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International Conference 2018
Featured Session
Focusing on EMI and PBL in Fostering Fluency: Implications and Strategies
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Over the last 50 years, the field of ELT has witnessed a significant transformation in every aspect of teaching and learning. Today the ELT field is diverse, complicated, multifaceted and “glocal.” As a result of the “glocalization” of ELT and with the English language becoming a global lingua franca (ELF), English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) has become a fast-growing trend in the world. Along with EMI, another innovative approach, Project-Based Learning (PBL), has also been developed and successfully implemented in many higher education institutions. The increasing interest in EMI and PBL research and curriculum development in fostering fluency has influenced the reforms in educational planning, language policy, and instructional approaches in many countries and regions, including Korea.
In this session, the speaker will focus on recent major transformations in the global ELT field and how such transformations have influenced the development of EMI in Asia. She will address the following questions: What are the major driving forces that have changed the way we teach and learn English? How can educators teach effectively in the 21st century context? How can project-based learning be effectively implemented in an EMI classroom? The speaker will also share successful EMI and PBL examples from other institutions, discuss practical strategies that participants can use, and potential pitfalls they need to be aware in their own EMI course design in order to prepare students for the competitive and glocalized 21st century society and beyond. Participants will also have opportunities to work in groups to apply this information towards their own EMI course design.
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Invited Second Session
Action Research in Blended Learning Classes
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The speaker will share her findings from her action research work with adult education students in a new, innovative project: IDEA (Integrated Digital English Acceleration) with Washington State. The presentation will focus on successes, and challenges to ways of accelerating success, for low-level adult ESL learners through blended learning in IDEA classes. A variety of strategies, techniques, and resources will be presented that the particip[ants can use and/or adapt to their own teaching context to motivate and facilitate effective student learning.
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Biographical Sketch
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Yilin Sun, PhD, is a tenured professor at Seattle Colleges (USA), and served as director of the English Language Center at the University of Macau (2016–17). She received her doctorate in applied linguistics/curriculum and instruction from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)/University of Toronto in Canada and her BA in English literature and pedagogy from Central China Normal University. She is president of the Macau Association of Applied Linguistics (MAAL) and Chair of the 2018 AsiaTEFL International Conference. She served as president of TESOL International Association (2013–16). She also served as president of Washington TESOL (WAESOL) in 2003 and 2007.
Dr. Sun has over 30 years of experience in the field of TESOL as a MA-TESL teacher trainer, a researcher, a classroom teacher, and a program leader with a variety of higher educational institutions in China, Macau, Canada, and the USA. In 2011–12, Dr. Sun worked as a Fulbright senior scholar in Taiwan coordinating the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) Education Program and teaching TESOL graduate courses as a visiting professor at the National Taiwan Normal University. She is also an English language specialist for the U.S. Department of State and has conducted teacher training workshops in many countries, including Cambodia, China, South Korea, Laos, Russia, and Thailand.
She is the author and co-author of books, book chapters, and research papers in refereed professional journals. She also serves as chief editor for the new series, Foreign Language Teacher Education and Development – Selected Works of Renowned TESOL Experts, published by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Over the years, Dr. Sun has also frequently been invited to give keynote, plenary, and featured addresses at national and international conferences.
Her research interests include curriculum development, program assessment and evaluation, L2 reading, vocabulary learning, critical thinking, classroom-based action research, teacher education, ESP/EAP, and non-native English-speaking teachers (NNEST) in the ELT field. Email: yilinsuntesol@gmail.com // yilin.sun@seattlecolleges.edu
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Yilin Sun Resources on the Web
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Faculty Page: Yilin Sun
http://sites.southseattle.edu/yilsun/Home
Video: A Message from Yilin Sun, TESOL President
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a9qhq92BYc
TESOL Blog: ESP Project Leader Profile: Yilin Sun
URL: http://blog.tesol.org/esp-project-leader-profile-yilin-sun/
