In This Issue of TEIS Newsletter...

Letter From the Chair
Letter From the Editors
TESOL Special Project: Soaring Far, Catching Dreams of Diversity in Teacher Education
A Call for Preparing All Teachers: TESOL Standards for NNES Teacher Candidates
TEIS Open Business Meeting
TEIS Academic Session: Addressing NNES Teachers' and Teacher Educators' Needs
Web-Based Review of Proposals: An Alternative for the Future
Training Volunteers by Role-Playing Learners
Call for Discusison Group Proposals for TESOL's 2005 Convention in San Antonio, Texas, USA
English Language Teacher Training in Pakistan: A Sad Story Looking for a Happy Ending
Graduate Student Forum
TEIS Steering Committee
TEIS Newsletter Call for Contributions
About This Member Community

Letter From the Chair

By Shelley Wong, wong.180@osu.edu

Greetings to all of you in the Teacher Education Interest Section!

I want to extend a special invitation to all of you who plan to attend the TESOL convention in Long Beach, California, in the United States (March 30-April 3, 2004) to attend two meetings:

• the Open Business Meeting, Wednesday, March 31, 5-6:30 pm, at the Long Beach Convention Center in Room 101B
• a TEIS special gathering on diversity, "Soaring Far, Catching Dreams of Diversity in Teacher Education," to be held in the same room, 7-9 pm.

The special gathering consists of 20 poster sessions arranged in four time slots. You can gather handouts of teacher education readings lists, films, and other resources. The session will allow you to network with others who are concerned about feminist pedagogy and critical multiculturalism in teacher education. The goal of the session is to bring together members of various caucuses and interest sections who are concerned about diversity so that they can work together on paper, colloquia, and workshop proposals for TESOL's 2005 convention in San Antonio, Texas, in the United States. Attendees will share resources, ideas, and activities from EFL and ESL teacher education contexts addressing a wide range of concerns from nonnative-English-speaking teachers and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered teachers and friends to dealing with bigotry and combating racism, injustice, and poverty and taking positive steps towards promoting peace and international understanding.

Elections for TEIS officers will be held online this year for the first time. (TEIS members who do not have e-mail access will be mailed ballots so that they may participate in the election.) The advantage of holding elections electronically is that it enables those TEIS members who do not attend the convention to vote. Statement concerning interests and candidacy should have been sent to Shelley Wong by February 15.

For the coming year, Mark Tanner will be chair and Paula Golombek will be chair-elect (with a future chair-elect yet to be elected). Stephen Stoynoff will step down as IS council representative, Cheri Micheau and Val Jakar will continue as representatives, and the IS will elect a new representative to the council. Su Motha will step down as newsletter editor, Chuang Wang will continue as editor, and the IS will elect a new coeditor. The IS still needs candidates to work with Katya Nemtchinova to serve as future Web manager and with Barbara Wright as future list serve manager.

I want to thank past chair Meg Gebhard for her wise counsel and the entire leadership team for all their hard work this past year. Su Motha and Chuang Wang navigated the transition from paper newsletter to the electronic format with grace, overcoming hurdles with flexibility and good humor. Special thanks to Su Motha, who will step down after years of service as newsletter editor, and to Steve Stoynoff, who has represented our concerns so well at the IS council. I also want to acknowledge Ju Young Song, PhD student from Ohio State University, for her hard work organizing the adjudication of the proposals this past summer. Given the electronic glitches and interface problems, it was not easy. Ju Young persisted with dedication and an unbelievable peace of mind and serenity. Thank you, Ju Young. One characteristic that runs through us all as teacher educators in TESOL is flexibility and unbelievableteamwork. It has been an honor to serve as your chair and a pleasure to work with a dedicated leadership team.

Shelley Wong, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Letter From the Editors

By Chuang Wang, wang.613@osu.edu, and Su Motha, sumotha@wam.umd.edu

Welcome to the 2004 preconvention issue of the TEIS Newsletter! This is also our second electronic newsletter. If you would prefer to receive the TEIS Newsletter at a different e-mail address, please e-mail members@tesol.org. TESOL will also mail a print copy of the publication to members upon request.

Please remember that you may use the Online Program Planner by going to http://www.tesol.org/ and clicking on 2004 Convention.

In this issue, Gloria Park calls to prepare all teachers to teach all students. She discusses in depth three TESOL standards for nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teacher candidates: unfolding NNES teacher candidates' identities and prior experience, enriching the knowledge base in TESOL, and integrating field experience and professional development into teacher education programs.

On the basis of his experience training English language teachers in Asia, Brad Baurain introduces an underused and undervalued practice in teacher education: role-playing. Benefits and purposes of this teacher-training practice are discussed in detail with samples from Baurain's personal classroom experience.

Also in this issue, Ahmar Mahboob tells us the sad story of English language teacher training in Pakistan and calls for further research in teacher education there. Complex school systems, an extreme shortage of trained teachers, a lack of financial support, absent professional development, and inappropriate use of text materials and pedagogy are good grounds for educational research.

If any of the articles in the current issue evoke a response from you, or if you have new topics in your mind, please refer to the Call for Contributions at the end of the newsletter. The submission deadline for the next newsletter is June 30, 2004.

