Lectures and Workshops

Dr. Anne Burns(University of New South Wales / CurtinUniversity)
Lecture: Revitalise your classroom with action research

Action research has been growing in popularity in language classrooms over the last twodecades. It is a form of teacher professional development which is ‘bottom-up’ rather than
‘top-down’. In other words, it focuses on topics and issues that are of immediate interest toteachers in their own teaching contexts. It encourages deeper exploration andunderstanding of what concerns teachers and their students. Through research andreflection teachers are able to analyse what is happening in their classroom practice and todiscover what changes might be made to improve teaching and learning.
In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of action research: what it is and how it is different
from other types of research. I will illustrate my talk with examples from teachers who havecarried out action research in various countries, and will explain what issues they identified,
how they carried out their action research, and what they learned from this experience.

Thetalk will be an introduction to the workshop I will present on the next day of the seminar for
those who would like to follow up in more detail by preparing an action research plan they
could use in the future.

Workshop: Getting started with action research in your classroom
For some time professional development for English language teachers has been
moving away from a transmissive approach to a transformative approach, whereteachers are encouraged to take an active role in understanding andinvestigating their own classrooms and their teaching practices. One way forteachers to adopt such an approach is to conduct action research. Actionresearch involves identifying an issue, puzzle or dilemma of interest to you inyour own classroom, and exploring and recording how changes can be made forimprovement and understanding.
In this workshop, I will provide an introduction to action research. We will look atwhat action research is and how to carry it out. As participants, you will beinvited to discuss issues in your own classroom or school that you would like toexplore more deeply. We will share ideas about identifying topics, creating
questions to research, and collecting evidence to show what kind of impact thechanges are making. By the end of the talk, you should be able to go away withsome initial plans about what you could investigate and how you can apply
action research in your classroom.
Biodata
Professor Anne Burns has a PhD in applied linguistics and is a part-timeProfessor at Curtin University, Australia. She was also Professor of TESOL, andnow holds an Honorary Professorship, in the School of Education at theUniversity of New South Wales, Sydney. She is a Professor Emerita at Aston
University, UK and Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney and The
Education University, Hong Kong. She has published extensively on language
teacher education and the teaching of speaking, and is particularly well known
for her work on action research. Her most recent book is Sustaining action
research: A practical guide for institutional engagement (with Emily Edwards andNeville Ellis, published by Routledge, 2022). She is a Series Editor for
the Research and Resources Series published by Routledge. In 2017, she wasrecognised by TESOL International as one of the ‘50@50’ who have made anoutstanding contribution to ELT. In 2019, she was listed on Wikipedia:(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Burns_(linguist)

Dr. Supong Tangkiengsirisin(Thammasat University, Bangkok)
Lecture: Reflective practices: Process, effectiveness, and challenges
It has long been recognized in the field of language education that teachers
should continually contemplate on and reshape their knowledge of teaching andlearning (Farrell, 2007). Reflective practice, which was initially developed inteacher education programs, has become part of teachers’ educational practicethroughout their teaching profession (Farrell, 2015). Reflective practice hasplayed an important role in teacher education as a mark of professional
competence (Suphasri & Chinokul, 2021). Despite its significance, there has been
controversy on how “reflective practice” should be undertaken in teacher
education programs. This session will present what “reflective practice” involves,
what process it should follow, how its process has changed over time, and whatchallenges face teachers conducting such practice. There will also be discussion
on how technology can facilitate and enhance teachers’ reflective practice.
This session will also discuss the salient issues emerging from research studies
on reflective practice. First, through collaborative action research and reflection
itself, reflective practice can be a time consuming, labor-intensive process asteachers need to learn to work with their colleagues and construct new
knowledge and gain insights regarding their teaching contexts, related theories,
and the practical reality through individual and collective knowledge In addition,
whether collaborative action research will become successful mainly depends on
how effectively the researchers and participants interact, to what extent thepractice is compatible with the participants’ needs and beliefs, and to what
degree they involve themselves in the process Finally, the participants’disposition, flexibility, and openness to collegiality are essential reflective
practitioners’ qualities that facilitate collaborative reflective practice throughprofessional dialogues, classroom observations, and collaboration with other ELT

