In this presentation, I aim to contribute to cognitive linguistic research on COVID-19, employing a corpus-driven approach for data analysis. I combine Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Van Dijk, 1997) and Cognitive Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). My corpus of data was collected from two major U.S. newspapers, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in the USA. My data analysis shows that public debates around how best to address the Covid-19 pandemic can be productively understood through a systematic analysis of the “COVID-19 IS A WAR” metaphor in op-eds appearing in two US Newspapers.

Oftentimes curating our asynchronous, virtual classrooms poses distinct challenges for instructors. Not only must we develop our online spaces, but we must find a way to transmit our teaching presence and persona online. This presentation will explore ways we can curate warm, welcoming online spaces and enhance our online presence by using educational hospitality as a lens. After briefly establishing hospitality as a framework, five strategies will be given for instructors to implement to help improve student experience and enhance teaching presence and support in the asynchronous, virtual classroom.

Personal statements pose unique challenges to writers as they must promote themselves credibly to a specific audience, such as college administrators or prospective professors. In this study, I analyzed the personal statements of 3 multilingual community college students and interviewed them about their writing choices. Through the dual lenses of Cognitive Process Theory and Genre Theory, I analyzed how students demonstrate their competence as prospective transfer students and make rhetorical choices about self-presentation. This study sheds light on the ways multilingual writers interpret the personal statement genre and learn to write for a particular audience.

Navigating the job market in composition, linguistics, and TESOL can be challenging in normal times. During this pandemic, finding work can be even more stressful. We will use our lunch break to facilitate networking and morale-boosting around job-hunting and career directions.

Process writing theorists have emphasized the value of peer-to-peer interaction in the writing process, and yet, not all Taiwanese multilingual students come to the United States are familiar with peer review, and thus may not readily accept peer feedback as a useful part of the writing process. This explores Taiwanese Mandarin-speaking L1 writers’ perceptions on peer feedback activities. Specifically, I surveyed these learners about their familiarity with peer review based on their prior experience, their emotions associated with peer feedback activities, and levels of satisfaction on giving and receiving peer feedback.

Teacher questioning strategies can impact the amount of student practice and acquisition of English. A seminal approach to analyzing teacher questioning strategies involves classifying the individual questions as display or as referential. After briefly reviewing Sociocultural Theory in language acquisition and teacher questioning strategies, I present the results of an exploratory study of teacher questions based on analyzing a publicly-available video-recording of a low-beginning-level adult ESOL classroom lesson. The pedagogical implications are for teachers to consider in their lesson planning how questions in one part of a lesson may connect to subsequent opportunities for questioning strategies.

Note: John's presentation will analyze segments from a video publicly available on the Literacy Minnesota website. Please check out John's video resources HERE.

A globalized English learning community raises questions about traditional teaching methods that do not acknowledge English varieties, instead prioritizing Anglophonic English varieties. This disconnect between expectations of replicating Anglophonic English and realized use of English language causes language users to be disadvantaged in situations where English language communication requires intelligibility between and within many varieties of English. Drawing upon Jenkins's (2002) ELF Core and Kachru's (1995)s World Englishes, curriculum can instead focus on elements that improve intelligibility and substitute samples of Anglophone varieties of English for other forms of English, ultimately preparing students for authentic communication across multiple English varieties.