Programme - The IAFOR International Conference on Language Learning

Pacific Ethnomathematics: Navigating Ancient Wisdom and Modern Connections

Keynote Presentation: Dr Linda Furuto

In an effort to address issues of equitable and quality mathematics education, culturally-responsive strategies are explored in diverse populations through research and praxis. Defined as the intersection of historical traditions, sociocultural roots, linguistics, and mathematics, ethnomathematics encourages the investigation and adaptation of these concepts within formal and informal environments (D’Ambrosio, 2001; Greer, Mukhodpadhyay, Powell, & Nelson-Barber, 2009). Ethnomathematics is a tool to foster an ongoing process of navigating and wayfinding by: (1) respecting and celebrating cultural systems and practices in experiential, place-based education, (2) strengthening student engagement pathways through multiple approaches to learning mathematics, and (3) providing a framework for sustainable campus-community networks (Boaler, 2002; Palhares & Shirley, 2012).

Promising practices include a National Science Foundation funded Mathematics Center, University of Hawai‘i Ethnomathematics and STEM Institute, and local and global partnerships. The Polynesian Voyaging Society canoe Hōkūle‘a, “star of gladness”, is a vehicle to explore ethnomathematics applications as we strive to honor ancient wisdom and modern connections. For example, Hōkūle‘a is internationally renowned for the role it has played in rekindling the Pacific Island traditions of non-instrument wayfinding, astronomy, marine science, and celestial navigation (i.e., sun, moon, stars, winds) based in mathematics principles. In the past four decades, Hōkūle‘a has sailed over 150,000 nautical miles, and inspired a revival of voyaging and indigenous practices around the world (Finney, Kilsonky, Somsen, & Stroup, 1986; Furuto, 2014). Hōkūle‘a is currently circumnavigating the globe from 2013-2017 on the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, and the presenter is grateful to have been on the first international leg from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti, and subsequent voyages to American and Western Samoa, Olohega (Swain’s Island), Aotearoa (New Zealand), South Africa, Washington, D.C., and New York City, sailing with leaders such as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, and Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu. The mission of the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage of Hōkūle‘a is to care for all people and places like they are ‘ohana’ (family). It is a culture of caring for our students, schools, and home that we call island earth.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Educating for Change: Challenging and Preserving Traditional Cultures

Feature Panel Presentation: Professor Curtis Ho, Professor Ted O’Neill & Dr Joseph Haldane

Chair: Dr Joseph Haldane
Panellists: Professor Curtis Ho & Professor Ted O’Neill

This interdisciplinary panel will discuss how we educate for positive change, striking a balance between the need to challenge while also respect and preserve local and indigenous cultures and their languages. The panelists will draw on their backgrounds in general education, language learning, and educational technology to discuss how policymakers and teachers deal with the often conflicting goals and inherent difficulties involved in educating for change by drawing on examples from both the local Hawaiian experience, as well as comparing and contrasting from different educational systems from around the world.

This panel will include extracts from “The Greatest Gift”, a short documentary produced by IAFOR in association with the HOPE International Development Agency, Japan and which features the Pamulaan Center for Indigenous Peoples Education in Davao, Philippines. The Pamulaan Center’s mission is focused on providing indigenous youth with scholarships to university with the expectation that those recipients return to their communities and guide the next generation of IP youth thus creating a sustainable education cycle.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Aloha as a Way of Being: Hawaiian Perspectives on Learning

Panellists: Uncle Bruce Keaulani, Dr Michael Salzman, Aunty Kehaulani Lum, and Dr Xu Di

Cultures address essential human needs both psychological, physiological, and spiritually. As indigenous peoples have been traumatized and suffered much as a result of contact with colonizers, there have been concerted efforts toward cultural reconstruction and recovery throughout the indigenous world. The first presenter will offer a context for understanding the cultural disruption and subsequent efforts to recover one’s culture.

Sharing the Hawaiian philosophy of aloha, the two panelists illustrate through the use of Hawaiian chant (oli), dance (hula), and healing as holistic, interactive ways of teaching and learning. These exemplify the possibilities for cultural revitalization in the 21st century. The audience will be invited to engage in an open discussion about the implications for an enriched way of understanding and being that rests upon the Hawaiian notion of Aloha, creating wellbeing for all.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Bringing Global Stories Into the Classroom Through OER and MOOCs

Does your institution believe it is important to provide global experiences to the students and faculty? This session will walk through different examples at the University of Virginia (UVa) of how global perspectives were brought into the classroom through the use of open educational resources (OER) and massive open online courses (MOOCs). Examples will illustrate how engaging with students in Sub-Saharan Africa helped one set of faculty broaden and deepen their understanding of business in emerging economies. Another example will illustrate lessons learned by students who were required to participate in a MOOC discussion forum as part of their course grade. These students had many learning moments that were not anticipated, such as what to do when you say something inaccurate to millions of people. A final example will be using online courses to provide educational experiences to UVa students studying abroad and designing these courses to imbue a sense of place connecting the students back to UVa while abroad.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Developing and implementing an English for Specific Purposes syllabus for business majors in Japan

Featured Presentation: Professor Ken Urano

English is a compulsory subject in secondary education in Japan, but most students, as well as teachers, do not have a clear goal for learning it because the number of people who actually need English in their lives is rather small. However, there is a certain demand for training of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in such fields as engineering, medicine, and business, where communication in English is sometimes unavoidable. Such a demand is best accommodated at universities and colleges where the curriculum is set to help students develop skills to work in certain professions. In this talk I will first provide an overview of research and practice in ESP in Japan. I will then share my own experience as a teacher and curriculum developer at my workplace, where students learn English for business purposes.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Doing Interdisciplinary Research and Publishing

Featured Presentation: Dr Amanda Müller

Dr Müller will discuss practical strategies for conducting interdisciplinary research and publishing in reputable journals. She will provide examples of the lessons learned from her own journey thus far, both positive and negative. Dr Müller will give her own key principles about forming effective research teams, and then discuss how to go about choosing an appropriate outlet to disseminate research findings. Following on from the main presentation, a hands-on workshop will help members to identify their own individual strengths (such as the skill sets they can bring to a research project and team) and discover their own opportunities for future research.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Teaching Japanese Across Borders: An Original Intercultural Approach

Partner Presentation: Professor Ljiljana Markovic & Professor Biljana Djoric Francuski

The goal of this paper is to present to the international academic public a unique and original book for teaching Japanese, the first of its kind in Serbia. However, its significance is not limited only to the students of Japanese in Serbia, because this manual can be a source of ideas for teachers of Japanese in any other culture as well. The main feature that makes it so outstanding is the use of mnemonic methods for learning how to read and write the Japanese characters kanji, which has been done before in some Western countries, but in a different way. Namely, though the possibility of using mnemonic devices for memorising kanji by connecting them with information that can be remembered more easily has already been recognized, the Serbian authors applied extremely inventive and creative forms in order to connect the Japanese and Serbian cultures, thus rendering the process of learning more entertaining and interesting, and making it much easier for the student. Not only did authors include some kanji that are not usually explained with mnemonics, but they also found explanations which are not typical for the common ones, such as comparing number nine (九) with a cat which has nine lives, or number four (四) with two lips plus two rows of teeth. The most original mnemonic is certainly the adjective “small” (小) which, according to them, represents a young bird hatching from an egg.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

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