Thesis defence day is also known as the best day of grad school. It's the summit, the finish line of the marathon - that joyful day where years upon years of hard work are presented, examined, and (hopefully) celebrated. Our favourite graduate students must navigate this one final windstorm - can they count on your support? Open to the public. 

The Price of Admission: 
Private English schools at the Inner/Expanding Circle interface

Lisa Shorten - MA Thesis Defence

Monday December 18, 2017  |  11:00 am
SFU Burnaby - Library Defence Room LIB2020 

Abstract: Each year multitudes of international students come to Vancouver, Canada from what Kachru (1984) calls the Expanding Circle: countries where English is considered a foreign language. Kobayashi (2006) notes that while English study makes up the majority of study abroad activity, it receives little scholarly attention. Researchers assume language acquisition to be the goal of short-term English programs, and fail to situate observations in a larger context. This macro-sociolinguistic exploration uses Bourdieu's (1977) a social capital framework to navigate the relationship between English, status, and power in short-term English language learning. It provides a thorough description of the socio-historical context, stakeholders and discourse themes involved in the local private English Language Teaching (ELT) sector. In doing so, it addresses a considerable deficiency in the research literature, and offers a foundation for further scholarship on private ELT in Canada. With it I seek to address the misguided avoidance of sociolinguistic factors in language acquisition research and teacher training.

Senior Supervisor:  Suzanne Hilgendorf
Supervisor:  Panayiotis Pappas
Chair:  Chung-hye Han
External Reviewer:  Roumi Ilieva, SFU, Education