daronloo

Arasaratnam and Doerfel's (2005) study on defining intercultural communicative competence (ICC) may be dated, but I believe their discussions are very relevant to the current situation of ICC.  Their study aimed to define ICC from a grounded exploratory approach.  Their reasoning behind this is because of the subjective understanding of what intercultural is, and what competence is.  Communication, from an intercultural perspective, is typified as spoken discourse. To come to a definition of ICC, the study interviewed a group of international and local students studying in an American university.  The students were asked what they thought ICC is, and what they thought are key components of a person who is interculturally competent.  Though responses were diverse, a common thread was induced. But would this common thread still be applicable to different cultural contexts?  Probably from a qualitative perspective it would be, but perhaps not if viewed wit...

Recently, I wrote a response  to an article urging English teachers in Malaysia to teach only in English.  Aside from my response there were at least one other who wrote a very well thought-through  piece .   An English-only approach was a common sentiment you would find in language pedagogic textbooks and manuals published decades ago.  With the expansion of applied linguistics, the current community of language educators and scholars acknowledge that the language learning process involves more than just picking up new language knowledge and abilities through immersion.  Gone are the days when language is just considered a cognitive exercise.  These days, we have other affective variables to consider such as anxiety, stress, motivation, and the list goes on.  This was the idea that I had hoped my write-up would convey.  How wrong I was.  Not only did nobody understand what I wrote, I got a few interesting comments as well.  I do...

Every semester, my teaching load would include at least one writing course. Teaching in a classroom where you have students who do not share a similar English writing background is downright challenging.  For some of my students, their writing experience is confined to a sentence, but there are also those who come with paragraph- or essay-writing experiences.   What do you do when you have students with differing writing abilities?  Obviously, expecting everyone to be at the same page, and at the same pace, would be silly.  Another aspect that you may want to think of is how they had learned writing.  Some of my students memorized essays in high school.  Some of them just copied off from a 'model essay book'.  Some actually have a discussion or debate about what to write about before actually writing.  This is a problem for me too as I have grown accustomed to having the freedom and liberty to discuss anything under the sun.  However,...

I am sure this list will expand in the coming months and years, but these are three things that I have realized recently.  Beats me why it took me so long to realize them. 1.  No matter how thorough you think your conceptual framework is, there will always be something out there that could debunk your whole research. 2.  When you organize your articles (soft copies) on your computer, forget APA referencing style, start off with the title and leave the authors to the very end. 3.  Don't wait till you have accumulated piles of files in your download or documents folder before organizing.  Organizing can be a pain in the behind when you wait too long.

This morning my supervisor emailed me asking me if I would be interested to participate in our Faculty's conference later this week.  I was feeling like an opportunist today, so I said yes. I only got to work on the poster this evening and spent about an hour working on it.  I was not quite sure how I am supposed to design the poster, but I would imagine something with important catch phrases and keywords with minimal texts.  That's what I did.  As I was creating this poster, I got to thinking, am I on the right track?  My train of thought while making the poster was quite direct, with very little interruption.  It felt like I had a direction to go.  This encourages me but at the same time scares me.  How would I know that the direction I'm taking is not too simplistic?  Is it so uncritical that I am able to go from point A to point B without much interference? I reckon that despite having a seemingly simple research design, the depth of ...

I really thought the Lonely Island was the one who coined "YOLO".  Boy was I wrong.  It was Drake. Yes, I have been silent for the past few months.  It really is difficult to find time to write, when I am exerting so much energy in writing up stuff for the office and for studies.  A little piece of advice for those out there who are thinking of graduate studies.  Don't do it with a full time job.  Look for scholarships.  But we know that scholarships in the field of humanities are hard to come by. If you're thinking of doing a PhD in humanities or social sciences perhaps you should read this .  I did not quite read through the blog, but I think it is along the lines of a PhD student realizing towards the end that the PhD he/she was working on might not be really what he/she wants.  Nonetheless, he/she assures us that if we realize that PhD is not for us just before we defend our dissertation, we don't need to be alarmed.  There is sti...

I've played the piano for many weddings.  I play for at least one wedding a year.  This year, I was scheduled to play for two weddings. Last Sunday's wedding was the second wedding for the year.  I was flanked by two violinists, and we made fabulous wedding accompaniment for the now, husband and wife. Weddings are never perfect, at rehearsals and at the actual event.  There are always glitches, or last minute changes.  There are always people who come late.  Sometimes something explodes and catches fire (seriously this happened once). But I will not talk about non-music related incidents.  Since I think I'm a resident pianist, I will share interesting innuendos about wedding music. #1 - It's always the pianist's fault This happened at one of the weddings I played for in my earlier years in Thailand.  There was this lady, a fellow Sabahan, or Sabahanian, whatever you like to call us, who was assigned to sing a special number for the recept...

