GLoCALL 2021

Plenary Speaker at GLoCALL 2021

Dr. Wong Su Luan Universiti Putra Malaysia

Dr. Wong Su Luan is a Professor at the Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). She has extensive teaching experience in educational technology, teacher education and teaching methods; and regularly conducts teaching and learning related training courses for educators. She is an active and passionate researcher and has published in more than 200 scholarly papers with a special focus on teaching and learning in ICT. She is currently the Principal Associate Editor of the Asia-Pacific Educational Researcher Journal (IF=0.58) and the Associate Editor of the Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (Scopus indexed).

Presentation: ICT in Malaysian Education: Trends and Challenges

A new generation of students has entered the Malaysian education system. They are media-centric and rely heavily on digital tools to learn and play. These students are known as the 21st century learners. To be successful learners, they must have mastery of three broad skills set comprising learning and innovation skills, digital literacy skills and finally career and life skills. As we progress into a technology-based society, Malaysian educators are expected to be adequately tech-savvy to rise to the challenge of teaching the more digitally-inclined students in the present day classroom. 

Given the aforesaid scenario, Malaysia's awareness of the need to improve the teaching-learning environment with the integration of ICT is growing and progress is evident in many areas. In this talk, I will share some insights on the latest ICT trends and development in Malaysian schools and higher learning institutions. My talk will conclude by providing a glimpse of some challenges we are facing in the pursuit of nurturing successful 21st century learner.

Workshop:

Plenary Speaker at GLoCALL 2021

Dr. Deborah Healey University of Oregon (USA)

Dr. Deborah Healey was the 2019-2020 President of TESOL’s Board of Directors. She has taught teacher training courses online for the University of Oregon’s American English Institute and face-to-face in the Master’s in Language Teaching program in the Linguistics Department. She has also taught both ESL and EFL at community colleges and language institutes, including in Yemen. She has written and presented extensively (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America). Her recent areas of research include gamification, massive open online courses, and online teaching approaches. Her doctorate is in Computers in Education.

Presentation: Growing up Digital: Intelligent Use of Technology

Many if not all of our learners are accustomed to using technology in their own lives. Much has been said about the so-called Generation X, Millennials, and Gen Z, who seem to be constantly connected to their mobile devices, and through their devices, to each other. However, our mobile-aware learners may not be very good at focused learning with technology support. This talk will explore why and how teachers can enhance their own and their students’ 21st Century skills, with a focus on technology use in four major areas: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. Realistically speaking, these are now simply life skills for everyone. I will also offer suggestions for technology integration based on TESOL’s new initiative, the 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Language Learners. The 6 Ps are firmly research-based and useful to any language teacher at any level.

Workshop: Digital Storytelling

Teachers have long used text-based stories in language classes to build reading and writing skills, and video-based stories for listening. Digital storytelling moves creating and sharing stories in the digital arena. Like classroom oral storytelling, digital stories build oral and listening skills. Going further, the electronic format allows learners to improve their written communication skills for the digital, multi-modal age. This is not the same as writing a story on paper; the digital form offers the ability to integrate and remix audio and video, and also potentially far wider distribution of the learners’ work. Clearly, creating these stories builds 21st Century skills of creativity and communication. This talk will show examples of digital storytelling, provide a framework for creating digital stories, and encourage teachers to work in small groups to find ways to incorporate digital storytelling into their own classes.

Plenary Speaker at GLoCALL 2021

Dr. Mark Pegrum The University of Western Australia (Perth, Australia)

Associate Professor Mark Pegrum is a Lecturer in Digital Learning in the Graduate School of Education at The University of Western Australia in Perth, where he is also the Deputy Head of School (International). In his courses, he specialises in digital technologies in education, with a particular focus on mobile learning. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and his teaching has been recognised through Faculty and University Excellence in Teaching Awards, as well as a 2010 national Australian Learning & Teaching Council (ALTC) Excellence in Teaching Award. His current research focuses on mobile technologies, digital literacies, augmented reality, and mobile learning trails and games. His books include: Brave New Classrooms: Democratic Education and the Internet (co-edited with Joe Lockard, 2007); From Blogs to Bombs: The Future of Digital Technologies in Education (2009); Digital Literacies (co-authored with Gavin Dudeney & Nicky Hockly, 2013); Mobile Learning: Languages, Literacies and Cultures (2014); and Mobile Lenses on Learning: Languages and Literacies on the Move (2019).

