IAWE 2010 = Success

Full recap coming soon -- notes:

- presented with my classmate Ai Mizuta on Chinese and English ed in Vancouver - well-received!

- Had a chance to chat with Fan Fang, Xing Fang, Xu Zhichang, Peter Sayer, & Kingsley Bolton (!) on China English stuff -- very stimulating, will definitely recap this!

- Bought Xu's new book "Chinese English," and Lo Bianco's "China and English" (to be shipped -- only $20, free shipping! Thanks Multilingual Matters!)

- A lot of fodder for thinking about how to approach my dissertation proposal

- Found out you can buy TEM transcripts from the Chinese MoE! Amazing! Can you get the writing test data? How freaking great would that be? Can get CET also, I wonder?

The Dilemma of the ESL Ghetto in Vancouver

"When entry into an English-speaking students’ peer group was not deemed feasible because they were taking ESL courses and English-speaking students were taking mainstream courses, they turned to students of the same ethnic origin for friendship. By the same token, once the high school Chinese immigrant students in this study decided to seek company of fellow compatriots and to continue being part of the Chinese-speaking community, learning English could become peripheral to them. They could minimize their investment in English and invest more in Chinese to keep the membership of a compatriot peer group."

- "Identity and Language Functions: High School Chinese Immigrant Studentsʼ Code-Switching Dilemmas in ESL Classes" by Liang Xiaoping