It is our greatest regret that Su Motha is stepping down after years of service as newsletter editor. She has done a wonderful job and made a significant contribution to the transition of our newsletter from paper to electronic format. Her departure leaves the position of coeditor open. Interested candidates should have submitted a 125-word statement to Shelly Wong at wong.180@osu.edu by February 15.

Chuang Wang The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio, USA

Su Motha University of Maryland College Park, Maryland, USA

TESOL Special Project: Soaring Far, Catching Dreams of Diversity in Teacher Education

TEIS will hold a special gathering of teacher educators and members of caucuses and interest sections who are interested in networking together on a variety of diversity-related issues in teacher education. The gathering will provide a place for TEIS interest section members to meet new people with common interests, share visions, and catch dreams of diversity. We envision that the networking will result in IS and caucus members generating more proposals in which there is collaboration between caucuses and interest sections for the 2005 TESOL convention.

The gathering will consist of a series of four 20-minute sessions in which participants can visit different centers, receive handouts, and talk about how particular teacher education programs or caucus members have worked with diversity in teacher education. A bell will ring every 20 minutes to indicate that participants should move to another center. Please mark your calendar and plan on joining us after the TEIS Business Meeting in the Long Beach Convention Center, Room 101B, Wednesday, March 31, 7 pm. The schedule is as follows:

7:10-7:30 pm

Mainstream Classroom Teachers in MA TESOL
Deqi Zen, dzen@semo.edu
Southeast Missouri State University

Challenging Misconceptions About Asian EFL Students
Sung-Hui Cheong, butigirl94@yahoo.com
Hyungmi Joo, joo.25@osu.edu
Ohio State University

Addressing Nonnative English Speaker Confidence
Soonhyang Kim, kim.1259@osu.edu
Jeong-Ah Lee, lee.2071@osu.edu
Masataka Kasai, kasai.4@osu.edu
Ohio State University

Catching Dreams of Peace: Understanding Islam
Yesim B. Cetinkaya, cetinkaya.1@osu.edu
Zehra Topac, topac.3@osu.edu
Osman Topac, topac.2@osu.edu
Ohio State University

Understanding Power, Privilege, and Cultural Capital
Carla Chamberlin Quinlisk, crc5@psu.edu
Pennsylvania State University

7:30-7:50 pm

Curriculum Transformation in Teaching for Diversity
Su Motha, sumotha@wam.umd.edu
University of Maryland, College Park

ELL Teacher Education Responsive to School Contexts
Anne Walker, anne_walker@und.nodak.edu
Jill Shafer
University of North Dakota

Self-Study of NNESTs in Learning to Teach
Yen-Hui Lu, yenhui@wam.umd.edu
Gloria Park, gloriapark2004@yahoo.com
SooJung Suh
University of Maryland, College Park

Developing Prospective EFL Teachers' Professional Identity
Carmen Chacon, ctchacon@cantv.net
University of Los Andes

Incorporating Anti-Bias and Peace Education in the Classroom
Alison Milofsky, amilofsky@usip.org
U.S. Institute of Peace

7:50-8:10 pm

Catching Dreams of Acceptance for Sexual Minorities
Martha Clark Cummings
Teachers College Japan
Sonja Franeta
Laney College
Rick Kappra, rickkappra@earthlink.net
City College of San Francisco

Teaching Tolerance Through Film Clips and Activities
Mary Shepard Wong, mwong@apu.edu
Azusa Pacific University

Transforming Teacher Education to Serve Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students
Maria Estela Brisk, brisk@bc.edu
Boston College

Rethinking Linguistic Imperialism in EFL
Hyechong Park, Park.543@osu.edu
Jihyun Jeon, Jeon.24@osu.edu
Ohio State University

Labor Issues for ESL Educators
John McLaughlin, johnmcl@umich.edu
University of Michigan

8:10-8:30 pm

Cultivating a Community of Praxis
Judy Sharkey, judy.sharkey@unh.edu
Paul Matsuda
University of New Hampshire

Bridging the Gap Within the Minority Groups
Ivan Stefano, stefano.4@osu.edu
Ohio State University

Latino/Latina Literature of the U.S. in ESL and Across the Curriculum
Jose A. Carmona, CarmonaJA@cs.com
Daytona Beach Community College

Increasing the Volume: African American Women's Voices
Rachel Grant, rag022@aol.com
Pennsylvania State University

Gender and English Language Teaching and Learning
Kathryn A. Davis
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Ellen Skilton-Sylvester
Temple University
Amy D. Yamashiro, amydyama@umich.edu
University of Michigan

A Call for Preparing All Teachers: TESOL Standards for NNES Teacher Candidates

By Gloria Park, gloriapark2004@yahoo.com

After 3 years in a PhD TESOL program as a nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) scholar, I have come to question what TESOL teacher preparation programs do to better understand the lives of NNES teacher candidates. My journey as a Korean American woman and my life as a second language learner living in hyphenation have pulled me into TESOL, but they have also helped me understand the vision I have for NNES teacher candidates in TESOL and the wider educational community.

