Revisions, Re Visions, RE-Vis-I-ons

Hello all,

This poor blog has been neglected for so long. I only blame myself, however it is a matter of priorities of course. As of this post I have passed my dissertation defense, which took place on February 18th of this year. It was indeed a “trial by fire” but I passed, and so my Ph.D degree is almost in my grasp.

Now I am in the revisions stage of the process. This is where the committee that reviewed your dissertation needs to go through with it with a fine toothed comb and make suggestions on things like format issues, confusing language ( and there is a ton of that), and issues with data analysis. At this point I look at the list of suggestions, address that issue in my manuscript, and write “done” after each item once it is complete.

Once this is finished, I can then submit the final product to the university, and that is it. Knowing that is going to happen makes me realize the other meaning of “revision” which to me is thinking of the next step and taking my life’s direction to bigger and bolder things. Having a newer and brighter vision. To be honest, I think language teaching is only one facet of this. My new goal is to get back into the swing of things with research, and publishing again because this degree was the priority for so long. I also really want to get back into art as well, though how that manifests, is the challenge.

I will keep you posted though.

Be well,

Peter

One month into 2021…

Hello all,

Most likely my followers have been wondering… when is the next post? You have my utmost apologies for neglecting TESOL_Peter for a while. 2020 as you all know has thrown us all a loop. Everything we have been taking for granted is gone. The words “going back to normal” seem remote at this point. For me even in the midst of all this, I have a lot to be grateful for: I am in Japan where the impact of Covid has not been as drastic compared to the rest of the world. I am still employed and I, my family, my friends, and colleagues are still healthy.

However being alone in your apartment during lockdown can be hard, and getting used to working remotely was not easy at first. With all this time at home I am sure you are asking “You could still blog then right?” Well here is my answer:

A draft, a cup of coffee and my ThinkPad.

I was able to work on my dissertation proposal.

Yes, since the end of my two-year coursework in 2017, I was lost in limbo about my pH.D and struggling with personal issues. It was impossible to write, let alone focus. The idea of sitting alone at home to write was unbearable. But once the pandemic hit, and we had to stay in to be safe, I realized that if I want to complete this degree I need to sit down and write. And that I did. While I have not yet completed my degree yet, I will be passing the proposal stage soon and then move to complete my dissertation. Not an easy thing by any means because I need to manage my data, analyze it, and then write the results. I’m not out of the woods yet. I have two more years to go with the Ph.D program with Temple University. I could ask for a seven year extension, but I think it best to get this thing over with and move on with my life. There is more to do out there and I look forward to sharing it with you all and the rest of the world.

My main point here is that there are opportunities, even in times of crisis. I do want to say though that this would be even harder if I lost a loved one to Covid, or if I get sick from Covid (knock on wood). So far I have been lucky. My thoughts go to those who have suffered because of this pandemic and pray that things get better for them.

Be safe everyone,

Love,

Peter

Post Google+ Blues:Back to Blogging Basics

April 2 marks one year since the end of Google+ and I write this with a heavy heart. Neglected and misunderstood by most of the Internet and ultimately because the crass comfort of Facebook, ignored by most of the general users. However one of the beauties of this platform was it was a nexus of disciplines that I felt had no other place on the Internet. Where else can you find groups that focus on R statistics, Android development, Linux fanatics, and corpus linguistics all on one site? For me this was the go to for research techniques, and articles, and essentially hardware and software hacking to get the most out of a Linux distribution.

Does this mean that it is time to go back to blogging again? For specialists of all the above, rather than succumb to Facebook, is it best to take matters into our own hands? Is it time to fire up the ol’ WordPress site and start building communities ourselves?

I would love to hear your opinions here. Better yet, if you know of any great sites for what I have listed above, I would appreciate the info. Since the end of G+ I feel quite disconnected from these communities and need to pick up the pieces again.

Be well,
Peter

Articles and collocational effects

Food for thought when thinking about articles and collocation. Thank you Mura Nava for writing this.

EFL Notes

While I was doing some marking I came across what Master (2007) in discussing article choice has called “overgeneralisations from similar patterns” or effects of collocational phrases.

The following patterns were found in the same essay (on cyber warfare):
1. Those types of attacks are occurring everyday, and are often due to the lack of awareness of the victims.
2. The USA has declared unofficially that they have been under several cyber attacks from China, but with the lack of evidence, they can’t press charges against them.

In 1 article use seems to be okay but in 2 at first glance there seems to be an error i.e. the student should have chosen “a lack of evidence”.

However Master (2007) argues that:

article selection may have been the product of overgeneralization from an already learned collocational phrase rather than from the misapplication of a rule.