researchers and professionals. As a final conclusion, this session would suggestthat opportunities should be provided for both younger and more experienced
teachers to work together and address common problems, share experiences,and develop their individual and collective repertoires to tackle shareddifficulties through both collaborative action research and reflective processes.
There might also be new ways of approaching reflective practice to foster
continuous professional development that meets individual teaching needs.
Workshop: Reflective models in language education: Practice andevaluation
Reflective practice (RP) plays a vital role in teacher learning and professional
development as it gives teachers the opportunity to self-assess their teachingknowledge and practice, as well as share thinking and practices in informalgroups or well-established communities of practice (Curtis, Lebo, Cividanes, &Carter, 2013). RP, however, has been operationalized in different ways, includinglearning through and from experience, evidence-based observations andexamination of critical incidents (Farrell, 2013). Despite its different approaches,
RP can be defined as a thinking procedure involving classroom events,
experiences or critical incidents, before, during and after their occurrence, withprofound introspection and logical evaluation. In reflective practice, practitioners
usually engage in a continuous cycle of self-observation and self-evaluation inorder to understand their own actions and the reactions they prompt inthemselves and in learners. Obviously, RP can mainly help experienced teachers
and young practitioners observe and refine their practice in general on anongoing basis.
This workshop consists of two main parts. The first part provides an overview of
the numerous perspectives and models of reflection in education and English
language teaching. In the second part, the participants will carry out reflective
practice based on provided assignment using some reflective models. In the finalpart, the participants will evaluate the models they used during the teachingprocesses so that they can make some adjustment that would be suitable fortheir own needs.
Biodata

Associate Professor Dr. Supong Tangkiengsirisin is the Director of the Language
Institute of Thammasat University and Past President of Thailand TESOL
Organization. He specializes in teaching academic writing, business
communication, English for Specific Purposes, Research Methodologies in ELT,and career-related English skills. His research interests involve second language
writing, written discourse analysis, EAP, ESP, and Global Englishes.

Dr. Ken Tamai（Kochi Professional University of Rehabilitation）

Lecture: Evolving concept of reflection: Reflective practice with versatile
perspectives on experienceReflective practice is one of the ways for practitioners to know their practice andthemselves through examining the meaning of daily events. It has been accepted
as such not only in the area of education but in nursing, sports, social welfare
and others. The definition of reflection as a means of practice, however, iscontingent on researchers or the field of practices, and this ambiguous state(Rodgers, 2002) seems inhibiting researchers and practitioners from finding acommon platform for discussion.
Here are three things I am planning to do. 1) To put a light on the background ofthe stigmatic ambiguity and try establishing a common platform by sorting out
tangled concepts of reflection. 2) While reflection is an act directed to ourexperience, little attention has been paid to the concept of experience itself.
With that in mind I would like to explore multi-faceted aspects of experience
seeking theoretical hints from such fields as social studies, critical theory,
anthropology and modern philosophy. 3) While experiential learning theory

(Kolb, 1984) has confirmed the value of experience as the source of learning,
methodological frames to capture the learner’s lived world has not beendeveloped except some abstract notion as mindfulness or learner-centeredness.
I would like to propose the reflective practice with phenomenologicalperspective as a useful means to approach learners’ lived world. Existential andontological understanding of learners will be discussed borrowing ideas frommodern philosophy.
When a new understanding of a teaching event is achieved, nothing looks thesame as before and the possible next action is already in the hands ofpractitioners. The goal of reflective practice does not remain in finding a solutionof problems, rather in pursuit of richer understanding of the real of learnerexperiences.
Workshop: What is it to reflect?: Making meaning of experiences, revisingunderstanding, and examining one's beliefs
Spread of COVID-19 kept students away from the classroom and robbed them ofa space which they share with bodily existence. Now that they are back in theclassroom, nothing seems more important than experiencing close interaction
feeling the same air in between. This workshop will introduce three different
types of reflection with which to try listening to unvoiced voices inside ourselves.
The first is a reflective work in pairs. Participants will go through a process ofreflection and learn what it is to reflect by revisiting a personal experience in thepast. The process begins with self-inquiry, then moves on to description, analysis
and synthesis for an understanding. The second is a type of reflection in groups
called Inquiry Cycle which enhances understanding of an issue from different
angles leading participants to the next action. The third is the Way of Council: A
group work in circle developed by native Americans. Participants share individualvoices for the enhancement of one’s understanding. Through these process
participants will be able to experience the depth reflection could lead to.
BiodataKen Tamai taught reflective practice for more than 20 years in the TESOL
graduate program of Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. For the last 10years in particular, he has introduced a phenomenological perspective to histeaching of reflective practice and been working to develop it into a theoreticalbasis as a qualitative research method. He wrote articles and edited books onreflective practice.