Presentation: Going Global, Going Local, Going Mobile

In this plenary, we will explore mobile learning at the intersection of the global and the local, examining it from two distinct angles. Firstly, we will focus on mobile learning in the sense of learning which is appropriate for an ever more mobile and superdiverse world; and secondly, we will focus on mobile learning in the sense of learning which exploits multiple levels of mobility, including the mobility of devices, the mobility of learners, and the mobility of learning experiences. We will go on to look at examples of innovative mobile language and literacy learning projects from around the world, drawing on cases from both the Global North and the Global South. It will be suggested that the most effective forms of mobile learning are contextually appropriate; exploit mobility on as many levels as possible; and, in some of the most pedagogically sophisticated cases, build connections between global and local learning. We will wrap up with some reflections on the need for educators and students to develop the critical mobile literacy to carefully evaluate the use of mobile devices, locally and globally, in education and in society as a whole.

Workshop:

Plenary Speaker at GLoCALL 2021

Dr. Pramela Krish Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia

Dr Pramela Krish is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Research in Language and Linguistics, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. She specialises in Applied Linguistics and has researched and published works on online language learning, mobile learning and teacher professional development. Dr Pramela is on Editorial Board of 3L Southeast Asian Journal of English Language and CALL–EJ. She has been appointed as external reviewer for numerous teacher education programmes by the Malaysian Ministry and has served on review panels for funding. She is also an active reviewer for academic journals locally and internationally.

Presentation: Social Media and the Innovations in Research: Opportunities and Challenges

While research in communication patterns, collaboration, and discussion in the digital platform is ongoing, there are new trends in linguistic research is to understand and study the e-discourse and the digital lingo. Such research has open new pathways for educators and linguistic researchers globally. With more people today actively engaging, communicating and reflecting on all aspects of life via Social Networking Sites (SNSs), this has surely open avenues for accessibility to a wealth of naturally occurring data for researchers to tap and to understand the broader areas of linguistic research. There are opportunities to study new words as well as the early phase of the establishment of the words, via the popular social media platforms such as Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook.

I will share some insights in the current areas of research in applied linguistics in the digital era with focus on studies done in the Malaysian context. The challenges that come along with this innovation in research interest and the need to understand the digital lingo will be discussed. The presentation will end with some ethical challenges as each social media research context is unique.

Workshop:

Plenary Speaker at GLoCALL 2021

Prof. Gordon Bateson Kochi University of Technology (Japan)

Gordon Bateson is Professor at Kochi University of Technology in Japan. His research interests include developing Moodle plugins to support extensive reading, writing and speaking. He has a degree in Software Engineering from Imperial College, London and an M.Sc. in Teaching English for Specific Purposes (TESP) from Aston University, Birmingham, U.K. He has lived and worked in Japan since 1990. Currently, he is researching technologies to facilitate the assessment of online speaking and writing activities.

Presentation: Testing 4-skills online: What is possible?

Whilst there are numerous online tools to test and assess the receptive skills of reading and listening, it is only recently that tools have been developed to assess the production skills of writing and speaking online. Internationally-recognized tests, including TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS and Eiken, are all available online nowadays and most include speaking and writing sections. However, the use of human assessors means that the fees for taking these tests are high, and furthermore it takes several weeks the obtain results. To overcome these issues, a new open-source test is proposed that is based around the Moodle LMS. The test features several new plugins to automatically grade speaking and writing. The presenter will detail the development of the plugins, reveal the preliminary version of the test, and explain how the reliability of the test is verified by comparing students' scores with human-ratings and widely used tests.

Workshop: Creating a 4-skills online assessment tool using the Moodle LMS

In this workshop, participants will learn how to build an online tool that can automatically assess an individual’s ability to read, write, listen and speak in English. The tool will be created with the Moodle learning management system (LMS). At the beginning of the workshop, participants will be introduced to Moodle and guided how to build an online course. The presenter will also explain how to create and import images, audio, and video into Moodle. Within the Moodle question bank, students will create questions to test reading, listening, writing and speaking ability. These questions will then be added to a Moodle Quiz activity, which forms the basis of a 4-skills test. Finally, participants will try out each other’s quizzes and consider the advantages and disadvantages of this method of assessment.