Social-Constructivist Assessment and The Problem of Standards

Introduction In my position as the so-called native English teacher, my primary responsibilities are to teach communicative English and culture. Part of that responsibility includes a performance-based assessment, or speaking test. For the students, this has been a frought time, since they have to get used to a new teacher, learn very new content and …

Using Games to Situate and Embody Theoretical Writing

1 Introduction In the Bridging Activities Model (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2012), the Examine stage of the cycle is meant to provide students with an opportunity to critically compare the language they found through exploration of a given social context with either their own previous knowledge, with the exploration of a different student and / or with …

Bridging the digital-tabletop divide and why it’s a good idea

1. Introduction The theories of language learning and the pedagogical practices I work through deal almost exclusively with the content of digital language learning. Internet-based social language learning in CALL or MALL or whatever other area is an exciting place to practice language learning and teaching. In my own Vygostkian sociocultural theoretic practice, the main …

Developing A Practice of Concept-Based Instruction: Adverbs of Scale

1. Introduction: The Situation In the conversation classes that I teach, the books (Stretch, Oxford Books) often present grammar and other "skills" in a perplexing way. They present the form of the grammar or skill, without explaining anything very much about why the form is the way it is. Often any explanation is done with the phrase, "usually..." …

Game-Design Enhanced L2TL Review: Hyper Light Drifter

Introduction To this point in my game design enhanced foreign language teaching and learning (GD-L2TL) reviews I have not covered a traditional combat-oriented role-playing game (RPG). Hyper Light Drifter (henceforth HLD) will serve as the first in a two-game review that examines RPGs from two very different perspectives in order to mine them both for …

Making Functional Grammar Explicit: Game Design-Enhanced TBLT Lesson Plans for “Firewatch”

Introduction In our review of Firewatch, we concluded that it would make an excellent video game for Game Design-Enhanced TBLT (GD-TBLT). It's heavy narrative weight means that within the game there is a large amount of language and other literary devices that can be exploited for all kinds of learning, not just second language teaching and …

How Can Emotion-full Language Affect The Teacher/Student Relationship?: Evidence From Intercultural EFL Online Chat Tutoring

Introduction As the world becomes more interconnected, new methods in the study and practice of language learning are needed to account for the experience of a globalized world (Bloomaert, 2010) and the continual intertwining of technology into our lives at younger and younger ages (Pasfield-Neofitou, 2013). Simultaneously, teachers need to know not just the new …

“It is a little difficult”

In the “apartment” I live, I fit: a bed, fridge, closet, TV, a small folding table, kitchen area and a bathroom with a washer all in a smaller space than my room in my parent’s home. It’s small.No bother.  I do not demand much else than what I have, though it would be nice to …

Linguistic change in Korean kinship terms

Not too long ago, I was made aware of an interesting linguistic phenomenon involving the Korean kinship term, “hyung” (형).  Usually, this term is used only between younger males and their older brothers/close friends as an honorific term.  But it seems that some, college-aged, women are also calling their older male friends “hyung.” Despite the …

The Senses as Metaphor

Over the Korean Thanksgiving holiday, I had more than a few opportunities to talk with friends and strangers in Korean.  Such opportunities are always a mixture of self-loathing and confidence-building. I had a thought one night after coming home from a full day of mumbling my way through conversations in a department store, that my …