Neda Sahranavard | University of California, Irvine (original) (raw)
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Accepting the award
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Accepting the award
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Papers by Neda Sahranavard
ELT Journal, Jan 10, 2022
The practice of international teaching assistant (ITA) training across US institutions has been c... more The practice of international teaching assistant (ITA) training across US institutions has been centred around a traditional model of native speakerism that expects ITAs to acquire the American communication paradigm through pre-made pronunciation and comprehension drills and exercises. Such practice tends to isolate the teaching of listening, speaking, and pronunciation from ITAs’ profound academic background, linguistic competence, and agency. This paper reports on an empowering ITA training curriculum that personalizes and professionalizes learning for international young scholars by promoting their accountability, responsibility, decision-making, and agency. Rather than approaching ITA training from traditional repeat-after-me pronunciation exercises and instructor-centred lectures, our approach leads to vital strides in ITAs becoming confident users of English with tools they need in their future academic endeavours. The curriculum also prepares them for academic success by creating a community of ITAs who learn through using compelling and professionally meaningful topics and materials.
Reimagining ITA training: promoting student-scholars' agency, 2022
The practice of international teaching assistant (ITA) training across US institutions has been c... more The practice of international teaching assistant (ITA) training across US institutions has been centred around a traditional model of native speakerism that expects ITAs to acquire the American communication paradigm through pre-made pronunciation and comprehension drills and exercises. Such practice tends to isolate the teaching of listening, speaking, and pronunciation from ITAs' profound academic background, linguistic competence, and agency. This paper reports on an empowering ITA training curriculum that personalizes and professionalizes learning for international young scholars by promoting their accountability, responsibility, decision-making, and agency. Rather than approaching ITA training from traditional repeat-after-me pronunciation exercises and instructor-centred lectures, our approach leads to vital strides in ITAs becoming confident users of English with tools they need in their future academic endeavours. The curriculum also prepares them for academic success by creating a community of ITAs who learn through using compelling and professionally meaningful topics and materials.
The Journal of English Studies, 2011
Contemporary literary trauma theory indicates that experiencing trauma creates a fear that destro... more Contemporary literary trauma theory indicates that experiencing trauma creates a fear that destroys identity. In fact, experiencing trauma creates a new identity for the victim. The representation of the trauma and the formation of the new identity for the victim are the building blocks of trauma novels. Due to the nature of trauma, it seems impossible to fully describe traumatic experiences by language. Considering Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm as a trauma novel, this article tries to magnify the traumatized bodies that are depicted in Atwood's work. In this novel, Atwood compares traumatized bodies of her characters with colonized lands. In Bodily Harms, the traumatic moments are evident in the bodies of victims, violence, and politics. The wounded bodies tell a new story by employing verbal and nonverbal language. This article reveals that trauma is located at the intersection between body and mind, and body's reaction to such traumatizing actions is keeping the recor...
Teaching Listening and Speaking: Using Pictures to Promote Agency, 2020
Using students' backgrounds and identities to acknowledge and promote their agency helps teachers... more Using students' backgrounds and identities to acknowledge and promote their agency helps teachers create a community of learners in their classes where the process of teaching and learning is personalized. It also creates strong bonds among students as they feel accountable, which boosts student motivation, participation in the activities, and retention. The following lesson plan is a narrative journal assignment for students with advanced English proficiency, but it can be adapted for different teaching contexts, skill area classes, and proficiency levels. I use this in my academic English oral communication courses to train international teaching assistants in becoming effective public speakers. It starts with writing narrative journals and moves to creating and presenting effective presentations. The main focus of the lesson plan is telling factual stories by using students' personal pictures to promote their agency. This lesson plan involves students' backgrounds and identities to create a professional learning community of multilingual, multicultural, and multidisciplinary international teaching assistants and acknowledge the agency of the learners/scholars. Materials and Technology: Laptop (or cellphone), internet, learning management system (LMS), students' selected pictures, projector Objectives Writing a personal story creatively based on a picture Describing a familiar event in writing using descriptive language Reading creative nonfiction stories Analyzing stories and pictures while thinking critically Working collaboratively with a partner/class Describing and presenting a story in front of an audience Listening to stories and getting to know peers Outcomes Students will be able to write personal stories using descriptive language. read and listen effectively for key elements and supporting details. organize ideas to create and present effective presentations. present and describe a factual story. use communicative resources and strategies.