In our example we…

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Focus on form(s): principles and practice

A great review of focus on form for L2 learning. I think my approach is more proactive than reactive. Thank you Shona Whyte for sharing.

on teaching languages with technology

The teaching of grammar is a frequent topic of debate among language teachers. Should we teach our learners the rules of grammar explicitly? If so, when and how do we do this? Or is it better to allow learners to pick up rules about the formal features of language in other ways, perhaps while they attempt to communicate, that is, focus on meaning? Sheen (2002) expresses this dilemma in these terms:

… on the one hand, there are those who advocate minimal to no interruption in communication, limiting attention to grammar by means of corrective feedback (Doughty and Varela 1998); on the other, there are those who advocate separate attention to grammar and subsequent integration of the knowledge provided in increasingly communicative activity (DeKeyser 1998)

Sheen (2002)

The traditional approach to language teaching has generally involved explicit grammar teaching, referred to by Long and colleagues as focus on formS,

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November 08, 2017 at 07:56PM

Time to check in…..

Hello readers, yes it’s a blue moon and time to take some time even though there is no time to post here. I see this as almost a more detailed journal that is public. It’s nice every once and a while to think about where I am in this career of mine and look back.

So where to start…when I last posted I was halfway finished with my coursework. I finished my last course in January 2017, had the Qualifying Exam in early May and after passing that settled into the dissertation proposal writing phase. I explain it so matter-of-factly as if it was a stroll in the park. I was not, to say the least.

Two things impacted me the most. One was not seeing my cohort buddies every week. I felt like I bonded with them, and I enjoyed the lectures, the discussions, the sharing. Then it was just over. In its wake was a gap in my life that was hard to fill.

The second was the Qualifying Exam. This was an open book test, where we had to write several essays and solve some statistical problems. I took a week over Golden Week to finish. I was writing and thinking at my computer the whole time. The closest I can compare this experience is a zen retreat. When you are in such a situation the schedule runs you, not the other way around. I’ve had my share of zen and believe me when you finish one of these retreats, you are done!

But you come out of that experience transformed. I think the intensity of the Temple program sharpens you up. You become like a tiger running in the jungle, shreading and ingesting journal articles with ease. Finding the strengths and weaknesses of a study, evaluating its methods and results. All those murky things about social science become plain to see.

Now the coursework is finished. It is time to stop being a student. I have to struggle with writing my proposal, working one on one with my advisors, and prepare my defense hopefully by next year, assuming life doesn’t get in the way. But it does and it will happen. It’s already happening to me now. But that is not going to stop me. No matter what….just keep going, tiger.
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A smorgasboard of DDL journal activity

A recent report on DDL by Michael Brown. It’s great to see more DDL studies get published because I think since the technology is more accessible, it can become a more common teaching practice.

Corpus Linguistics 4 EFL

Last month, in addition to the release of new corpora, two journals released special issues dedicated to DDL/CL in language learning.

One is the open-access Language Learning & Technology. I haven’t read it yet, but the table of contents looks very interesting. The other one is Language Testing. It’s interesting to see how CL and questions of assessment interact.

Finally, though not a whole dedicated issue, ReCALL has an online first article titled ‘Unlearning overgenerated be through data-driven learning in the secondary EFL classroom’. This will be the first article I get to, as overgenerated be is a recurring issue for many of my students and I’m curious to see what the authors found.

What bounty 🙂

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UPDATE

If the ReCALL link above isn’t working for you, here is the doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0958344017000246

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June 17, 2017 at 05:59AM

A very telling article why Beall’s List has suddenly dropped from the Internet. It’s a shame that Beall didn’t get the support from his university on this.

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July 27, 2016 at 07:40AM

Long time no see,

I has been a while. Blogging is something I have neglected lately and it is not so easy to seemlessly integrate my work as a teacher trainer, my Ph.D coursework, and my personal life into the mix. If anyone has the ultimate formula for doing this please comment below.

Most of the time I have used this blog to document my presentations at conferences here in Japan, which is fine for now. The one major personal and professional paradigm shift for me is deciding to get a Ph.D at Temple University. Not an easy decision to make, but after almost two years of coursework I have come to apprecite the wealth of information and community that has come with it. But this is only the beginning, which means clarifying a research agenda, dissertaion proposal, writing, and the defence. How does one keep going? One piece of advice I got is passion. Without passion for something that genuinely interests you, there can be no moving forward. I couldn’t agree more with this.
I will keep you posted on how far passion has taken me.
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Reflections on my presentation at the Temple University Japan Applied Linguistics Colloquium 2016

Today another TUJ Colloquium is behind us…

I want to say thank you for attending my talk this afternoon. I greatly appreciate your support, and the feedback I received afterward, reminding me of what Mischler (1990) said: research is a craft. The beauty of the colloquium is the supportive atmosphere it provides to hone our craft.

The talk I gave today is titled Think Aloud vs. Stimulus Recall: Obtaining Responses to Writing Feedback in which I discussed my use of two different protocols for interviewing my learners in my blended writing  Continue reading..