The First Pan Asia Conference and the 17th Annual Thai TESOL International Conference on New Perspectives on Teaching and Learning English in Asia was held January 5 to 7 at the Ambassador Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. It was sponsored by Thailand TESOL, Korea TESOL, and JALT, with assistance from TESOL and IATEFL (the two largest organizations in this field), who also sent official representatives. The conference was attended by about 1000 people from Japan, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Canada, Australia, the United States, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Great Britain, and Macao, among other countries. Participants and presenters included Asian teachers, foreigners teaching in Asian countries, teachers and teacher educators teaching Asians in English-speaking countries, and publishers and materials developers.
The conference opened with a welcoming address by Marc Helgeson of Miyagi Women's College in Sendai. Rather than giving the usual greeting, he posed questions which were intended to help guide the participants' experience of the conference. The questions were divided into several sections including: the role that English plays in Asia, the purpose for learning English, the role of communicative methodologies in Asia, and the role of an "Asian" methodology. The questions included "What do we as English teachers and students throughout the region have in common?" "Why are our students studying English?" "What about culture in learning English?" "Are we moving toward an Asian methodology?" and "Is 'communicative' language teaching necessarily a positive thing?" These questions dealt with issues that were raised over and over again by the plenary speakers, featured speakers, and speakers in concurrent sessions.
The opening ceremony, which followed the welcoming speech, was presided over by H.R.H. Princess Galyani Vadhana from Luang Naradhiwas Rajanagarindra.
The first plenary session was given by Dr. Henry Widdowson of the University of Essex, who spoke on "New Perspectives: Old Problems." He discussed the relationships among linguistic competence, cultural knowledge, and lexical competence. He used examples of assumed shared knowledge and assumed shared attitudes and how they are expressed through texts in ways that are not able to be accounted for by linguistic competence or the information from a dictionary alone. Through these examples, he demonstrated that even in relatively simple authentic texts, both shared knowledge and shared attitudes--or at least awareness of these attitudes--are necessary for comprehension. This knowledge is often quite "local" shared knowledge, that is, knowledge that is shared within a particular community. The community can be a literal, physical community, but it can also be based on profession or avocation. Widdowson emphasized the importance of relating the teaching of EFL to the students' reality, and of making the content accessible to students so they can interact with it and make it their own.
On the second day, the plenary was given by Diane Larsen-Freeman of the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA. She spoke on "Blurring Boundaries: New Perspectives on Teaching and Learning English in Asia." She discussed the interdependence between three pairs of concepts: teaching and learning; grammar and communication; and the teacher and the researcher. She emphasized that while these are often seen as contrasting categories, seeing them as being interdependent brings new insights. For example, the teaching of grammar may seem to be seen as antithetical to communicative language teaching. However, Larsen-Freeman pointed out that grammatical distinctions may have communicative force. Students are taught, for instance, to change active sentences into passive sentences, but these lessons often put little emphasis on distinguishing when it is appropriate to use the passive voice and when it is appropriate to use the active voice. An approach to language teaching that combined grammatical and communicative approaches might help rectify this problem. Similarly, research and teaching are often seen as totally separate spheres of activity, yet developments such as action research, which involves teachers doing research in the classroom about questions that concern them, bring the two spheres together.
The third plenary speaker was Denise Murray of San Jose State University, president of TESOL. She spoke on "Cultural Transmission in Language Learning and Teaching." She began by discussing some of the problems with teaching culture. One difficulty is that of deciding which culture to teach. While the traditional choice is teaching about the major English speaking countries, these may not be the best choices in all cases. Murray also discussed the difficulty that culture is often presented too "neatly," without problems. Assumptions that may be exported along with English, such as informal relations between teachers and students and learner-centered approaches, are another difficulty with teaching culture. Finally, the problem that teaching culture often looks at the world though a taken-for-granted Western democratic view was discussed. Murray suggested solutions for these problems, including more cross-cultural studies, and more specifically, studies of documented failures of cross-cultural communication.
In addition to the plenary sessions, there were three featured speakers each day. The featured speakers on the first day were Lance Knowles ("Multimedia and Language Teaching"), Alan Maley ("Myth, Mesmerism, and Magic"), and David Mendelsohn ("Excellence in Teaching and the Need for Excellence in Teacher Education"). On the second day, the featured speakers were Simon Greenall ("From Cultural Bump to Culture Shock") and Surai Pongtongcharoen ("EFL Implications of Semantic Aspects"). In addition, there was a colloquium on the future of English language teaching in Asia, "Agenda 2000", with Marc Helgeson and the presidents or chairs of TESOL, Thai TESOL, IATEFL, and Australia TESOL. On the final day of the conference, the featured speakers were Christopher Candlin ("Task Design and Learner Discourse"), Susan Gass and Amy Tickle ("Focus on Form, Focus on Meaning: Language and Culture in the Foreign Language Classroom"), and Chris Kennedy ("Levels of Culture: Levels of Change").
There were about almost 250 concurrent sessions and seven poster sessions which covered a wide variety of topics. Some of the topics included using computers and the Internet; activities for teaching one or more of the four skills; pronunciation problems; teaching content areas in English; business English; teaching culture; teaching English to children; learner autonomy and self-access learning; global education; teaching literature in EFL classes; using movies and television programs; storytelling and folktales; the relationship between communicative language teaching and the teaching of grammar; and classroom management.
Some of the concurrent sessions dealt with the circumstances in a particular Asian country, but others included efforts to find common threads among the situations in different Asian countries. Questions were raised about the similarities and differences between Asian countries and the influence that these similarities and differences have on language teaching methodology. Many of the presentations emphasized the use of technology, either as a teacher resource or in the classroom. Many of these presentations made use of computers and the Internet. There were also many presentations related directly or indirectly to culture. Some of these dealt directly with the teaching of culture or intercultural communication through such media as drama or simulations, while others dealt with the influence of culture on the education process or some aspect of language.
The closing address was given by Madeleine du Vivier, IATEFL Chair. She emphasized two themes which seemed to reoccur both in presentations and in personal conversations--questions related to culture and questions related to methodology. Questions related to culture include those about whose culture should be taught; how authenticity, appropriateness, and context are defined; and what roles they have in English language teaching. In relation to methodology, she discussed the question of whether there is an Asian methodology and, if there is, what it is. She emphasized the need for more research, particularly classroom research, especially in settings where English is a foreign language.
The Second Pan-Asian Conference is scheduled to be held in Korea in conjunction with Korea TESOL's annual conference on October 8 to 10, 1999. Its theme will be "Teaching English: Linking Asian Countries." The Third Pan-Asian Conference is planned for Japan in 2001.