Spotlight on the 2020 TESOL Teacher of the Year: Neda Sahranavard, 2020
The 2020 TESOL Teacher of the Year, Neda Sahranavard, is a lecturer and academic coordinator at t... more The 2020 TESOL Teacher of the Year, Neda Sahranavard, is a lecturer and academic coordinator at the University of California, Irvine, Program in Academic English, and an adjunct faculty at South Orange County Community College District. She has a PhD in English language and literature and has worked with multilingual students for more than 17 years. To help us get to know her, Dr. Sahranavard answered some questions about her personal and professional journey. Please tell us something about your background. How long have you been living in the United States? I value the rewarding profession of teaching. My career as an educator for the past 17+ years has also been extremely enjoyable. My passion for the English language, literature, and teaching led me to pursue a BA, MA, and PhD in English language and literature at Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. I also hold four certifications: TESL, active teaching, basic skills initiative, and online educator. I have lived in the United States for more than 12 years. I moved to the United States after completing my doctoral coursework and comprehensive exam, then wrote my dissertation while also teaching in the United States. My wide experience teaching at the university and community college levels in the United States and Iran has given me the opportunity to work with students from a range of socioeconomic, ethnic, linguistic, racial, religious, physical, gender, and academic backgrounds. I actively participate in professional development workshops and activities in my discipline, and I am eager to contribute fully to the development of my discipline by conducting research in language pedagogy, particularly in the area of teaching effectively while using simple but powerful lesson plans. Neda facilitates small group discussions and learning in her Academic English 23C class in which she trains her graduate students to become successful TAs.
The Persianization of English in multilingual Tehran, 2020
This article examines the uses of English in the multilingual cityscape of Tehran, the capital ci... more This article examines the uses of English in the multilingual cityscape of Tehran, the capital city of Iran. Drawing from photographic data of 400 publicly visible signs in Tehran, this study aims to understand the various ways in which English, as both a linguistic and cultural resource, operates in tandem with emergent Iranian cultural practices in the context of globalization, especially in relation to the centrality of Persianness to contemporary Iranian national identity. The article, in addition to offering a sociolinguistic history and contemporary portrait of English in Iran, demonstrates how English is used not only to index Western cultural influences and ideals but also how English is relocalized in accordance with the local communicative needs of contemporary Irani-ans in Tehran. We refer to this phenomenon as the Persian-ization of English, in which English operates in a discursive field delinked from its indexes to Western culture.
Accepting the award
3 views
Accepting the award
16 views
ELT Journal, Jan 10, 2022
The practice of international teaching assistant (ITA) training across US institutions has been c... more The practice of international teaching assistant (ITA) training across US institutions has been centred around a traditional model of native speakerism that expects ITAs to acquire the American communication paradigm through pre-made pronunciation and comprehension drills and exercises. Such practice tends to isolate the teaching of listening, speaking, and pronunciation from ITAs’ profound academic background, linguistic competence, and agency. This paper reports on an empowering ITA training curriculum that personalizes and professionalizes learning for international young scholars by promoting their accountability, responsibility, decision-making, and agency. Rather than approaching ITA training from traditional repeat-after-me pronunciation exercises and instructor-centred lectures, our approach leads to vital strides in ITAs becoming confident users of English with tools they need in their future academic endeavours. The curriculum also prepares them for academic success by creating a community of ITAs who learn through using compelling and professionally meaningful topics and materials.
Reimagining ITA training: promoting student-scholars' agency, 2022
The practice of international teaching assistant (ITA) training across US institutions has been c... more The practice of international teaching assistant (ITA) training across US institutions has been centred around a traditional model of native speakerism that expects ITAs to acquire the American communication paradigm through pre-made pronunciation and comprehension drills and exercises. Such practice tends to isolate the teaching of listening, speaking, and pronunciation from ITAs' profound academic background, linguistic competence, and agency. This paper reports on an empowering ITA training curriculum that personalizes and professionalizes learning for international young scholars by promoting their accountability, responsibility, decision-making, and agency. Rather than approaching ITA training from traditional repeat-after-me pronunciation exercises and instructor-centred lectures, our approach leads to vital strides in ITAs becoming confident users of English with tools they need in their future academic endeavours. The curriculum also prepares them for academic success by creating a community of ITAs who learn through using compelling and professionally meaningful topics and materials.
