Research presentations by faculty, students and alumni at 2011 conferences

Thailand TESOL 2011 Conference in Chiang Mai:
- Designing an ESP curriculum to develop the English proficiency of transportation personnel for their professional communication (Pearl Wattanakul)
- Not exactly studying: a 'fragmentary learning' design for vocabulary acquisition (Jonathan Leather)
- Developing professional identities in Asia: an ecological perspective (David Richards)
- Negotiating a syllabus with mixed-L1 beginners in Thailand (Erika Pedersen)
- Exploiting the potential of collaborative blogging in the language classroom (Purnima Iyer)
- Thai learners' causal attributions for their successes and failures in English learning (Aaron Sisson)
- The making of a process drama in the ESL classroom (Sudha Subramanian)

CamTESOL Conference 2011 in Phnom Penh
- Insights into the role of the ESL pedagogical support teacher(Theresa Hampton)
- Integrating process drama into an ESL writing class(Sudha Subramanian)

Ongoing research by TESOL faculty encompasses most areas of contemporary concern, making it possible to provide supervision for a wide range of possible thesis topics and independent study projects (a selection of recently completed theses and projects are summarized here).

ESP, curriculum design, materials development and lifelong learning

Dr. Wattanakul's research interests include English for Specific Purposes, service learning, curriculum design, materials development, higher-order thinking skills, lifelong learning, practicum assessment, and evaluation. She is currently conducting research on an ESP curriculum for transportation personnel. She has made service learning a central feature of her ESP class and investigated its effectiveness in enhancing learner autonomy. She is a regular participant in numerous local teacher training courses that explore learner-centered activities and thinking skills.

Learner motivation and learner autonomy

Philip Keay’s interests lie in the areas of learner motivation and learner autonomy, and their relevance to teachers' professional development. More specifically, he is concerned with how teachers can create a successful interplay between themselves, the learners, and the classroom. His current project focusses on the use of learner logs as a motivational tool that encourages learners to think reflectively and to take on responsibility for their own learning, as well as providing valuable insights and feedback for the teacher.

Norms and attitudes in language learning

Dr. Leather is interested in normativity in the accent orientations of second-language users, and in their attitudes towards the 'correctness' of the language they produce. He is also currently exploring the attitudes of Thai learners, their parents and their teachers towards the formal study and informal acquisition of English in the educational system and in society at large. In both of these areas of investigation he is following the multidimensional approach reflected in his co-edited Ecology of Language Acquisition (Kluwer, 2003). He has recently begun investigating the use of mobile handsets and the mobile web for learning academic English vocabulary.

Curriculum development and professionalisation

David Richards’ interests lie principally in curriculum development, currently in outcomes-based syllabuses, classroom-based research in curriculum implementation, assessment and evaluation, along with feedback, and strategies of language learning and use. He campaigns for the professionalisation of TESOL through his writings and involvement in professional conferences (see his TESOL 'credo' here). His research, publications and editing have covered second language acquisition, syllabus design, needs analysis, methodology, language policy, ESP, materials development, assessment and evaluation.