Many teacher preparation programs aim to prepare teachers to teach all students, embracing the notion that "education is a fundamental human right and not a privilege" (Price, 2002, p. 117). For example, advocating for the rights of African American students and English language learners (ELLs) has been the focus of ongoing research in the field of TESOL and in the teacher education community. I concur that programs should prepare teachers to teach all students; however, I wish to further the examination of the issues of difference embedded in the lives and experiences of NNES teacher candidates. The need to prepare all teachers has become urgent due to the increase in the number of NNES teacher candidates in TESOL programs (Kamhi-Stein, 2000). Specifically, the issues of multiple identities as they manifest in the intersections of racial ethnicity, gender, and social class need to be unearthed and legitimized in order to comprehend what it means to be a part of TESOL programs. NNES teacher candidates' lives and experiences "have been willfully neglected" (Price & Osborne, 2000, p. 41) in the TESOL literature and the wider teacher educational programs, and it is high time to trouble "the institutional and cultural context of schooling that privileges some voices, perspectives, and experiences and marginalizes others" (Price & Osborne, 2000, p. 41).

In this article, I propose TESOL standards for NNES teacher candidates in order to encourage a deeper understanding of their lives and experiences. Just as an advocate of ELLs works toward their language rights, it is the responsibility of the NNES teacher candidate to find his or her place in the field of TESOL in general and in TESOL programs in particular. Promoting TESOL standards for NNES teacher candidates, I discuss the importance of each standard. These will be followed by possibilities framed within the work of scholars who call for social change and diversity in a wider context of teacher preparation programs.

Standard 1: Explore the Identities of NNES Teacher Candidates

More and more NNES teacher candidates come to English-speaking countries to better understand the educational implications of progressive movements in teaching and learning English. Most of these people are products of traditional education, which might not have helped them tap into their critical resources or carry on a dialogic relationship with both the text and the teachers (Dewey, 1938).

In addition to their prior educational experiences, NNES teacher candidates also embody the complexities webbed in the intersections of racial ethnicity, gender, and social class. Being aware of these complexities and discussing how they might influence the directions of TESOL programs would be the initial step in understanding these candidates' multiple identities as they wrestle with them. Each NNES person contributes culture, experience, and identity; clumping these people in one group would not only oppress their identities as racial ethnic groups but also establish polar constructions of teacher candidates as either White/dominant group or non-White/subordinate group.

In order to come to terms with prior experiences, there should be a getting-to-know interview that would help both advisors and teacher candidates understand how the program can better serve the needs of each teacher candidate. In essence, the educational experience in TESOL programs should provide NNES teacher candidates with "something to prepare [them] for later experiences of deeper and more expansive quality" (Dewey, 1938, p. 47). A deeper and more expansive quality for NNES teacher candidates could be the very nature of building in an autonomy and agency toward their future roles as ESL/EFL specialists and questioning what may work in their future teaching settings.

Keeping journals of their thoughts, challenges, questions, and critical incidents that cut across their complex identities would be a way to empower NNES teacher candidates. This self-dialogic process in writing would help them reflect on their own learning, and it would help the programs in preparing and mentoring NNES teacher candidates.

Discussing NNES teacher candidates' prior academic and language learning experiences would legitimize their identities and experiences. To this end, a weekly seminar catering to their needs and experiences would make their journeys more educative and experiential in nature. It would also be helpful to discuss what they view as problematic when situated in a new context.

Standard 2: Situate Knowledge Base in TESOL

The knowledge base in TESOL includes the areas of language instruction, second language acquisition theories, assessment strategies, and cultural competency as it relates to ELLs. Gore (1993) delineates the work of Foucault's (1980) power/knowledge (regimes of truth) in that "[p]ower is exercised or practiced rather than possessed, and so circulates, passing through every related force" (Gore, p. 52). So, how are power/knowledge (regimes of truth) related to the TESOL knowledge base? Examination of how the TESOL knowledge base addresses the needs of NNES teacher candidates highlights a power imbalance between NNESs and native English speakers (NESs). NNESs sometimes make their experiences invisible and silence their oppression and struggles. However, the truth is that there are multiple realities when it comes to the way English language learning and teaching are viewed. Below, I problematize the TESOL knowledge base in order to make NNES teacher candidates' lived experiences visible.

Embrace eclectic teaching methodologies. TESOL programs should promote eclectic teaching methodologies appropriate for different contexts and learning situations instead of calling for the communicative approach. Thus, the "informed eclecticism" (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p. 158) selected from different methods can be shown to "relate explicitly to program objectives, [or learners' goals]" (p. 158), therefore promoting context dependency.

Understand second and foreign language acquisition (SLA and FLA) theories. Many TESOL programs pay attention to SLA theory to the exclusion of the FLA theories. Attention to the theoretical terrain between SLA and FLA (S. Motha, personal communication, November 22, 2003) would support the development of the individuals who are planning to teach English as a foreign language (EFL). More importantly, exploring the different possibilities mapped out by the FLA models would help TESOL programs better understand the prior English language education of their NNES teacher candidates.

Learn about multiculturalism. Just as the notion of cultural competency becomes important for ELLs, TESOL programs need to tap into the multicultural resources of NNES teacher candidates. In doing this, programs can listen to the different voices of NNES teacher candidates in order to promote multicultural competency in their lives as they begin to carve out their space in the field of TESOL.

Conceptualize self/authentic assessment strategies. With the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in place, TESOL programs grapple with what the act means for ELLs; however, even more perplexing for TESOL programs is the effect that NCLB has on NNES teacher candidates. Programs need to address the different roles NNES teacher candidates may play in relation to NCLB. The issue of self-assessment strategies in preparing NNES teacher candidates becomes as important as any other issue with regard to understanding the kinds of knowledge that have been gained throughout TESOL programs.