The Journal of English Studies, 2011
Contemporary literary trauma theory indicates that experiencing trauma creates a fear that destro... more Contemporary literary trauma theory indicates that experiencing trauma creates a fear that destroys identity. In fact, experiencing trauma creates a new identity for the victim. The representation of the trauma and the formation of the new identity for the victim are the building blocks of trauma novels. Due to the nature of trauma, it seems impossible to fully describe traumatic experiences by language. Considering Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm as a trauma novel, this article tries to magnify the traumatized bodies that are depicted in Atwood's work. In this novel, Atwood compares traumatized bodies of her characters with colonized lands. In Bodily Harms, the traumatic moments are evident in the bodies of victims, violence, and politics. The wounded bodies tell a new story by employing verbal and nonverbal language. This article reveals that trauma is located at the intersection between body and mind, and body's reaction to such traumatizing actions is keeping the recor...
Teaching Listening and Speaking: Using Pictures to Promote Agency, 2020
Using students' backgrounds and identities to acknowledge and promote their agency helps teachers... more Using students' backgrounds and identities to acknowledge and promote their agency helps teachers create a community of learners in their classes where the process of teaching and learning is personalized. It also creates strong bonds among students as they feel accountable, which boosts student motivation, participation in the activities, and retention. The following lesson plan is a narrative journal assignment for students with advanced English proficiency, but it can be adapted for different teaching contexts, skill area classes, and proficiency levels. I use this in my academic English oral communication courses to train international teaching assistants in becoming effective public speakers. It starts with writing narrative journals and moves to creating and presenting effective presentations. The main focus of the lesson plan is telling factual stories by using students' personal pictures to promote their agency. This lesson plan involves students' backgrounds and identities to create a professional learning community of multilingual, multicultural, and multidisciplinary international teaching assistants and acknowledge the agency of the learners/scholars. Materials and Technology: Laptop (or cellphone), internet, learning management system (LMS), students' selected pictures, projector Objectives Writing a personal story creatively based on a picture Describing a familiar event in writing using descriptive language Reading creative nonfiction stories Analyzing stories and pictures while thinking critically Working collaboratively with a partner/class Describing and presenting a story in front of an audience Listening to stories and getting to know peers Outcomes Students will be able to write personal stories using descriptive language. read and listen effectively for key elements and supporting details. organize ideas to create and present effective presentations. present and describe a factual story. use communicative resources and strategies.
Spotlight on the 2020 TESOL Teacher of the Year: Neda Sahranavard, 2020
The 2020 TESOL Teacher of the Year, Neda Sahranavard, is a lecturer and academic coordinator at t... more The 2020 TESOL Teacher of the Year, Neda Sahranavard, is a lecturer and academic coordinator at the University of California, Irvine, Program in Academic English, and an adjunct faculty at South Orange County Community College District. She has a PhD in English language and literature and has worked with multilingual students for more than 17 years. To help us get to know her, Dr. Sahranavard answered some questions about her personal and professional journey. Please tell us something about your background. How long have you been living in the United States? I value the rewarding profession of teaching. My career as an educator for the past 17+ years has also been extremely enjoyable. My passion for the English language, literature, and teaching led me to pursue a BA, MA, and PhD in English language and literature at Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. I also hold four certifications: TESL, active teaching, basic skills initiative, and online educator. I have lived in the United States for more than 12 years. I moved to the United States after completing my doctoral coursework and comprehensive exam, then wrote my dissertation while also teaching in the United States. My wide experience teaching at the university and community college levels in the United States and Iran has given me the opportunity to work with students from a range of socioeconomic, ethnic, linguistic, racial, religious, physical, gender, and academic backgrounds. I actively participate in professional development workshops and activities in my discipline, and I am eager to contribute fully to the development of my discipline by conducting research in language pedagogy, particularly in the area of teaching effectively while using simple but powerful lesson plans. Neda facilitates small group discussions and learning in her Academic English 23C class in which she trains her graduate students to become successful TAs.
The Persianization of English in multilingual Tehran, 2020
This article examines the uses of English in the multilingual cityscape of Tehran, the capital ci... more This article examines the uses of English in the multilingual cityscape of Tehran, the capital city of Iran. Drawing from photographic data of 400 publicly visible signs in Tehran, this study aims to understand the various ways in which English, as both a linguistic and cultural resource, operates in tandem with emergent Iranian cultural practices in the context of globalization, especially in relation to the centrality of Persianness to contemporary Iranian national identity. The article, in addition to offering a sociolinguistic history and contemporary portrait of English in Iran, demonstrates how English is used not only to index Western cultural influences and ideals but also how English is relocalized in accordance with the local communicative needs of contemporary Irani-ans in Tehran. We refer to this phenomenon as the Persian-ization of English, in which English operates in a discursive field delinked from its indexes to Western culture.