Hiatus Ending This Summer

I plan to start actively writing here soon as I have successfully passed my comprehensive exams. From here on I will publish fragments of my research interests, which concentrate on the population of expatriate or sojourning EFL instructors. However, I have a strong interest in multiliteracies, so I will probably publish updates on this topic as well. Thirdly, I may publish about the future of education and higher education in the United States and the world because I believe it will not be the same by the time my daughter graduates from high school.

I expect to post at least once this month, and more regularly through the summer. Stay tuned! Thanks for your patience.

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Is Wikipedia Too Difficult to Read?

Image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Afghan_man_reading_Wikipedia_article_in_Kandahar.jpg The short answer via statistical analysis is yes . For more information, read Lucassen, T., Dijkstra, R., & Schraagen, J. M. (2012). Readability of Wikipedia. First Monday at http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3916/3297 . Wikipedians are aware that the open online encyclopedia may be too difficult, and there is a discussion of its reading level at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reading_level . Much of this discussion took place over a decade ago, but the gist is that many contributors write at or for the college level. What appeals to me most is at the end of the page, where Wikipedians are discussing accessibility and what it means to be open to all. Here's my screenshot (in case it gets edited later). What does this mean for English language teachers? I was interested in seeing how selected Wikipedi...

The Horror! A Listening Curriculum for English Language Learning

I've been inspired by Clare Maas' blog post , which was inspired by Dr. John Field's TEASIG/CRELLA talks, to share my shock at the listening curriculum of an intensive English program where I previously worked. To be fair, this listening curriculum was designed twenty years prior and my job was to lead faculty efforts to revise it. Unfortunately, the program went through financial difficulties and leadership changes, resulting in the "non-renewal" of most of the curriculum committee members. Upper-Level (EAP) Listening (B2-C1) Listening was relatively equally integrated with speaking and reading skills in one course set apart from another course that focused much more on writing. This was the case for the two highest levels for students who intended to matriculate into the university as undergraduates. The highest level was not dependent on any one coursebook, so all of the listening material had to be collected by the instructors. When I was the curriculum ...

TESOL Job Market Trends 2009-2018

I have been tracking full-time TESOL jobs since Fall 2009, my first year as a Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa. Back then, the job market was quite bad because of the 2008 economic crisis. My motivation for tracking jobs was to help my future TESOL students understand the market. This was based on colleagues asking about good locations to live and work. I had hunches but not enough data, and now I have almost a decade of data. What did I track? In Fall 2009, I started tracking TESOL job announcements from HigherEdJobs.com and the TESOL Career Center for tenure and non-tenure professorships in universities and community colleges. In 2010, I expanded my tracking to include instructor positions at universities (mainly intensive English programs) and "other" jobs, which used to be mainly governmental, non-profit, and publishing jobs. But now they are predominantly in the for-profit higher education ELT industry, including corporations like Shorelight and INTO. In 201...

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