Kirjahaku

There is an argument to be made that the five individuals featured in this collection personify the very essence of what it means to be a language teacher in the 21st century because of the profound effects their words and actions have had on so many teachers and so many careers in the field of ESL. All of the essays in this book were originally published on web pages in the ESL MiniConference Online newsletter. Steve Krashen, the late Robert O'Neill, and Bill VanPatten debated the nature of the language learning or language acquisition process in a series of exchanges that was instigated by O'Neill, who suggested to ESL MiniConference founding editor Robb Scott that he invite Krashen to respond to statements in which O'Neill challenged the validity of the "natural approach" that Tracy Terrell and Krashen had developed and Krashen had spent a lifetime popularizing. The bait was taken and the resulting exchanges were revealing, to say the least. At one point, Bill VanPatten served as a tag-teammate for Krashen and wrote a truly eloquent defense of unconscious acquisition with a powerful flying metaphor, accentuating significant updates to the Krashen/Terrell model, only to encounter yet further resistance from O'Neill, who drove home his points with obvious feisty pleasure. That memorable debate is just as relevant and thought-provoking today as it was in 2002. Joining Krashen, O'Neill, and VanPatten in the pantheon of ESL/EFL and second language teaching legends are O. Dean Gregory and David B. Hopkins, whose careers in teacher training are feted in two spectacular festschrifts with heart-felt essays from their students and colleagues. Gregory passed away in the year 2000 after a lifetime devoted to ESL program development and university teaching; Hopkins has spent more than five decades doing program development and teacher training overseas, and is still going strong. A close reading of the "Great Debate" and these two festschrifts -- previously only available online -- will give the reader entry into the philosophical and pedagogical concerns that are at the core of this exciting field of second language learning and teaching.

These 45 articles are like anchors in time thrown out into the deep by an author who decided in the days following 9-11 to memorialize the many ways that ESL/EFL professionals were responding to a direct attack at the heart and soul of institutions of cross-cultural understanding. In reading back through the ESL MiniConference articles, I have selected my favorites from among those that I composed myself. Perhaps you the reader will be able to use these to become familiar with the field of language teaching or to bring to mind events and ideas that have impacted a lifetime of learning from your own interactions with individuals from diverse heritages.

A case is made for fully merging general and special education curricula in developing programs to prepare candidates for the new Kansas K-6 Unified direct entry license. The complete 24-page K-6 Unified Standards are included in the appendix.] The author of this paper was present at important meetings which were instrumental in the decision of the Kansas State Board of Education to approve standards for the new license which require candidates to receive training in low-incidence as well as high-incidence special education, combined with elementary education coursework, in a four-year undergraduate degree program. As a special education faculty member at an institution of higher education (IHE), the author was also involved in discussions with colleagues at his institution and at other schools across the state during the 2016 calendar year, when the details of the K-6 Unified standards were being developed and debated. This paper suggests a context for restructuring teacher preparation in order to most effectively transform a special education culture which has, up to now, prevented children with severe disabilities from having access to the general curriculum in inclusive settings with their same-age peers.

A collection of poems and short writings about living in Kansas.

Action research is defined and scholarship is presented to suggest a central role for the action-research cycle of framing an inquiry question, developing and implementing an instructional plan, collecting and analyzing data on the outcomes and possible answers to the inquiry question, reflecting on the results in consultation with students and colleagues, and using new understandings to inform subsequent rounds of the cycle. A thought-experiment approach is suggested for the purposes of fitting into a teacher-preparation syllabus a vivid enough introduction to the action-research cycle for teacher candidates to internalize the process and be able to utilize it to continually improve their teaching practices. The author describes and analyzes his own effort to teach the action-research process in two sections of an introductory course in special education within the undergraduate teacher education program at an institution of higher education in western Kansas.