Belinda Allan
Belinda Allan
Belinda is a Lecturer in English and the ICT Coordinator at the Language Centre of Masaryk University. She stands equally in two fields, IT and education, which allows her to intuitively conceive unique and ideal IT solutions for educational problems and practices, with particular emphasis on innovation and efficiency. She often plays the role of counselor or consultant to tech-shy colleagues and faculties (they love her for this). Over the last semester, she has run a series of workshops that both familiarised her colleagues with the potential benefits that their courses can derive from integration with ICT, as well as generally made them more comfortable with technology. Belinda has a history of supporting and encouraging the integration of technology into education over both secondary and tertiary levels in a number of countries, including China, where she has taught students to build and manage websites for their projects and teachers to do so for their courses. She has also trained teachers in online education.
Belinda’s vision as ICT Coordinator is to show technology and software in the light of educational functions, facilitating the integration of technology into existing courses within the normal process of course evolution. A second and very important mission is to make the lives of teachers easier by making administrative functions time-efficient, having the computer perform as much of the calculation and processing as possible, while remaining within the teacher’s normal operation. She is in the process of providing electronic templates for all educational functions and is running a fully-online ESL course in a collaboration with Tampere University, Finland.
Belinda's Thought for the Week:
Language is power
We all know the old adage "Words have power", and that's true regardless of the language and usually assumes everyone is speaking the same language usually L1. Steve Brown venturing into his new TESOL Teacher Education role wrote recently about languages (such as English as a second language) having an identity attached and a power to enhance one's life while also having the power to exploit, dominate and exclude.
The identity, not of speaking English in an English speaking country, rather of speaking English in a non-English speaking country is very strong and clearly seen. That friend with fewer English speaking skills looking at the English speaker thoroughly impressed and bumping them on the arm with an "I'm impressed" nod. It can be like an earned status symbol possibly giving the speaker more than kudos in the way of better employment opportunities with a higher salary.
However, there is a darker side to this power of using English which is to exclude the one or two non-English speaking in the group by not translating anything spoken in English. It could be used to dominate over another, such as impressing the boss with English skills to gain favour. English could also be used to exploit especially from employers or direct managers that have little or no skills in English.
As English teachers and second language learners, we need to be aware (and make English learners aware) of this darker side to the power of language to be sure to avoid its pitfalls by thinking inclusively, such as translating or stopping to ask others to translate the conversation. With the use of inclusivity, we can keep all the "I'm impressed" bumps on the arm and other benefits of lighter side of the power of language while downplaying the darker side.
Be sure to check out:
Inspired from Christopher Emdin's TED talk on learning about student engagement from audience engagement experts.
Belinda's Planner
MUNI IS Spring '23
Moodlinka
ELF
TAMK Moodle
TUNI MS?