Standard 3: Integrate TESOL Program Field Experience

Many TESOL programs situate field experience at the end of coursework or have fragmented classroom observations within certain classes; however, a few notable teacher preparation programs in this country integrate field experience across the programs (Darling-Hammond, 2000). The Developmental Teacher Education (DTE) Program at the University of California, Berkeley (Snyder, 2000), is an exemplary program that assigns equal importance to both coursework and the five field experience placements throughout the program's 2 years. The DTE calls for slow integration of theory and practice, recognizing that teaching does not happen all at once. Throughout the five placements, the candidates experience different teaching styles of mentor teachers, different socioeconomic school contexts, and diverse groups of students.

Standard 4: Promote Professional Development for NNES Teacher Candidates

In addition to coursework and a variety of field experiences that NNES teacher candidates should gain in their TESOL programs, it would be advantageous to introduce them to different academic discourse systems such as teaching or coteaching TESOL graduate courses, conference or grant proposal writing, conference presentations, and single-authored or coauthored manuscript submission to referred journals in the field of teacher education. Because the current academic discourse system differs from what NNES teacher candidates are used to, it would be beneficial for them to walk on a different discourse terrain.

Conclusion

What does it mean to prepare all teachers to teach all students? Just as it takes an entire village to educate children, it takes more than just specific courses in TESOL programs to prepare NNES teacher candidates. It is about understanding our complex and multiple identities, for there is a quiet revolution (Johnson, 1999) occurring in NNES teacher candidates' lives as they journey through TESOL programs.

The revolution is quiet because even though society promotes equity on the behalf of NNES teacher candidates, they still experience invisible power relations and feelings of insecurity and vulnerability. The revolution will continue to stay quiet unless advocates of NNESs come forward with innovative ideas in program restructuring and mentoring processes in the lives of NNES teacher candidates. This is a revolution because it stirs up the dominant structure in NNES scholarship--there is a movement away from the dichotomization of NESs and NNESs. In essence, it is questioning the assumption that NESs are the ideal language teachers, because the definition of good teaching does not equate native-like fluency and proficiency. This revolutionary movement is knocking on the doors of critical pedagogy, humanizing pedagogy, feminist pedagogy, and critical race theory in discovering and understanding academic and teaching experiences. This revolutionary process will inevitably help people navigate through issues of identity, power, race, gender, and status in TESOL programs, encouraging people to embrace their sense of unfinishedness (Freire, 1998).

References

Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). Studies of excellence in teacher education: Preparation at the graduate level. New York: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Dewey, J. (1938/1963). Experience and education. New York: MacMillan.

Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977. New York: Pantheon.

Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield.

Gore, J. (1993). The struggle for pedagogies: Critical and feminist discourses as regimes of truth. New York: Routledge.

Johnson, K. (1999). Teacher education. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Kamhi-Stein, L. (2000, Autumn). Adapting U.S.-based TESOL education to meet the needs of nonnative English speakers. TESOL Journal, 9(3), 10-14.

Price, J. (2002). Lessons from against the odds. Journal of Teacher Education. 53(2), 117-126.

Price, J., & Osborne, M. (2000). Challenges for forging a humanizing pedagogy in teacher education. Curriculum and Teaching, 15(1), 27-51.

Richards, J., & Rodgers, T. (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Snyder, J. (2000). Knowing children, understanding teaching: The developmental program at the University of California, Berkeley. In L. Darling-Hammond (Ed.), Studies of excellence in teacher education: Preparation at the graduate level (pp. 97-102). New York: AACTE.

Gloria Park is a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the United States. Her areas of specialty are culture, ethnicity, and equity in second language practice, pedagogy, and teacher preparation. Her dissertation focuses on legitimizing the lived experiences of East Asian women in MA TESOL teacher preparation programs.

TEIS Open Business Meeting

Wednesday, March 31, 2004, 5-7 pm
Long Beach Convention Center, Room 101B

All members are encouraged to attend the TEIS Open Business Meeting. Highlights from the agenda for this year's meeting include the following:

• Discuss hot topics for possible convention sessions.
• Review discussion group session topics. Note that the deadline for submitting discussion group proposals immediately follows the convention; therefore, if you are interested in proposing a discussion group topic, please attend the meeting so that the chair-elect, Paula Golombek, can submit the proposals in a timely fashion.
• Discuss possible special projects. In the past, TESOL has provided up to $1,500 for interest section special projects. Proposals for such projects must be submitted to the new chair, Mark Tanner, by May 1, 2004. The new chair then submits these proposals to the Interest Section Coordinating Committee (ISCC) for review. The ISCC will announce awards by June 15, 2004.
• Discuss online election results.

TEIS Academic Session: Addressing NNES Teachers' and Teacher Educators' Needs

Thursday, 8:30-11:15 am
Hyatt, Regency Ballroom C

George Braine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China; Paul Kei Matsuda, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, United States; Lucie Moussu, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, United States; Catherine Walter, University of London, London, United Kingdom; Lía Kamhi-Stein, California State University, Los Angeles, California, United States

Nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) graduate students and teacher educators in TESOL share the challenges they have faced in the transition from ESL/EFL learner to ESL/EFL teacher to teacher educator. Participants also address ongoing research issues regarding NNES in TESOL.

