Rod Neilsen | Deakin University (original) (raw)
Papers by Rod Neilsen
Teaching English Language in Australia Theoretical Perspectives and Practical Issues, 2004
Language and Communication All members of the animal kingdom communicate. When an individual memb... more Language and Communication All members of the animal kingdom communicate. When an individual member of a species communicates, it demonstrates behaviour that affects the behaviour of another. Specifically, it involves an exchange of information.
The impact of conversations about language, multilingualism and multiculturalism in education con... more The impact of conversations about language, multilingualism and multiculturalism in education contexts—and their impact on student and teacher interaction—has been frequently remarked upon (Motha, 2014; Cummins & Early, 2010). However, limited research has been undertaken to date to explore the ways in which the normative conditions of language, culture and identity, and their underlying structures and behaviours play out in the practices of Languages and EAL/D teaching. The data that frames our study was taken from a research project which explored recent changes to Australian Languages and EAL/D curriculum and policy, and its impact on teacher experience and practice. Analysis of the teachers' conversations about these policies, and their daily experience and practice, made visible the ways in which the discipline areas Languages and EAL/D—and the teachers who taught these subjects —were understood. The embodied and normative conditions of identity are negotiated and mediated ...
Efforts have been made over many years by applied linguists in a number of English-speaking count... more Efforts have been made over many years by applied linguists in a number of English-speaking countries to raise awareness of language across the primary and secondary school curriculum, with varying degrees of success (see Denham & Lobeck, 2010). Many of these countries are sites of mass migration from non-English speaking countries, creating linguistic equity issues. In Australia, the new National Curriculum mandates that teachers of all disciplines will be required to provide pedagogy responsive to the language learning needs of English as an Additional Language (EAL) students. However, policy documents do not specify how this goal should be realized, and teachers and researchers are engaged in constant debate about what views of language could inform teacher training (e.g. structural and/or functional). This paper reports on a project which aimed to identify 1) the views of teacher educators on language in the curriculum, and 2) the language-related challenges faced by teachers in...
Education Sciences, 2017
This paper is drawn from a research project that investigates the relationship between teachers’ ... more This paper is drawn from a research project that investigates the relationship between teachers’ understanding of the religious identity of Asian background students, and recent Australian curriculum initiatives focused on religion and religious identification. Based on responses from an Australia-wide survey, and follow-up interviews from teachers and principals in several Australian states, the project examined the ways that Australian teachers understand, respond to and talk about the religious identities of their students, and the implications of these demands for teacher practice and education. This paper is concerned with the findings from the interview phase that for a significant number of teachers, notions of religion were often elided with culture and race, and often subsumed by broader notions of a nominal ‘white’ Australian culture. Research conversations appeared framed by an often Christian perspective and sense of self, as opposed to a putative and Asian religious and...
Faculty of Education School of Cultural Language Studies in Education, 2011
TESOL teachers, like mainstream teachers, often experience key incidents in their professional de... more TESOL teachers, like mainstream teachers, often experience key incidents in their professional development. In expatriate TESOL however, unfamiliar cultural and linguistic contexts may disrupt teachers’ sense of both professional and personal identity. In this paper, narratives constructed from interviews of teacher experiences document a selection of critical events and discuss their implications for professional development in TESOL. Teachers reported that deep reflection on their experiences led to a re-conceptualisation of their professional and cultural identities. The analysis of their reflections may have significant implications for TESOL work in the context of the global and the local.
Language and Languages: …, 2007
TESOL in Context, 2017
The factors influencing the multiple contexts of English language provision in Australia are comp... more The factors influencing the multiple contexts of English language provision in Australia are complex, and this issue of TESOL in Context holds a lens to some of them: the first of the three articles presents a historical overview of provision for English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D, formerly English as a Second Language or ESL) in Australia, the subject of the second is screening for EAL kindergarten children, and the third discusses issues of internationalisation in a K-12 school. Reading these we are reminded that as TESOL professionals we work in an environment of continual change, forced to respond in a frequently ad hoc manner to a number of pressures, including federal and state politics. As far back as 2002 Joe Lo Bianco expressed concern (in this journal) that EAL/D learner needs were still not being met at that time, and the three articles in this issue throw light on why this is still too often the case, despite recent legislative emphasis on a ‘fairer Aust...
