Interviews.

October 2006.

Dr. Roger Nunn
Associate Professor, Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi

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(1) Bio How did you get into EFL teaching?
I was brought up in a mono-lingual and mono-cultural environment in West Yorkshire in the 50s and 60s. I enjoy going back to Yorkshire, but looking back, I now realize that I probably specialized in languages to satisfy my curiosity about the world beyond the beautiful Yorkshire moors. The UAE is the eighth country I've lived and worked in. My voluntary work with the Asian EFL Journal puts me in touch with an average of ten different countries per week and with some very interesting ways of seeing things - it's more a way of life than a job and TEFL qualifications have been like a passport.

The first time I tried EFL teaching was in France as an unqualified English language assistant in a French Lycee, way back in 1973 as part of my degree in French. I met my wife there. I started my full-time career in language teaching in England in 1976. Since 1979 I have worked in TEFL overseas in Germany, Ethiopia, Qatar (11 years), Japan (10 years) and the UAE.

I have a PGCE in modern language teaching for secondary education, a Licentiate Diploma in TEFL (Trinity College, London), and an M.A. and PhD. in TEFL from the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the University of Reading. What influenced me the most was the campus based MA TEFL in Reading in the summers of 1987 and 1988 - Ron White, Martin Bygate, Cyril Weir, Eddie Williams, Pauline Robinson, Don Porter, Gill Sturtridge were such interesting teachers and all very different. There was a very active and interesting cohort of students whose experience covered so many countries.

(2) Why did you leave Japan after 10 years and a tenured "job for life" as a Japanese University Professor?
I think we never like to think we are in our "last" job. We really enjoyed living and working in Kochi in Southern Japan. I worked there for more than ten years in the field of international and intercultural communication skills, but ten years is a long time. I'm now an Associate Professor in the Communications Department at the Petroleum Institute, a new University in Abu Dhabi. We teach research and communication skills through project work which is my favourite way of teaching. I'm enjoying being the "new" teacher.

(3) How important is publishing to you and which do you see as your main publications?
I've published a lot in the last 12 years but I think what I'm best at is classroom teaching because I've been doing that for 30 years. I've probably learnt the most about education and life in the countries I've lived in from students. It's difficult to judge our own work. The article I get most correspondence about is, the Purposes of Language Teachers' Questions (the International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, IRAL. 37-1: Feb. 1999 pp. 23-42). My own favorite is Empire and Jane Austen: A Contrapuntal Reading (Studies in English Literature: English Literary Society of Japan, pp1-17 English Number: March, 1999) The research results I found most interesting from an intercultural angle are reported in Head Nodding in Intercultural Conversation (with Tamura, M) (2003) in the Japan Journal of Multilingualism and Multiculturalism Vol. 9, No. 1. pp.69-86) and the most relevant to recent international considerations of TEFL is probably in our own journal: Competence and Teaching English as an International Language ((2005) Asian EFL Journal Vol. 7 Issue 3.)

(4) What positive developments have you seen over the recent past in SLA teachings and theory?
I think it's good that teachers are no longer searching for a single ideal method. So-called new approaches such as Task-based Learning, which was our conference theme and is reported in our AEJ September 2006 quarterly issue, are attempts to respond to principles of SLA that work in practice in our own classrooms. If they become ideologies they become flawed. Recently in our own journal Rod Ellis's ten SLA principles have influenced me the most because they are based on encyclopedic knowledge and research. It was also very brave to commit himself to ten principles in a field like SLA.

(5) Which modern linguist do you think is the most important for language teachers to study?
Like Francis Munghabai, I think that Michael Halliday's lifelong work on systemic linguistics is very relevant to language teaching because he provides a very detailed and coherent explanation about how language form is linked to language use. I also think that pragmatics is vitally important because it helps us understand both what we might need to teach and how to communicate effectively in our own classrooms. Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory is very important in this respect. I also think that we should not assume Chomskian linguistics is irrelevant, just because it is so different from pragmatic and systemic approaches. They all provide different ways of looking at the same thing and we need them all.

(6) What is your stance/views on the statement, "The local culture plays a significant part in the SLA process.
My own PhD research conducted in Qatar supports this view very strongly and experience of teaching in so many places definitely confirms this. I haven't used an outside textbook for the last 15 years. However, I do believe that it is also important to teach students to communicate internationally and I think there are some important pragmatic principles that can apply to all the places I have been, although they need to be defined slightly differently in each one. Language teaching is also a way of encouraging people to communicate beyond their local context. I have no time for "nationalist" attitudes wherever they occur, and there is a perceptible move towards looking inwards because of the reporting of recent international problems in the media which tend to frighten people away from international communication. Fortunately, my experience is that authentic local culture is rarely nationalist.

(7) There is an evolving view that EIL (English as an International Language) will replace EFL/ESL/TESOL teachings and that language educators will have to reevaluate their thinking as to SLA theories and teachings. How do you see the future of EIL?

I think language educators have always needed to keep reevaluating their thinking. Once they stop doing this, they should consider retirement. As for EIL, it is already with us. I don't remember when I last communicated in English in a mono-cultural situation. It is also very clear that we are now far less likely to be preparing students to join a single speech community, so students will need intercultural and pragmatic skills. They will also need to find strategies to deal with all kinds of varieties of English. I think native speakers are still important, but I also find it very difficult to live in mono-cultural mono-lingual communities. "Competence" in education is defined by ability alone and is not a synonym for nativeness. "Competence" is a very complex area and there is space for all kinds of competences.

(8) What is the future for the Asian EFL Journal?
I am biased, but I think it is very positive as long as we remain open to publishing divergent views and alternative cultural voices and continue to improve our peer reviewing policy to maintain standards. We have a very vibrant team of managers and editors and receive lots of interesting submissions from all over the world.