Jane Dunphy

BIO

Jane Dunphy directs MIT’s English Language Studies Program and has taught a variety of subjects in professional and cross-cultural communication, including Communication for Policy Makers; Writing for Scientists and Engineers; Globalization: The Good, the Bad and the In-between; Advanced Speaking and Critical Listening; and Communicating across Cultures. In addition, she collaborates with colleagues across MIT in a variety of ways by (1) contributing to the conversation about, and effective pedagogy for, the multicultural classroom; (2) providing support to international TAs and faculty members through workshops, seminars and consultations on teaching in the American classroom; (3)) educating the community about various aspects of language, culture and professional communication in seminars designed for student organizations and academic programs. Beyond MIT, Jane has designed workshops on different aspects of professional communication for a variety of domestic and international organizations, hi-tech companies, and academic institutions, including the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), Daimler-Chrysler, GEN3, the International Institute in Spain, the Masdar Institute (UAEs), Vellore Institute of Technology (India), and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She is currently on sabbatical at Yasar University in Izmir, Turkey.  Her research interests involve how English as a lingua franca, corpus linguistics, and genre theory can inform best practices in professional and academic communication protocols across cultures. Jane Dunphy is co-author, with Catherine Ross, of Strategies for Teaching Assistant and International Teaching Assistant Development: Beyond Micro Teaching (Jossey-Bass) published in 2007.

ABSTRACT

Teacher as Culture & Communication Coach

As institutes of higher education around the world adopt English as a medium of instruction (EMI), we need to redefine our roles.  Our traditional focus on teaching and measuring competence in the four language skills must shift to incorporate a broader definition of communicative competence.  Because university students must learn the communication conventions of their disciplines to engage productively in their intellectual communities, we need to incorporate disciplinary communication practices into our teaching repertoire.  And because these EMI communities are multilingual and multicultural, we need to educate ourselves and provide opportunities for members of our communities to learn more generally about how culture shapes communication norms.  In this way, English teachers will be instrumental in fostering a cross-cultural proficiency that transcends linguistic competence.

Session Summary:

Jane Dunphy focused on communicative competence in a broader sense in her presentation and showed us that we, as teachers, need to redefine our roles in the teaching process. Communication is shaped by cultural norms therefore English language teaching should also be relevant with those cross cultural differences. Teachers should educate themselves about the multilingual and multi-cultural needs of students. By doing this, teachers can also be helpful on the students’ linguistic competence.