I've had some pretty intense situations happen to be repeatedly, like 'falling' at different occasions . Since those falls, I have been quite careful with how I walk, and, I am proud to say that to date, I haven't had any embarrassing falls.  Instead, I have been privileged with other types 'intense situations' - malfunctioning zippers. Zipper Malfunction #1 I was returning to Thailand after visiting my brother in California back in 2010.  On the flight back to Bangkok, from Taipei, my zipper literally popped.  I was wearing short shorts, a grey shirt, a cardigan, and boat shoes.  I was going for the chillaxed, I-travel-a-lot kinda look.  The flight was uneventful, until I tugged on my zipper to check if my fly was secured.  You know how sometimes the tape (the two parts that become connected when the zipper is pulled up) remains connected, even after the zipper is pulled off (maybe because it broke or maybe because there are no top stops) - well t...

Here are some cool/stupid/funny t-shirts you can find in Bangkok.  These photos were taken at Terminal 21, Asoke.

Last Friday I paid a visit to the Malaysian and Australian Embassies in Bangkok.  Getting there from the Lumphini MRT was quite a walk, but thankfully both of them were right next to each other. Australian Embassy People were attended to in an orderly fashion: we had to get queue numbers.  Once at the counter, the officer was very accommodating, but curt.  They certified my Australian documentation in less than 10 minutes.  There is not much I can say about the embassy because the service was so efficient, and fast. Malaysian Embassy I got there quarter to two, and they were still having lunch.  Apparently lunch breaks at the Malaysian embassy in Bangkok are two hours long.  I met the liaison officer at one of the schools where I work part-time.  She has been waiting since noon.  When the doors finally opened, there were no security checks, everyone wandered in and formed a line, with the first person being separated by the rest by a red-lin...

I thought this was pretty provoking.  It was strategically placed right at the beginning of the introductory chapter of Culture, Curriculum, and Identity in Education (Milner, 2010, p. 1). White teachers sometimes do not believe and fully understand that they have a culture [...] or that their worldview and practices are culturally grounded, guided, and facilitated. They struggle to understand that they, like people of color, too are cultural beings and that their conceptions, decisions, and actions are culturally shaped and mediated. They sometimes classify others as “cultural beings” or “diverse” and sometimes do not recognize the salience and centrality of their own culture, and how it is woven through their work as teachers. Culture is steeply embedded within and around each of us, is in and among all groups of people, and is especially shaped by the social context of education.  What do you think? I wish I knew more white teachers whom I can discuss this. In the...

I'm walking down the street, daydreaming.  I think of being next to a gentle stream, where the water takes its time enveloping each rock with a hug.  I walk further down/upstream and the sound of gushing water crescendos.  Wait, I'm not daydreaming anymore.  I smell rain.  I start running, and the rain chases after me.  It overtakes me and I run into a few droplets of rain. I manage to run into the administration building before all (wet) hell breaks loose.  Torrential rain is dumped from heaven.  It's like, here's all the rainwater you need to fill up your drying ponds. That was this evening. This morning was a whole different story.  It was less dramatic.  Well, it did start off dramatically.  I got a little bummed on my way to work because I realized that I had spilled my protein shake all over my shirt.  I was feeling my abs when I discovered that my shirt was sticking to my torso.  I looked down to my fingers, a...

I didn't run after the two #75 buses (airconditioned) that drove by the bus-stop without stopping.  Perhaps my graceful waving needs to be refined.  The third #75 bus did stop, it wasn't airconditioned, but it was the Free Red Bus.  I'm Chinese so anything free sounds good for me. I hopped on the bus and noticed that I, along with another youngish boy, were the only youths on board.  Everyone else was aged.  I initially had a seat to myself, but, being the good boy that I am, I offered my seat to an old lady (and in the process of offering, I stepped on an old man's foot).  I scanned around the bus for empty seats and found none.  There were four other old people standing up as the bus raced through Suksawad road.  The other young boy though, was still seated with an old man standing precariously next to him.  Perhaps the old man was hinting that the boy needs to give up his seat?  I don't know.  Here is a picture of his back. ...

How I wish I had as many readers as I had 3-4 years back.  I even had a serial stalker whom I was never able to identify, called Bloghopper.  Bloghopper where are you?! Yesterday I chased after buses.  Today I chased after taxis.  I seem to be chasing after things so very often, don't you think? Maybe I'm not chasing, maybe people are running away from me instead.  Anyway, this morning I had to be at a place before 8:40 am.  I live across the river, about 15 kms away from the city center.  Fifteen kilometers may not seem like a huge distance (by car/bus), but Bangkok traffic seems to render everything to a snail's pace.  What makes it worse is that there's nothing scenic to enjoy along the way. Chasing taxis.  I left my apartment at 6:15 am, and head down to the bus stop where I can hail a cab.  It was raining.  Normally there would be a few taxis waiting at the entrance of my apartment complex, but this morning, there were none...

