum for both school and university, whereas an e-Portfolio is one of the types of alternative assessment that is a new trend in either Indonesia or other countries. PjBL helps students understand 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, communication, cooperation, creativity, and innovation, whereas an e-portfolio enables students to organize, document, and display their most significant learning experiences in a single digital space. This study depicted students' perceptions on the use of blogger as an e-portfolio assessment tool in PjBL in an English evaluation course. While there are numerous benefits, there are also drawbacks that give rise to various perceptions. This study employed descriptive quantitative research. The research sample consisted of 31 English Evaluation course students from the English Education Department at STKIP PGRI Jombang. The data collection technique used in this study was a questionnaire with six indicators administered via the Google form application. As a result, the findings of this study revealed that the majority of students had a positive or good perception of the implementation of PjBL through the use of blogger as an e-portfolio. Most of the students agreed that they were motivated to collaborate, communicate with their lecturer and peers, have a good time management skills, promote their creativity, and problem solving skills through the blogger. This study also provided a new perspective by collaborating PjBL, e-portfolio and blogger can create the learning process which employs student-centered, constructivism and authentic. | Dr. Rukminingsih. S.S.:
She is ICPD _ Thailand Country Director, Indonesia. She is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of English Language Education, at STKIP PGRI Jombang, Indonesia. In a career spanning 15 years, she is an EFL lecturer, researcher, teacher trainer, international speaker and international journal reviewer. Her research areas deal with brain and language, neuroscience and teaching ELT with technology. She is also a competency certified-national teacher trainer. She widens her career in the research field as a reviewer of an international journal Q1 Scopus indexed and SciencePG, USA. | |||||
| 23 | ELT for Lifelong Learning: Strategies and Approaches | This presentation will explore the strategies and approaches in English Language Teaching (ELT) for Lifelong Learning. With the growing importance of English as a global language, the need for lifelong learning of English has increased. ELT for lifelong learning focuses on promoting self-directed learning and autonomous language development, beyond the classroom setting. The presentation will examine various approaches such as Task-Based Language Teaching, Content and Language Integrated Learning, and Flipped Classrooms, and the importance of needs analysis in ELT for lifelong learning, among others. Additionally, the use of technology, such as mobile apps and online resources, will be discussed as an effective tool to support lifelong learning. The presentation will also touch on the importance of fostering learner motivation, setting personal learning goals, and creating a supportive learning environment. This presentation will provide insights into the role of ELT in promoting lifelong learning. It will also offer practical tips and strategies for ELT teachers to support their learners on their language learning journey. | Ms. Neeraja Mote:
Ms. Neeraja Mote is a Lecturer of English at UTAS-HCT in Muscat. She holds a master's degree in English, a master's in education, and a certificate in American TESOL. She is the Coordinator of Data Management and Newsletter at ELC, HCT. She has presented papers at Sultan Qaboos University, ELT Conference in 2020 and 2021. Her main areas of interest include general and academic writing in English and molding students' linguistic abilities to meet the requirements and challenges of the ever-competitive global world. | |||||
| 24 | How to increase students’ language awareness and strengthen social bonds through collaborative feedback and feedforward | When the pandemic started and both teachers and students were forced to adapt to working from home and rethink their practices, there suddenly was an abundance of online ready-made resources and techniques which kept growing as time went by. However, it was difficult to make an informed choice of which would cater for the specific needs and interests of our own students. Having to teach the sounds and intonation systems of English, required a variety of rich comprehensible input which was meaningful to students (Krashen, 1989; 2003). At the same time, both students and teachers were experiencing a totally unknown situation which was literally jeopardizing our wellbeing and was splitting us up as a learning group. It was therefore essential to find a resource that would bind us together as a community (Coll et al., 2014) and the key word was collaboration. In this presentation, the presenter will share their own experience at a teacher’s training college in Argentina while teaching the subject Oral Language Discourse Practices. They will show how by participating in a podcast forum project, their students became highly benefitted through the use of collaborative feedback and feedforward. This project, which started back in 2020, has turned out to be so enriching that it is still in use at present. | Prof. Graciela María Martínez:
Prof. Graciela María Martinez is a graduate English teacher who was born in Argentina. She is an English Language Specialist from UTN (National Technological University) and holds a Diploma in the Pedagogy of Phonetics UNSAM (National University of San Martín). Graciela is a frequent participant of SCEP (Summer Course in English Pronunciation) at University College London. In 2022 she attended a course in Testing, Evaluation and Assessment at NILE, Norwich Institute for Language Education). She is an affiliate member of ALTE (Association of Language Testers in Europe). Graciela is an enthusiastic and highly committed teacher trainer at ISFDyT #55, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. where she has been teaching Oral Language Discourse Practices and the Fundamentals of Teaching and Learning English since 2006. She has delivered presentations and courses both in her country and abroad. | |||||
