Title

Re-envisioning EFL in the Digital Age – Challenges, Options and Opportunities

Moderators: Suchada Nimmannit, Ke Xu, Aiden Yeh

1. Suchada Nimmannit welcomes session attendees, introduces fellow moderators and presenters, and provides an overview of the topics for the presentation (5 minutes)

2. Aiden Yeh highlights the innovative use of technology in bringing the webcast come to life overcoming the economic/financial challenges many EFL teachers face today  (3 minutes).

3. Barbara Dieu (NNEST-IS)  will introduce the concept of PLEs (Personal Learning Environments) for linguistic and professional development and discuss how this digital immersion challenges us, EFL teachers, to review, expand and modify our ways of teaching and learning.  This will be done via Learning Times, a  web-conferencing platform (10 minutes).

4. Dafne Gonzalez (NNEST-IS), presenting via webcast on the innovational use of Second Life for EFL learning and teaching, looks at challenges this SL brings to teachers/learners. (10 minutes)

5. Linglan Cao (EFL-IS) examines the pressing issues of plagiarism in EFL/ESL wiriting/college writing in the digital age, provides some practical tips on how to effectively meet the challenges these issues present to EFL/ESL/college wiriting /composition teachers/learners. (10 minutes)

6. Erik Johnson (Second Language Writing-IS) discusses his experience of using Facebook as a tool to teach second-language writing.He will explain how he uses Facebook for class projects, for enhancing communication, and for engaging students in a manner that would not be entirely possible in traditional classroom settings. (10 Minutes) 

7. Carla Arena (NNEST-IS) addresses the issue of sustainable professional development for EFL professionals, focusing on communities of practice, tools that help teachers to be connected to other educators, e-learning opportunities for EFL educators. (10 minutes)

8. Ke Xu (EFL-IS) taps the potential of video blogging that has made itself more widely available and more easily accessible in teaching both language and culture in the field of EFL/ESL, addresses some of the key issues of common interest and practical concerns in student video blogging, and explores the alternatives in the effective use of video blogging in EFL/ESL classrooms assisting ELLs around the world. (10 minutes)

9. Ke Xu invites session attendees to ask questions. Presenters answer questions.