Sessions /
Graduate Student Showcase Presentations #1060

Sat, Feb 20, 15:30-18:00 JST | Main Stage
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This session will feature presentations by our cohort of graduate students:

Matt French, "Mental Lexicons and Word Association: A Small-Scale Study" (sync) Nur Fitri Gebers, "Example of a Communicative Lesson for a Mixed-Ability Online English Literature Class" (sync) Gizem Genç & Antonina Nemtinova, "Identities of Turkish High School Students and Their Effects on Learners’ Perceptions of Lesson Theme" (sync) Ehean Kim, "Scratch Coding Workshop Through Design-Based Research" (sync) Kirsten Razzaq, "From SOS to Success: The Distance Learners’ Dissertation Toolkit" (sync) Charlotte Otto, "The Role That English Plays in the World Today" (async) Helmut Otto, "Language Planning: An Example from Africa" (async) Robin Maurice, "A Framework for Adapting and Exploiting Authentic Materials with Young English Learners" (async)

Presentation Assets

From SOS to Success: The Distance Learners’ Dissertation Toolkit.

Download PDF: From SOS to Success: The Distance Learners’ Dissertation Toolkit.

Distance learning has the advantage of location independence when pursuing higher education qualifications while working abroad in EFL contexts. One of the disadvantages when entering the dissertation stage is that institutional support can fall short of what on-campus learners have access to, due to the distances involved and logistics of synchronous communication. The limited contact with tutors and supervisors can feel impersonal, and connections with peers can be minimal or non-existent. The resulting lack of an in-person support network may feel isolating, with no one to bounce ideas off or talk through problems and questions when they arise. This presentation will discuss the challenges experienced while completing the dissertation for an MA TESOL as a distance learner, and share the online and offline resources that made all the difference. Presenter: Kirsten Razzaq

Effects of Turkish EFL learners’ identities on their perceptions of culture-themed lessons.

Download PDF: Effects of Turkish EFL learners’ identities on their perceptions of culture-themed lessons.

The aim of the present study is to understand how Turkish high- and prep-school learners’ identities affect their perceptions of the target language community culture and home country culture themes used in the classroom; namely a Christmas-themed lesson, belonging to the target language community culture, and a New Year-themed lesson, belonging to the home country culture as well as being international: from a poststructuralist view.

Andrew Lerner

Andrew Lerner

Kyungnam University
Andrew Lerner is an ESL educator with close to a decade of experience working in South Korea. As a teacher for South Korea’s EPIK program, he taught English to elementary school students in Gyeonggi province for 7 years. He completed his master’s in applied linguistics through the University of Birmingham and is currently an assistant professor of English at Kyungnam University
Matthew French

Matthew French

Mihara Board of Education (Japan)
Matthew French is an EFL teacher with 7 years’ experience teaching English in Japan. He has taught primarily junior high and elementary school students in Japan as an ALT on the JET Programme. In class he is always looking for new ways to incorporate technology and music, while his research interests lie in using corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis, particularly political and news discourse, to reveal the power of words. He has recently submitted his dissertation for his master’s in TESOL through the University of Birmingham. Matthew currently works at the Mihara Board of Education in Hiroshima, Japan.
Robin Maurice

Robin Maurice

Gizem Genc

Gizem Genc

I am an EFL teacher with 5 years of experience working in Turkey. I have mostly taught General English and IELTS to teens and adults in Istanbul. Having completed a BA in ELT and the DELTA Module 1 and 3, I am currently doing an MA in ELT at Bahcesehir University, Istanbul. My main interests include TBLT, Dogme ELT, spoken discourse, using technology, teacher training.
Ehean Kim

Ehean Kim

Antonina Nemtinova

Antonina Nemtinova

Istanbul Gedik University
Hello! I am an EFL teacher in Istanbul Turkey. After finishing BA and MA in Persian Language and Literature at Taurida National V.I. Vernadsky University in Ukraine I moved to Turkey with AIESEC to try myself as an ELT intern-teacher in a high school in Manisa, Turkey. After a first year as a teacher I got CELTA in IH Izmir and moved to Istanbul to work in K12 schools. Nowadays I am an instructor at School of Foreign Languages in Istanbul Gedik University with 6 years of teaching experience, as well as a graduate student of ELT MA Program in Bahçeşehir University.
Fitri Gebers

Fitri Gebers

University of Birmingham
I am currently an MA student at the University of Birmingham, focusing on critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. I teach English and Literature to students from grades eight through ten at the Jakarta Indonesia Korean School.
Kirsten Razzaq

Kirsten Razzaq

The University of Sunderland Graduate 2021 / Yondong Elementary Busan
Kirsten Razzaq currently teaches English to young learners in Busan, South Korea, where she has lived since 2017. Her next milestone will be completing an MA TESOL from the University of Sunderland in 2021. Since 2018 she has been a member of KOTESOL and since 2019 has lectured online and offline for the NIIED, training incoming EPIK teachers and TaLK scholars. She is the KOTESOL Busan-Gyeongnam chapter Secretary for 2021.
Charlotte Otto

Charlotte Otto

I am an educator with close to a decade of teaching experience. I have a BCom Financial Management Sciences degree as well as a PGCE (Senior and FET). I have taught Accounting and Business Studies to high school students in South Africa before becoming an ESL educator in South Korea. I am currently in the process of obtaining my master’s degree in applied linguistics through the University of Birmingham.
Helmut Otto

Helmut Otto