Action Research (AR) is recognised as an effective way for language teachers to extend teaching s... more Action Research (AR) is recognised as an effective way for language teachers to extend teaching skills and gain more understanding of teaching, learning and the classroom environment (Burns, 2010). It can also be a useful but challenging experience for trainee language teachers. This paper reports on the experiences of Malaysian trainee primary TESOL teachers who undertook an AR project during their practicum in Brisbane schools as part of a joint Bachelor of Education programme with an Australian University. The experience was demanding, as the trainees learned about AR methodology in the context of a practicum which was not only their first experience of teaching, but also took place in an unfamiliar cultural environment. The experience appeared useful in terms of developing habits of flexibility and reflexivity, yet some of the group expressed reservations on how useful the classroom pedagogies taught in the course would be in their home context. Findings contribute to the limite...
Review(s) of: The plurilingual TESOL teacher: The hidden language lives of TESOL teachers and why... more Review(s) of: The plurilingual TESOL teacher: The hidden language lives of TESOL teachers and why they matter, by Elizabeth Ellis, Trends in applied Linguistics: De Gruyter Mouton, 2016, ISBN 978-1-61451-589-0.
TESOL in Context
As this issue of TESOL in context goes to press, we are looking back on a period of close to 18 m... more As this issue of TESOL in context goes to press, we are looking back on a period of close to 18 months since the COVID-19 pandemic became a reality for Australia. The immediate, farreaching and ongoing impact of the pandemic on education has been captured and documented in much academic and professional debate to date (Kenley, 2020; Zentrum für Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung Bamberg (ZLB), 2020). Restrictions on travel resulting from the pandemic have severely impacted teachers, students and teacher educators all over the world (Tran, 2020).
Global Germany in Transnational Dialogues, Dec 10, 2019
Natural history The sugar glider is native to northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea, and sur... more Natural history The sugar glider is native to northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea, and surrounding islands. This arboreal nocturnal creature spends its days in leaflined nests in tree hollows. Sugar gliders are extremely social and vocal.
TESOL in Context
This 2018 issue was initially intended as unthemed, but in fact a theme does emerge from the thre... more This 2018 issue was initially intended as unthemed, but in fact a theme does emerge from the three papers – that of language learners’ voices, reminding us as educators of how much we need to listen – and the kinds of things we need to listen to more reflexively. Anna Filipi’s paper points to the frequent absence of the voices of international students in investigations, giving an account of their identities through a critical examination of English language learner categorisation. Suma Sumithran then asks how EAL/D teachers speak about their adult students’ language learning experiences, indicating that sometimes students’ voices are not heard in crucial ways, resulting in a perpetuation of cultural stereotyping, even if their teachers engage with them with the best of intentions. In an Australia characterised by cultural and linguistic diversity, an examination of the hybrid and fluid identities of its peoples reveal that ‘othering’ based on geographical nation-state boundaries is...
Language and Languages: Global and Local Tensions, 2007
This chapter summarizes a quasi-ethnographic case study of the lives and work of nine native-spea... more This chapter summarizes a quasi-ethnographic case study of the lives and work of nine native-speaking English language teachers who have lived and worked outside their countries of origin for extended periods. The study aimed to document the complexity of ELT as 'work'in new global economic and cultural conditions, and to explore how this complexity is realised in the everyday experiences of ELT teachers.
Tesol in Context, Dec 1, 2014
The Australian Educational Researcher
TESOL in Context, 2017
The factors influencing the multiple contexts of English language provision in Australia are comp... more The factors influencing the multiple contexts of English
language provision in Australia are complex, and this issue of
TESOL in Context holds a lens to some of them: the first of the
three articles presents a historical overview of provision for English
as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D, formerly English as
a Second Language or ESL) in Australia, the subject of the second
is screening for EAL kindergarten children, and the third discusses
issues of internationalisation in a K-12 school. Reading these we
are reminded that as TESOL professionals we work in an
environment of continual change, forced to respond in a frequently
ad hoc manner to a number of pressures, including federal and
state politics. As far back as 2002 Joe Lo Bianco expressed concern
(in this journal) that EAL/D learner needs were still not being met
at that time, and the three articles in this issue throw light on why
this is still too often the case, despite recent legislative emphasis on
a ‘fairer Australia’ (Australian Government, 2011) in which a
stronger acknowledgement, understanding and support for
linguistic diversity should provide the foundation for a socially just
society.
