Andrea Sterzuk

This website is either someone’s final project for an introduction to web design course or just  someone’s idea of fun.  Either way, themostamazingwebsiteontheinternet.com, which feels like a flashback to 1998, makes me laugh every time I look at it.  (The gif cat to the left is featured in the website.)

My brother lives in Bermuda and I go to visit him when I can.  This past June, I was there for a couple weeks and had a chance to go out on one of my friend’s boats during the final parade of the Tall Ships festival.  I was at the front of the boat (stern? bow? I’m from Saskatchewan…) when we decided to leave and head back closer to shore.  On our way back, things were quite choppy and I lost my camera (and all my photos of the tall ships) over the side of the boat (I have no idea if the Bermuda triangle had anything to do with this but it sounds better than “my camera slid out from under my thigh during a big bump”)

So now my camera is at the bottom of the Atlantic.  What I’ve realized in the month and half that I’ve been without it is how much I have come to rely on my digital camera not just as a way to document my experiences but also as a way of communicating with my friends. I can’t count how many times this month I thought things like “Oh, I have to send that to…” or “She needs to see this…”

I’ve also realized I could be using my cell phone camera in a similar fashion but I seem to resist taking these photos because of the poor quality of the images that it produces.  In any case, I think what I’ve come to understand is a) print text (emails, texts, wall posts),  audio (phone calls), and video (Skype) don’t quite cut it in terms of how I interact with my friends and b) I’m likely going to make the move to an iPhone.

This document, released on June 18, 2009, outlines the provincial government’s proposed directions in terms of immigration to Saskatchewan.  There’s some interesting information to be found in this brochure.  For example, the numbers of immigrants arriving in Saskatchewan under the Saskatchewan Immigration Nominee Program are outlined on page 8.  A quick glance at the number of nominees arriving in 2005-2006 (434) compared to those projected to be arriving in 2009-2010 (3400) gives you some idea as to why Saskatchewan schools, educators, immigrant families, and universities are concerned about our ability to meet the needs of immigrant children in Saskatchewan schools.

Due to changing demographics in many Saskatchewan schools (largely due to the introduction of a federal/ provincial immigration agreement in 2005 which led to significantly higher numbers of students for whom English is a second or additional language), I regularly receive emails and phone calls from teachers/students looking for information about courses in second language education.  I decided that I would write this blog entry in hopes that people find this information if they google University of Regina, EAL, TESOL, ESL…

So, in Fall 2009, I’m teaching one graduate course called EC&I 858 – Second Language Acquisition – which looks at current theories in second language learning.  I’m also teaching one undergraduate course called ELNG 205 -  Language and Literacy Development – which also addresses issues related to second language learning.

We are in the middle of creating a graduate certificate in TESOL.  I’ll post more information about this program when things become more formalized.

A few years back, before I even fully understood what social networking was, I was a member of several sites including MySpace, Friendster and Hi5.   I left these social networking sites behind when I joined Facebook a few years ago and, apparently, my decision to do so wasn’t entirely unpredictable.  This talk, by danah boyd (which I came across while poking around popular bookmarks on Delicious) provides an interesting overview and analysis of the “social media landscape where participation “choice” leads to a digital reproduction of social divisions.”

Often, in pedagogical materials, you come across the (normative) argument that students who speak minority language varieties must be taught to code-switch and use official language varieties (i.e. Standard English) whenever “appropriate” (i.e. in official contexts like schools, jobs, writing…).  This  link is to an interview with an author/academic named George Yancy.  In this interview, he addresses some of the other messages/functions inherent in arguments about the “suitablity” of one language variety over another (around the 15 minute mark).  It’s an interesting listen.

Dana and me working on our CSSE paper

Congress went well this year.  I co-presented two papers at CSSE and gave a single-paper presentation at ACLA-CAAL.  I/We plan to get final drafts of these papers submitted to journals over the summer. I particularly enjoyed the range of papers at ACLA-CAAL this year.  I think I will aim to attend some other applied linguistics conferences this coming year (maybe AAAL).

CSSE is over but ACLA-CAAL starts tomorrow. I’m chairing one session and presenting one paper called Academy Influences on Student Teachers’ Critical Orientation towards Language.

I gave two joint papers today at CSSE: a) Recognizing the Gaze (and Constructions of Race) in Familiar Pedagogical Activities with Val Mulholland and b) Negotiating Ethical Considerations in New Literacies Research with Dana Salter.  At our talk this morning, Dana and I promised to add our paper’s references to our blogs.  Here they are: (more…)

Dana Salter and I are giving a paper at CSSE on Monday about new literacies research and ethical considerations.  We decided to do some thinking about this topic after realizing we were having difficulties figuring out how to gain the “free and informed consent” of members of online communities.  Two good resources we’ve been using in our writing of this paper are this document located on the Tri-Council Policy Statement website and this book by Heather Kitchin.