Web-Based Review of Proposals: An Alternative for the Future

By JuYoung Song, song.151@osu.edu

The TEIS received approximately 273 proposals for review this year. All of the proposals were reviewed through a Web-based proposal review system called RegBridge, which allows reviewers to review the assigned proposals after logging into the online system. Roughly 16 to 18 proposals were assigned to each of the 48 reviewers from all over the world. Based on the reviewers' ratings and comments, the TEIS accepted 32 individual papers, 11 demonstrations, 4 workshops, 13 colloquiums, and 12 discussion groups. Shelley Wong and I would like to express special thanks to the following reviewers for sharing their expertise and experience during the adjudication process and especially their patience with the pitfalls of the new adjudication system. We hope to see them all in Long Beach and look forward to further support and contributions there.

Julia Austin
Brad Baurain
David Bell
Martha Bigelow
Djuraev Botir
Yuh-show Cheng
Pat Colabucci
Cathy Day
Rehmat Ebrahim
Yehia El-Ezabi
Paula Golombek
Joel Hardman
Kwang Hee Hong
Davida E. Irving
Valerie S. Jakar
Linda Jensen
Karen E. Johnson
Ana Maria Klein
Jim Kohn
Ryuko Kubota
Yuka Kurihara
Kevin L. Landry
Dong-Hoon Lee
Icy Lee
Ihn Hee Lee
Martha Lengeling
Elza Major
John McLaughlin
Su Motha
Denise E. Murray
Natalia Orlova
Irene Pannatier
Carla Chamberlin Quinlisk
Kate M. Reynolds
Lilia P. Savova
Alan Seaman
Eunhee Seo
Fauzia Shamim
Judy Sharkey
JuYoung Song
Susan K. Spezzini
Mark Tanner
Anne Walker
Wendy Wang
Shelley Wong
Karen Woodman
Yuh-Yun Yen
Deqi Zen

JuYoung Song is a graduate research associate in the College of Education at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, in the United States.

Training Volunteers by Role-Playing Learners

By Brad Baurain, bbaurain@elic.org

One of my current responsibilities is to help train native-speaking volunteer teachers for an American nongovernmental organization. Our training is done in Hanoi, Vietnam, with trainees slated to teach in foreign language departments at colleges and universities throughout Vietnam. In this context, one effective training technique I have used is engaging trainees in sample communicative activities. Playing the part of English language learners, our volunteers often enjoy the hands-on feel of such simulations. From my experience, I think this simple technique is underused and undervalued in many EFL training settings. Consider the purposes and benefits of this practice:

• Trainees experience model activities they can use in their classrooms. They see an activity being demonstrated, not just described. They see the trainer giving directions and managing the classroom, just as they will have to do--and classroom management is one of the most difficult skills for new teachers to grasp and visualize. In addition, a sample activity is a deposit to beginning teachers' knowledge banks. It meets a felt need and builds their confidence.
• Trainees gain the perspective of learners in a communicative activity. What might it feel like to walk a few steps in students' sandals? Educational psychology can give abstract answers, whereas doing something makes the experience concrete.
• Trainees reflect on the learning purposes and values of specific, typical classroom activities. By explaining an activity's objectives beforehand, and debriefing afterwards, trainees can begin to think like teachers, which may be the most important skill they learn, particularly in a limited-time training course such as mine.

First Language Versus Second Language

"But," I hear you saying, "your native-speaking trainees are doing the activities in their mother tongue. Isn't that artificial?" My answer is, "Yes, but..."

• Exact conditions cannot be freely duplicated. The only way to duplicate a foreign language learners' experience is to teach trainees a foreign language. And this is done in some training courses, with positive results. But in that case the trainer is usually limited to beginner-level lessons--a fairly significant constraint.
• Then trainees have mental space to analyze an activity as it happens. It is true that doing an activity in the mother tongue removes what for actual students would be the main difficulty and learning objective. But it also means that trainees can be more alert to teaching practices and implications, which are, after all, the point--as opposed to language acquisition--of such an activity in a training context.
• All training techniques are artificial. Microteaching in a methods class is not real. Even a semester-long practicum is like teaching with training wheels. Artificial is not necessarily bad. The point is to choose kinds of training artificiality that carry over into real teaching, just as sports coaches run athletes through drills in order to cultivate skills that carry over into actual games.

Make the Activity Appropriate

Your next question might be, "Won't trainees think this is childish?" Perhaps. I make the assumption that adult students are the trainees' target audience--I do not think this technique would work very well training teachers of young children. Communicative activities for adults should not make any participants feel foolish, whether actual students or trainees. If they do, there may be an inherent problem with the activity itself, and several keys can help a trainer avoid this pitfall:

• Know your audience. Choose activities carefully and adapt them appropriately to make them more engaging. For example, I make the text for a running dictation activity more difficult for native speakers. For a sample reading activity, I use a Vietnamese folktale.
• Make trainees partners. Tell them how and why you will be engaging the class in model activities. Making them full partners lets them know they are respected and responsible.
• Humility, anyone? Anyone who has ever learned or taught a foreign language knows that humility is a desirable quality to encourage in trainees (and oneself!). If people are too proud or take themselves too seriously to do an activity, then they may have trouble connecting with their students. Along these lines, it is a good idea for the trainer to join in the sample activities whenever possible.

