As part of the ICE-LC Seminar Series 2019-2020, The International and Comparative Education Research Group (ICE) in Collaboration with Language Centre (LC) is pleased to announce a seminar on:
“International Education from the Lenses of Heteroglossic Bilingual Education and Policy Trends”
9.30 AM – 11.30 AM, Thursday 13 February 2020
Location: Meeting Room, 3rd Floor, Language Centre, UBD
Convenor & Discussant: Senior Professor Phan Le Ha/Le-Ha
Head, International and Comparative Education Research Group (ICE), Universiti Brunei Darusslam
Speaker: Dr. Raqib Chowdhury, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia, and International Affiliate, ICE, UBD
9.30 AM – 10.30 AM (including Q&A)
“Towards Heteroglossic Bilingual Education – Contemporary Research and Practices”, Dr. Raqib Chowdhury
Thanks to advances in neuroscience and digital technologies, in scholarly research, reductive monoglossic views of bilingualism and bilingual education have long given way to a more holistic understanding of the value of learning multiple languages. Yet in practice, monoglossic language ideologies continue to influence standards-based reforms in many countries. Language teachers – as much as policy makers – still often resort to a monolingual mindset that sidelines the value of dynamic bilingualism. Such discrepancy between predominantly monolingual institutional policies and practices, and the multilingual realities of our classrooms, especially in international education, can have a profound effect on the learning outcomes of students.
This presentation critically considers some of the latest research on the benefits of a heteroglossic bilingual education, including the value of bilingual instruction, traslanguaging and own language use, multiple literacies, and differentiation and presents the heteroglossic approach to bilingualism as an alternative that has the potential to facilitate ideological spaces from which aspiring and emergent bilinguals can speak from, for better learning outcomes. In particular, it discusses the practicalities of aiming to achieve the dual objectives of linguistic development and cognitive competence in content areas by adopting a language-across-the-curriculum orientation.
10.30 AM – 11.30 AM (including Q&A)
“Education in Bangladesh – Contemporary Trends in Policies and Practices”, Dr. Raqib Chowdhury
The last two decades have seen major – and in some cases unprecedented – changes in Bangladesh’s education sector, sometimes in ways distinct from other countries in the region and globally. Given its history of nearly two centuries of British colonial rule, as well as a religion- and language-based national identity that eventually saw the country transition from being a province in the British-ruled Subcontinent to an independent country, influences of such political histories can often be felt unmistakably in the way education is understood and enacted in current day Bangladesh.
This presentation highlights some of the major achievements in Bangladeshi education, often in response to and informed by contemporary global perspectives on education policy, planning, and innovations in pedagogical practices, curriculum planning and assessment, but also marked by a uniqueness that is sensitive to local contextual specifics.
Biodata
Raqib Chowdhury, PhD, is Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Monash University. Prior to Monash, he taught English literature at the University of Dhaka as Lecturer and Assistant Professor. Raqib has published extensively in the areas of TESOL and ELT, culture and pedagogy, international education, social justice and identity. His current research focuses on social justice issues in education, higher education policy reforms and family language policies. His publications comprise of five books, numerous refereed journal articles, including some award-winning papers, and book chapters for edited volumes published by international prestigious publishers including Springer, Routledge and Multilingual Matters. He is on the editorial board of several reputed journals. Raqib has been a visiting scholar at several universities in Vietnam and Indonesia and has been invited to present at international conferences in universities across South East Asia. For more information, visit: https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/raqib-chowdhury.
Phan Le Ha, PhD, is Senior Professor at Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education, Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) and also Head of the International and Comparative Education Research Group at UBD in Brunei. Prior to Brunei, Prof Phan was tenured Full Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations, College of Education, University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) where she still maintains an affiliation, and Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She has written extensively on identity-language-pedagogy-culture, international/transnational higher education, educational mobilities, TESOL, and sociology of knowledge and education. Her research work has covered Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Asia-Pacific and the Gulf regions. She is editor of New Perspectives on Language and Education book series published by Multilingual Matters (UK) and serves on the editorial board of several international journals. She has held Visiting Full Professorship appointments at universities in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. For more information, visit https://ice.ubd.edu.bn/phan-le-ha/.
