We (Sarah, Khwan, Raiha, Me (Fitri), and Haleema) will be presenting in Kaleidoscope Conference 2014 at the University of Cambridge, 29-30th May 2014. Here are our abstracts\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42 Anybody else attending this conference? If so see you in Cambridge..<\/p>\n
Exploring\u00a0<\/b>expansive forms of learning within volunteer training in three health\u00a0and social charities in England<\/b><\/p>\n
Sarah Darley-Nolan<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
The voluntary sector is a key part of the delivery of health and social care services in the UK and volunteers often perform complex roles supporting vulnerable groups of people. Training has long been recognised as an important part of the volunteer process; however few studies have examined the learning experienced by volunteers within training. This study will draw upon sociocultural theories of learning and particularly the concept of expansive learning from activity theory to fill the current gap in research on learning within this context. The concept of expansive learning as developed by Engestr\u00f6m (1987) is described as being particularly relevant for studying more non-traditional modes of learning as it focuses less on vertical learning where learners gain competence through established practices and measures and more on horizontal learning where new practices are collaboratively negotiated and created (Engestr\u00f6m, 2001). Using an embedded multiple case study involving three charities based in North West England, this research intends to explore volunteer training as more than the transmission of fixed knowledge and skills and aims to reconceptualise it as learning through participation and negotiation in practices that enables individual and collective transformation. The embedded case studies and use of narrative analysis aims to contribute to the understanding of dialogue, multiple perspectives and networks of interacting activity systems that Engestr\u00f6m claimed were needed to develop the third generation of activity theory. The concept of expansive learning will enable training to be examined from the perspective of volunteers within the organisational context, and gaining an insight into how expansive learning might take place within this context also hopes to be of practical use to health and social charities in future development of learning and training programmes.<\/p>\n
ASEAN and Thai Policy Documents Analysis: Implications for TESOL Practitioners in Intercultural Age<\/b><\/p>\n
\u00a0Sutraphorn Tantiniranat<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In 2015, the member states of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) – including my home context of Thailand – will establish the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) thereby enabling the free flow of professionals, goods, services and investment throughout ‘the single ASEAN’ market. There will also be increased intercultural interactions between people within the same region but from differing cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Since 2008, English has been ASEAN’s official working language (ASEAN Charter: Article 34), a lingua franca role within the region which is set to become even more marked after the establishment of the AEC. In this paper, I present my documentary analysis of selected ASEAN and Thailand education policies (written in both English and Thai) in particular focusing on the policies written by the Thailand Commission on Higher Education which consider the possible impact of the AEC establishment on the Thai Higher Education. From this analysis, I draw conclusions regarding: the extent to which the concerns for intercultural communication within the ASEAN region are discussed; the ways the notion of Intercultural (Communicative) Competence (by which I mean abilities to communicate effectively with people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds) is described; and the possible implications for the role of Thai TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) practitioners like myself.<\/span><\/p>\n Indonesian\u00a0Language Policy Reversal: Impacts on Teachers\u2019 Motivation to Develop\u00a0Professionally<\/b><\/p>\n Siti Fitriyah<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has been a global\u00a0phenomenon. After gaining its popularity in Europe, the CLIL trend has\u00a0spread up to many different countries including Indonesia. In 2003,\u00a0Indonesian government initiated the establishment of International\u00a0Standard Schools (ISS), a new stream of public schools in which some\u00a0core subjects were to be taught\u00a0through a foreign language, predominantly English. However, in January 2013, the provision was cancelled after the Constitutional Court\u00a0approved public appeal to undertake a judicial review on the law\u00a0governing ISS, and then ruled the law unconstitutional. Therefore,\u00a0 despite the major funding and effort expended during the few year\u00a0life-span of the ISS\/CLIL innovation, public schools were no longer\u00a0permitted to use English except in the English classes and had to revert\u00a0to the use of Bahasa Indonesia as the language of instruction. This\u00a0sudden and unexpected ending had led to different consequences including\u00a0to the CLIL teachers who had relentlessly struggle to improve their\u00a0English such as by attending numerous courses and trainings. After those\u00a0long days of hard-work, suddenly, they could no longer use English in\u00a0their classes. This talk will report on some of the findings from the\u00a0preliminary stage of my narrative inquiry, especially about what the\u00a0teachers said how the sudden reversal affected their motivation to\u00a0continue their professional development. I applied Categorical Content Perspective (Lieblich et al.:1998) to analyse the data. I will further outline the\u00a0ideas on how to disseminate the findings to educational policy makers\u00a0and teacher trainers so that they can put these into consideration for\u00a0their future practices and to encourage the ideas of synchronising\u00a0educational policy making and pre-service and in-service teachers’\u00a0education.<\/p>\n Constructing self-identity through Photo-elicitation<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Haleema Sadia Mian<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The study was aimed at the construction of self-identity by photo-elicitation for two Pakistani students in transition to the University of Manchester. Photo elicitation is used to explore changes in self-identity through photographs selected by participants as prompts to help narration (Hill 2013; Lombard 2012).<\/span><\/p>\n Research questions were:<\/span><\/p>\n What transitional experiences contribute to the construction of self-identity? <\/span><\/p>\n