Speakers
ABSTRACT
The CUE SIG forum for PanSIG features three rather unique perspectives on university education in Japan. The first presenter will talk about the ideological nature of discourses of autonomy, agency and affect within English Language Teaching (ELT). Primarily through his work on multimodal discourse analysis of advertising in ELT, Dr. Simpson will argue how neoliberal framings of learner autonomy often entail an ideological erasure of teacher labor. The second presenter will follow this up by exploring learner agency from an ecological perspective, which views agency not as an individual trait but as something that emerges through interactions between learners and their environments. This approach considers how various affordances—such as social relationships, institutional structures, and digital tools—shape learners’ ability to make choices and take action. This would be followed by the final presenter who will further expand on the importance of the connected classroom and incorporate ways to make it happen. A positive classroom experience is associated with positive academic outcomes.