Teaching English Language in Australia Theoretical Perspectives and Practical Issues, 2004
Language and Communication All members of the animal kingdom communicate. When an individual memb... more Language and Communication All members of the animal kingdom communicate. When an individual member of a species communicates, it demonstrates behaviour that affects the behaviour of another. Specifically, it involves an exchange of information.
The impact of conversations about language, multilingualism and multiculturalism in education con... more The impact of conversations about language, multilingualism and multiculturalism in education contexts—and their impact on student and teacher interaction—has been frequently remarked upon (Motha, 2014; Cummins & Early, 2010). However, limited research has been undertaken to date to explore the ways in which the normative conditions of language, culture and identity, and their underlying structures and behaviours play out in the practices of Languages and EAL/D teaching. The data that frames our study was taken from a research project which explored recent changes to Australian Languages and EAL/D curriculum and policy, and its impact on teacher experience and practice. Analysis of the teachers' conversations about these policies, and their daily experience and practice, made visible the ways in which the discipline areas Languages and EAL/D—and the teachers who taught these subjects —were understood. The embodied and normative conditions of identity are negotiated and mediated ...
Efforts have been made over many years by applied linguists in a number of English-speaking count... more Efforts have been made over many years by applied linguists in a number of English-speaking countries to raise awareness of language across the primary and secondary school curriculum, with varying degrees of success (see Denham & Lobeck, 2010). Many of these countries are sites of mass migration from non-English speaking countries, creating linguistic equity issues. In Australia, the new National Curriculum mandates that teachers of all disciplines will be required to provide pedagogy responsive to the language learning needs of English as an Additional Language (EAL) students. However, policy documents do not specify how this goal should be realized, and teachers and researchers are engaged in constant debate about what views of language could inform teacher training (e.g. structural and/or functional). This paper reports on a project which aimed to identify 1) the views of teacher educators on language in the curriculum, and 2) the language-related challenges faced by teachers in...
Education Sciences, 2017
This paper is drawn from a research project that investigates the relationship between teachers’ ... more This paper is drawn from a research project that investigates the relationship between teachers’ understanding of the religious identity of Asian background students, and recent Australian curriculum initiatives focused on religion and religious identification. Based on responses from an Australia-wide survey, and follow-up interviews from teachers and principals in several Australian states, the project examined the ways that Australian teachers understand, respond to and talk about the religious identities of their students, and the implications of these demands for teacher practice and education. This paper is concerned with the findings from the interview phase that for a significant number of teachers, notions of religion were often elided with culture and race, and often subsumed by broader notions of a nominal ‘white’ Australian culture. Research conversations appeared framed by an often Christian perspective and sense of self, as opposed to a putative and Asian religious and...
Faculty of Education School of Cultural Language Studies in Education, 2011
TESOL teachers, like mainstream teachers, often experience key incidents in their professional de... more TESOL teachers, like mainstream teachers, often experience key incidents in their professional development. In expatriate TESOL however, unfamiliar cultural and linguistic contexts may disrupt teachers’ sense of both professional and personal identity. In this paper, narratives constructed from interviews of teacher experiences document a selection of critical events and discuss their implications for professional development in TESOL. Teachers reported that deep reflection on their experiences led to a re-conceptualisation of their professional and cultural identities. The analysis of their reflections may have significant implications for TESOL work in the context of the global and the local.
Language and Languages: …, 2007
TESOL in Context, 2017
The factors influencing the multiple contexts of English language provision in Australia are comp... more The factors influencing the multiple contexts of English language provision in Australia are complex, and this issue of TESOL in Context holds a lens to some of them: the first of the three articles presents a historical overview of provision for English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D, formerly English as a Second Language or ESL) in Australia, the subject of the second is screening for EAL kindergarten children, and the third discusses issues of internationalisation in a K-12 school. Reading these we are reminded that as TESOL professionals we work in an environment of continual change, forced to respond in a frequently ad hoc manner to a number of pressures, including federal and state politics. As far back as 2002 Joe Lo Bianco expressed concern (in this journal) that EAL/D learner needs were still not being met at that time, and the three articles in this issue throw light on why this is still too often the case, despite recent legislative emphasis on a ‘fairer Aust...