Model Activity #1

An additional argument in favor of this training technique derives from Donald Freeman (2003). He suggests four design principles for teacher training activities, according to this rubric: "Inasmuch as teacher training _________, it will be successful or effective." The four principles that fill in the blank are (1) is personalized; (2) is generative or open-ended; (3) is worth doing in and of itself; (4) varies roles, that is, allows trainees to experience the classroom from different perspectives. In the model activities technique, Freeman's fourth principle is fulfilled by definition, and the other three can be readily achieved as well.

For example, the first model activity I like to do in my new teacher-training course is writing name poems. Name poems are fill-in-the-blank poems that help students get to know one another. Here is one version I have used:

Trainees work quietly for several minutes to create their poems and then share them orally with partners. Listeners are not allowed to make evaluative comments and must ask at least three meaningful questions. To conclude, I might ask for volunteers to read their poems or let class members call out their answers line by line.

When we debrief about this activity, we note the following kinds of features:

• The activity included practice for three skills: writing, speaking, and listening.
• It arranged students in three different ways: individual, pairs, and all-class.
• It employed both concrete and abstract language.
• It gave time to think first, thereby lowering the affective filter and increasing the quality of the production. Not allowing evaluative comments also lowered the affective filter and made students feel safe.
• It was multilevel, that is, students could fill in the framework according to their current language ability.
• It was flexible in terms of how much time it took and what types of feedback were given.
• Its form was open-ended but not complex, that is, even a beginning teacher could immediately see how to change or vary it.
• It could be a creative way to break the ice and establish a warm, relational atmosphere early on in a class.

Model Activity #2

Another sample activity I use is dictation. Students divide into teams of three--one writer and two runners. The writers sit at the back of the room, and a passage is posted at the front. Runners take turns memorizing and bringing chunks of text to the writer, who takes dictation. The goal is to reproduce the passage perfectly, including spelling and punctuation. When a group thinks it has finished, a runner brings the group's paper to the teacher, who acts as the judge. At the first mistake, the teacher hands back the paper, without specifying where or what the mistake is. The first group finished is the winner, and to sweeten the pot I offer to treat them to the best ice cream in Hanoi. I also ask one group to observe and be ready to discuss language use and student behavior during the activity.

When we (the observing group or the trainees in general) debrief about this activity, we note the following kinds of features:

• The activity included practice for all four skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
• It included both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. What difference did this make, to whom, and why?
• Though the final goal was accuracy--in my opinion, neglected too often in the communicative approach--it required both accuracy and fluency in language use.
• It required students to understand and reproduce language at the phrase and sentence level (not word-by-word), that is, they had to make sense of the language.
• Assuming there were mistakes along the way, it required students to work collaboratively to correct their own work.
• It included features for multiple learning styles: visual, audio, and kinesthetic.
• It utilized what is often a strength of Vietnamese students: the ability to memorize.
• Although fast-paced, it included some down time for participants--runners had to wait their turn to go to the front, and writers often had to wait for more chunks of text. This gave students time to reflect on what they were doing, and as a result they may have changed strategies in mid-activity. If they did not do so (or did not know how), the observing group might suggest new and better strategies.
• The content of a text would be key to student interest and motivation. Teachers might use current news articles relating to lesson topics.
• Its form was open-ended. The difficulty of the text, size of the groups, standard of perfection, way of correcting, identity of the judge, and other factors could all be altered. There are also many options for following up on this activity, using the dictated text as a starting point.

Through the training technique of role-playing learners, even new volunteer teachers can begin to develop the essential skill of empathy for and insight into students' needs and attitudes.

Reference

Freeman, D. (2003, January 24) Learning from experience in language teacher education. Workshop given at the 23rd Thailand TESOL International Conference.

Brad Baurain teaches at Dalat University in Dalat, Vietnam. He also serves as the curriculum director for the English Language Institute in Vietnam (ELIV) and is the editor of ELIV's Teacher's Edition magazine. Since 1989, he has taught in China, the United States, and Vietnam.

Call for Discusison Group Proposals for TESOL's 2005 Convention in San Antonio, Texas, USA

At each annual TESOL convention, interest sections are allotted up to 12 time slots for discussion groups. Individuals or pairs who would like to guide a discussion of a specific topic lead these events. Discussion groups are a great opportunity for bringing up new ideas, gaining an international perspective on issues, and finding colleagues with shared interests and concerns. For students, leading a discussion group may help in the formulation of ideas for a project, thesis, or dissertation. All TEIS members are eligible to submit proposals to lead discussion groups. The chair-elect, Paula Golombek, is responsible for organizing the discussion groups for the convention.

Proposals should include a title (7 words or less), a 40-word abstract of the topic to be discussed, and all contact information for the leader(s). Discussion groups are given morning and evening time slots during the convention and are listed in the program book. No audiovisual equipment is provided. Leaders are expected to guide a discussion, not deliver a paper. Please come to the Business Meeting to discuss possible proposals, and then submit discussion group proposals by May 31, 2004, to Paula Golombek at pxg2@psu.edu.

