Call for Papers for a COTSEAL-sponsored panel at AAS 2017 in Toronto

It may seem to be a long way in the future right now, but panel and paper proposals for the 2017 Association for Asian Studies will be due in early August 2016!  So we need to start thinking (and planning) now for a COTSEAL-sponsored panel, focusing on language teaching issues, for the conference.

Pittaya Paladroi-Shane and COTSEAL Vice-president Jolanda Pandin have graciously agreed to be the organizers for this panel.  They have come up with, in coordination with myself, the following idea for a panel topic.  Please read over their suggestion for a theme and sub-themes, and if you are interested in presenting a paper that would fit within these guidelines, contact them directly (links above) with your idea.

Theme:
US classrooms: Contested Arena for Learning and Teaching Southeast Asian Languages

Questions that might lead to sub-themes:

1. Do we really teach students to be communicative if the teaching of informal speech tends to be postponed until the advanced level?
2. Does it matter for students’ learning if they disagree with the target language’s cultural attitudes?
3. Do known literary works help to understand the cultures in the target language, or do they create more bias in favor of elite or minority intellectual groups of the target language?
4. Can flipped or other current, popular technological classrooms be more effective than traditional ones?
5. Do classrooms that heavily utilize current pedagogy technology perform better in creating a more accepting language class towards various environmental and cultural differences?
5. Does being global speakers have a practical impact on the local communities of the students?
6. To what extent and how do extracurricular activities and social events help students reaffirm their existing cultural identities and outlook and shape new cultural identities and outlook?

There is currently no firm deadline for responding with your idea for a paper, but keep in mind that with a panel proposal deadline of early August, Pittaya and Jolanda will need
to a) select papers for inclusion in the panel and b) collect your abstract and contact information by mid-July, for submission to AAS in early August. Please respond sooner rather than later, as I think this topic will generate a lot of interest among potential paper presenters, and only 4 papers at most can be fit into the panel.