You know buses in Bangkok - they are everywhere .  There are too many buses, as many as other types of road vehicles.  The sudden urge to be frugal this morning saw me chasing after Bus No. 75 at Charoen Krung road.  Those drivers don't care if you're waving wildly, trying to jump into the bus.  Why? Because soon enough another bus will pass by.  But no.  I am not waiting.  I want THIS bus.  So I ran, and I waved, and I jumped in, and I got myself a seat.  I had the smuggest look plastered across my face in the whole 45-minute journey. I got to my Bangkok apartment a little after noon.  For lunch I had a chicken nan and a bowl of salad.  I told myself I need to lessen my rice intake if I ever want to see any of my six abs.  I'm not fat or anything, just a little soft in the tummy area. The afternoon/evening was pretty much academic.  I read, and read, and read, and fell asleep, and read some more.  In between read...

Byram, et al. (1991) is arguably the first scholar to critically analyze the teaching of culture (in the UK English language classroom).  In the early 2000s, studies about the teaching of culture among the EU nations gained prominence with the publication of several studies by Sercu (2005, 2007).  In the Asia-Pacific region, Liddicoat seems to be the sole researcher interested in the teaching of culture, with at least two publications about intercultural communication this year. Reflecting on the scarcity of research in the teaching of culture, we are compelled to wonder whether or not studies in this area are even worth the time.  Many seem to believe that it is worth our time, with official bodies recognizing the value of cultural awareness for successful communication (e.g. ASEAN 2015, ACTFL, and the Common European Framework for Languages).  Aside from its perceived worth, many also believe that cultural awareness should be taught alongside language (Liddicoat,...

Mobile assisted language learning, or MALL, has been around the applied linguistics block for quite some time.  When I think of MALL, I see it as those punk kids - sporting a new look every day, loitering about in the hood, but contributing nothing to the society.   This afternoon I attended a lecture given by Dr. Hayo Reinders  on mobile technology and language education.  Frankly, I was rather disappointed with how MALL has progressed.  Research-wise, nothing has really changed in the past decade.  I wrote a  paper  with  Stuart Towns  about issues in MALL back in 2011, and it seems that nothing has changed.  Recurring issues include behavioristic input, pre- and post-tests (cause and effect studies), and logistical concerns.  It is strange because we have new types of mobile devices released all the time and mobile technology is improving rapidly.  One would expect educational innovations to follow suit bu...

In the past four years of teaching English, the only language skill class that I have (repeatedly) taught is writing.  I've taught different types of writing courses, freshman college writing (narrative, descriptive, argumentative, comparison/contrast, definition, etc.), freshman college research (the basics of research writing), advanced composition (creative writing), news writing, and senior project (fourth-year research writing). I'm not sure if the years of experience teaching writing, or the diverse types of writing courses I have taught would quality me to be an expert in writing.  I actually will say that I am not.  Though I think I am improving in terms of managing writing courses (e.g. planning lessons, deciding on type of assignment, etc.).  Still, knowing how to manage a writing course does not necessarily give me insights to my students' writing processes.  Writing teachers typically receive the assignments, or the end-products, which is the writt...

The past four weeks have really been a whirlwind of events.  July marked my 'official' departure from the FAH at AIU.  I am no longer a permanent employee of AIU, but a contract one.  I've never been on contract or part-time for anyone until this year.  It feels strange, though in a good way.  It feels like I belong to somebody, but not really, if that makes any sense.  The first week of July was spent updating the FAH's SAR for this Academic Year's QA.  I know my 'permanent' ties have been severed, but I thought, they're keeping my office for me, perhaps this is the least I can do.  The second and third weeks of July were really exciting.  I was called for a teaching gig at KMUTT.  The class that I was given is a reading and vocabulary class for (different types of) engineering students.  I haven't taught a skills class for quite some time now.  On top of that, I typically teach writing.  This was a golden opportuni...

Today's readings required me to be in different frames of mind.  I first read about the evolution of the English language learning objectives, then the types of savoir,  or knowledge, needed to gain intercultural competence, and finally finishing my day on Pennycook's (2001) notion on 'critical applied linguistics'.  Pennycook's works easily beat the rest in being the most interesting, for today, that is.   Starting this PhD did not really give me a sense of definiteness to what I know.  Instead, it has coerced me into expanding my limits - which at times can be very uncomfortable.  Pennycook's first chapter in Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction , pushed me even more, probably over the edge.  I can't imagine what the other chapters would do to me.   Back to pushing my boundaries and making me cringe - in many of the discussions here at KMUTT, we try to be sensible by looking concepts along a continuum with two polar ends....