English Language Teacher Training in Pakistan: A Sad Story Looking for a Happy Ending

By Ahmar Mahboob, mahbooba@mail.ecu.edu

Teacher training in Pakistan is large-scale and layered, but the scarcity of research in this area belies its complexity. English language teachers practice in a variety of schools that are totally different from each other, including English medium schools, A and O Level schools, Urdu medium schools, vernacular schools, and madrasahs. To illustrate some of the differences between these types of schools, I compare English medium schools and madrasahs. In English medium schools, which are very popular, students are (claimed to be) taught all subjects in English; madrasahs, on the other hand, are religious schools and use little, if any, English. Furthermore, the different types of schools have different requirements. Government schools require teachers to be certified. Private schools, however, often waive this requirement because they cannot find enough qualified teachers. Thus, there is no uniformity in teachers' educational backgrounds from one educational institution to another.

Teacher Experience and Qualifications

In terms of English language teachers, there is an extreme shortage of trained teachers. As a result, in many schools, both public and private, any teacher who is even somewhat proficient in English may be asked to teach English. This creates a situation in which teachers who teach English are not familiar with language pedagogies. In addition to a lack of preservice training, most schools lack the resources to provide inservice training, which means that the only teachers who seek training are those who are self-motivated and willing and able to expend their own resources.

Teacher educators also range in their experience and qualifications. Some teacher educators are hired because they have an MA in linguistics and/or TESOL (most commonly from Pakistani universities), but they may not have any actual classroom teaching experience. Others are experienced and qualified, and a number of them teach in different schools and work as teacher educators after school.

Professional Development and Education

A number of such teacher educators teach courses organized by the Society of Pakistani English Language Teachers (SPELT; http://spelt.sdnpk.org/), Pakistan's TESOL affiliate. In addition to offering courses, SPELT organizes an annual traveling conference that begins in Karachi and then travels to different cities throughout the rest of the country. The purpose of a traveling conference is to provide professional development opportunities to teachers in their local setting and minimize their costs for participation (the average yearly income in Pakistan is less than $500). SPELT also publishes a quarterly newsletter.

In addition to SPELT, another organization that is committed to teacher education in Pakistan is the Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED; http://www.aku.edu/ied/). AKU-IED is a not-for-profit nongovernmental organization that does not charge teachers who participate in many of its courses. However, in order to enroll in these courses, teachers must be nominated by their schools and these schools must be recognized by AKU-IED as not-for-profit schools. Regardless of this limitation, AKU-IED has done an excellent job and has trained thousands of inservice teachers with minimal cost to them. AKU-IED offers multiple types of programs, ranging from a full Masters program to short-term teacher certification programs. AKU-IED encourages trained teachers to work with their school administrators and arrange workshops for other teachers in these schools.

In addition to these two institutions, there are several other nongovernmental programs that offer language teacher education programs. However, these programs are broadly based educational programs and do not necessarily focus on ESL teacher education. Among these, two programs that merit mention are the Teacher Development Center and the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF; http://www.sef.org.pk/).

Research Shortage

Although these programs try to do their best, one handicap that they share is a lack of research focusing on language teaching and learning in Pakistan. Currently, no peer-reviewed research journals on ESL or education are published in Pakistan. SEF, SPELT, and Bahauddin University publish newsletters, but these are not peer reviewed or research based. Few books examine education in Pakistan. Two that do are Pervez Hoodbhoy's (1998) Education and the State: Fifty Years of Pakistan, which provides only a general overview of education and does not focus on teaching English; and Farida Malik's (1996)The Teaching of English in Pakistan, which does specifically look at English language teacher education. There are also a few research articles in various edited volumes published internationally, such as Fauzia Shamim's (1996) "In or Out of the Action Zone: Location as a Feature of Interaction in Large ESL Classes in Pakistan." Unfortunately, Pakistani teachers have limited, if any, knowledge about or access to these resources.

Local research can be found in university libraries, where one may find graduate students' theses and dissertations. However, there is no easy way to access this knowledge base. Furthermore, the quality of such research cannot be guaranteed, because the faculty members directing the theses are not always primary researchers themselves (many do not have PhDs and may never have published any research).

Mismatched Texts

As a result of this dearth of work, teacher education programs in Pakistan use textbooks and materials imported from the United States or the United Kingdom. The information, methods, and activities in these books, however, are not always relevant to or appropriate for the Pakistani context, and the readings are not typically considered very useful by the teachers-in-training. For example, English language teacher educators in Pakistan have promoted the communicative language teaching approach, as presented in textbooks published in the West for more than a decade. However, the approach has not made an impression on classroom teaching in Pakistan, most likely because the theory, as discussed in some of the source material, cannot be easily applied to large-scale Pakistani classrooms. Classes often contain at least 60 students, making a communicative approach almost impossible without creating a discipline problem in the classes. Another reason for the failure of the communicative approach in Pakistan is that students have little incentive to communicate in English outside the class or school. A third, and important, issue is the minimal language proficiency of the teachers themselves. Keeping these aspects in mind, language teacher education programs need to adapt and carefully design their curriculum to suit local needs and settings.

This short overview indicates that there is a great need for research on teaching and learning English in Pakistan. It is my hope to motivate researchers in the United States and other countries around the world to invest some time into looking at this country and creating a body of research and resource material that can aid in training teachers to do their jobs well.

References

Hoodbhoy, P. (Ed.). (1998). Education and the state: Fifty years of Pakistan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Malik, F. (1996) The teaching of English in Pakistan. New York: Vanguard.