Action Research (AR) is recognised as an effective way for language teachers to extend teaching s... more Action Research (AR) is recognised as an effective way for language teachers to extend teaching skills and gain more understanding of teaching, learning and the classroom environment (Burns, 2010). It can also be a useful but challenging experience for trainee language teachers. This paper reports on the experiences of Malaysian trainee primary TESOL teachers who undertook an AR project during their practicum in Brisbane schools as part of a joint Bachelor of Education programme with an Australian University. The experience was demanding, as the trainees learned about AR methodology in the context of a practicum which was not only their first experience of teaching, but also took place in an unfamiliar cultural environment. The experience appeared useful in terms of developing habits of flexibility and reflexivity, yet some of the group expressed reservations on how useful the classroom pedagogies taught in the course would be in their home context. Findings contribute to the limite...
Review(s) of: The plurilingual TESOL teacher: The hidden language lives of TESOL teachers and why... more Review(s) of: The plurilingual TESOL teacher: The hidden language lives of TESOL teachers and why they matter, by Elizabeth Ellis, Trends in applied Linguistics: De Gruyter Mouton, 2016, ISBN 978-1-61451-589-0.
TESOL in Context
As this issue of TESOL in context goes to press, we are looking back on a period of close to 18 m... more As this issue of TESOL in context goes to press, we are looking back on a period of close to 18 months since the COVID-19 pandemic became a reality for Australia. The immediate, farreaching and ongoing impact of the pandemic on education has been captured and documented in much academic and professional debate to date (Kenley, 2020; Zentrum für Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung Bamberg (ZLB), 2020). Restrictions on travel resulting from the pandemic have severely impacted teachers, students and teacher educators all over the world (Tran, 2020).
Global Germany in Transnational Dialogues, Dec 10, 2019
Natural history The sugar glider is native to northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea, and sur... more Natural history The sugar glider is native to northern and eastern Australia, New Guinea, and surrounding islands. This arboreal nocturnal creature spends its days in leaflined nests in tree hollows. Sugar gliders are extremely social and vocal.
TESOL in Context
This 2018 issue was initially intended as unthemed, but in fact a theme does emerge from the thre... more This 2018 issue was initially intended as unthemed, but in fact a theme does emerge from the three papers – that of language learners’ voices, reminding us as educators of how much we need to listen – and the kinds of things we need to listen to more reflexively. Anna Filipi’s paper points to the frequent absence of the voices of international students in investigations, giving an account of their identities through a critical examination of English language learner categorisation. Suma Sumithran then asks how EAL/D teachers speak about their adult students’ language learning experiences, indicating that sometimes students’ voices are not heard in crucial ways, resulting in a perpetuation of cultural stereotyping, even if their teachers engage with them with the best of intentions. In an Australia characterised by cultural and linguistic diversity, an examination of the hybrid and fluid identities of its peoples reveal that ‘othering’ based on geographical nation-state boundaries is...
Language and Languages: Global and Local Tensions, 2007
This chapter summarizes a quasi-ethnographic case study of the lives and work of nine native-spea... more This chapter summarizes a quasi-ethnographic case study of the lives and work of nine native-speaking English language teachers who have lived and worked outside their countries of origin for extended periods. The study aimed to document the complexity of ELT as 'work'in new global economic and cultural conditions, and to explore how this complexity is realised in the everyday experiences of ELT teachers.
Tesol in Context, Dec 1, 2014
The Australian Educational Researcher
TESOL in Context, 2017
The factors influencing the multiple contexts of English language provision in Australia are comp... more The factors influencing the multiple contexts of English
language provision in Australia are complex, and this issue of
TESOL in Context holds a lens to some of them: the first of the
three articles presents a historical overview of provision for English
as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D, formerly English as
a Second Language or ESL) in Australia, the subject of the second
is screening for EAL kindergarten children, and the third discusses
issues of internationalisation in a K-12 school. Reading these we
are reminded that as TESOL professionals we work in an
environment of continual change, forced to respond in a frequently
ad hoc manner to a number of pressures, including federal and
state politics. As far back as 2002 Joe Lo Bianco expressed concern
(in this journal) that EAL/D learner needs were still not being met
at that time, and the three articles in this issue throw light on why
this is still too often the case, despite recent legislative emphasis on
a ‘fairer Australia’ (Australian Government, 2011) in which a
stronger acknowledgement, understanding and support for
linguistic diversity should provide the foundation for a socially just
society.