Day/time/location: Thursday, April 13 (6:30-8:00) KUT Eikokuji Campus, Room A108

Speaker: Dr. Naomi Wilks-Smith (RMIT University, Australia)

Title: Working with industry partners on EAL projects

Abstract:
The presentation will share my experiences of working on two different EAL projects with industry partners. The first is a long-term site-based program in a primary school that involves the collaboration between a university and a primary school, lecturer, classroom teachers and school leaders, pre-service teachers and primary school students for whom English is an additional language or dialect (EAL/D). The program provides school-based teaching experiences for university pre-service teachers, specifically focussed on teaching English to speakers of other languages, whilst aiding the primary school’s provision of EAL/D-specific support with focused one-on-one teaching of EAL/D students. The benefits to each stakeholder will be discussed. The second project is focused on building the capacity of teachers and school leaders for mainstream classroom EAL/D-informed teaching in an independent school. The development of the project proposal into a research grant will be discussed and the collaborative processes used with teachers and leaders will be shared. The inclusion of context-specific features into the project is highlighted as critical to the project. Each of these projects involve the collaboration between a university and industry partners and have a specific focus on EAL/D.

Bio:
Naomi is a lecturer in the School of Education at RMIT University in Melbourne Australia. She is an experienced educator and researcher whose work focuses on Languages and TESOL education. Naomi is committed to the integrated scholarship of research and education practice and her work includes industry partners in schools as well as cross-School, external and international collaborations. She has received awards and grants for her work.