Shamim, F. (1996). In or out of the action zone: Location as a feature of interaction in large ESL classes in Pakistan. In K. M. Bailey and D. Nunan (Eds.),Voices from the language classroom: Qualitative research in second language education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ahmar Mahboob teaches TESOL and linguistics at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, in the United States. He is the incoming chair of TESOL's NNEST Caucus (http://nnest.moussu.net/). He is also the director of the Linguistics and Literature Interest Group of Pakistan (http://www.llip.info/).

Graduate Student Forum

The Graduate Student Forum (GSF) will be held in the Long Beach Convention Center on Tuesday, March 30, 2004. It will feature 80 paper presentations and 20 poster sessions. To attend the GSF, you must register for the 2004 TESOL convention. Although there is no extra GSF registration fee, registration for the forum is required because space limits attendance to 160 participants. More information about the GSF can be found athttp://www.tesol.org/mbr/community/students/gsf1.html.

TEIS Steering Committee

Past Chair: Meg Gebhard
2003-2004
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
School of Education
206 Furcolo Hall
Amherst, MA 01003
USA
Tel. 413-577-0863
Fax 413-545-2879
gebhard@educ.umass.edu

Chair: Shelley Wong
2003-2004
Ohio State University
Second/Foreign Language Education
Language, Literacy and Culture
School of Teaching and Learning
333 Arps Hall
Columbus, OH 43210
USA
Tel. 614-292-8046
Fax 614-292-7695
wong.180@osu.edu

Chair-Elect: Mark Tanner
2003-2004
Brigham Young University
Department of Linguistics
21 JKHB
Provo, UT
USA
Tel. 801-378-8154
Fax 801-378-8295
mark_tanner@byu.edu

Future Chair-Elect: Paula Golombek
2003-2004
Pennsylvania State University
305 Sparks Building
University Park, PA 16802
USA
Tel. 814-865-0693
Fax 814-865-7944
pxg2@psu.edu

Newsletter Coeditor: Su Motha
University of Maryland, College Park
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
2311 Benjamin Building
College Park, MD 20742
USA
Tel. 301-405-3324
Fax 301-314-9055
sumotha@wam.umd.edu

Newsletter Coeditor: Chuang Wang
Ohio State University
Integrated Teaching and Learning
School of Teaching and Learning
333 Arps Hall
Columbus, Ohio 43210
USA
Tel. 614-688-8245
Fax 614-292-7695
wang.163@osu.edu

IS Council Representative: Cheri Micheau
2001-2004
Upper Merion Area School District
4252 Regent Square
Philadelphia, PA 19104
USA
Tel. 215-222-0944
Fax 610-436-6932
cmicheau@wcupa.edu

IS Council Representative: Stephen Stoynoff
2002-2005
Minnesota State University
Department of English
230 Armstrong Hall
Mankato, MN 56001
USA
Tel. 507-389-5502
Fax 507-389-5362
stephen.stoynoff@mnsu.edy

IS Council Representative: Valerie S. Jakar
2003-2006
Jerusalem Pedagogic Centre
11 Narkis Street
Jerusalem
Israel
Tel. 972-2-6734029, 972-54-825374
Fax 972-2-6737834
gidyakar@netvision.net.il

Web Manager: Katya Nemtchinova
2003-2004
Seattle Pacific University
Foreign Languages and Literature
Marston 216
Seattle, WA 98119-1997
USA
Tel. 206-281-2406
Fax 206-281-2335
katya@spu.edu

E-List Manager: Barbara Wright
2003-2004
Shih Chien University, Kaohsiung
200 University Road
Neimen, Kaohsiung 845
Taiwan ROC
Tel. 886-7-667-8888-5107
Fax 886-7-667-8888-4270
barbewire3@yahoo.com

TEIS Newsletter Call for Contributions

The TEIS Newsletter encourages submission of articles and book reviews on topics of significance to teacher educators. We also solicit TEIS Voices from all of our TEIS members.

• Articles should be 800-1500 words and may be program descriptions, course descriptions, best practices, teaching techniques, or articles on any topic of interest to ESOL teacher educators, especially those of sociopolitical interest or issues not commonly addressed in the literature.
• Book reviews of 300-500 words should provide the reviewer's analysis of books that are relevant to the practice and theory of teacher education.
• TEIS Voices are paragraphs of approximately 100 words that introduce a teacher educator's work. TEIS Voices serve as a networking tool as well as an opportunity to shine a spotlight on a teacher, program, or country TEIS members might not otherwise read about.

Please send your contributions to Chuang Wang at wang.613@osu.edu, TEIS Newsletter coeditor. The deadline for the next issue is June 30, 2004.

About This Member Community Teacher Education Interest Section

TEIS provides a forum for ESOL teacher educators and other TESOL members to raise, discuss, and address issues relevant to the education, preparation, and continuing professional development of teachers who work with ESL/EFL learners around the world. It creates opportunities for ESOL teacher educators to learn, interact, collaborate, and share with one another.

TEIS Leaders, 2003-2004

Chair: Shelley Wong, wong.180@osu.edu
Chair-Elect: Mark W. Tanner, mark_tanner@byu.edu
Coeditor: Su Motha, sumotha@wam.umd.edu
Coeditor: Chuang Wang Coe, wang.613@osu.edu

Discussion E-List: Visit http://www.tesol.org/getconnected/ to subscribe to TEIS-L, the discussion list for TEIS members, or visithttp://lists.tesol.org/read/?forum=teis-l if already a subscriber.

Web Site: http://www.spu.edu/depts/tesol/TEIS/