13th Symposium in Language Education

Friday, November 9th 2007 1:00-3:00 p.m. EDUC 1004

English for Teacher Educators in Afghanistan

Mitzi A. Lewison, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Language Education, Indiana University

A Study of Tertiary School Websites in Taiwan: Autonomous Foreign Language Learning Projects

Hui-Chun Hsieh, Ph.D. Student, Language Education, Indiana University

This paper presents the results of a study that evaluated 75 tertiary school websites in Taiwan in terms of autonomous language learning. It gives a picture of learner autonomy development in the context of Taiwan's nationwide project for promoting college students' English proficiency. In this study, autonomous language learning is defined as learning in which learners' capacity of autonomy is exercised and displayed (Benson, 2001). The analytical framework used was developed based on Holec's (1980, 1997) framework of learner autonomy and autonomous learning. The findings show that various educational practices designed to foster learner autonomy have appeared on the school websites. Further, there are differences in the distribution of the types of resources in terms of the regions and types of the schools.

For the Love of Reading: Teachers and Student Reading Engagement

Anne Elsener, Ph.D. Student, Language Education, Indiana University

Methods for promoting reading engagement and reasons why this matters seem to be widely available for teachers as seen by typing 'elements of engaging reading classrooms' on Google Scholar where one receives an unwieldy list of about 20,000 books and articles. With all this information available, what is it that teachers feel is important in engaging their student readers and how does this affect classroom teaching practices? This study uses a mixed methods design where high school and middle school teachers were surveyed to describe ideas about and use of methods to promote reading engagement. Currently, some participants are being interviewed to further explore and explain teachers' beliefs on student reading engagement and how that affects lesson design

This presentation will describe the the Afghanistan Higher Education Project (HEP), funded by USAID. It is a five year program designed to strengthen the capacity of the teacher education system throughout Afghanistan. The goal of the HEP project is to strengthen both the individual and institutional capacity of the 16 institutions offering four year teacher training programs. The project is designed to deliver both short-term improvements in the quality of teaching and academic administration, as well as long term, sustainable improvements through strengthening the human resource base and institutional capacity. There are a number of strands of the project including institutional development, professional development centers, national leadership development, English language training, teacher preparation, study abroad, and the development of an Afghan master's degree in Education. This presentation will focus on some of the general educational issues in Afghanistan as well as the specific programs designed to improve the English capacity among teacher educators in the country.

13th SLED Committee

• Chia-Ho Sun
• Chien-han Chen
• James Kigamwa
• Aymen Elsheikh
• Fenli Lin