Happy New Year!

My goodness, it feels a long long while indeed since I was last here. The Finland conference was but three months ago, but conceptually is much further away. Somehow taking a summer off has given me the distance I needed to recharge my academic self-confidence and creativity. And after the madness of June and three conferences almost back-to-back, I feel like I can face anything now. Anything. Famous last words..?

Yes, June was too busy really to take in anything much: the Warwick postgraduate conference was fine, but I was tired and a little under-organised, and didn't really make the most of it as an opportunity to engage with another research community. My presentation went well, though, and my audience of 7 asked some stimulating questions and got a bit of chat going, which was a change from my previous conference. The Manchester School of Education Student Conference was also (more or less) fine, though IT felt rather tired and was certainly poorly organised - the chair for my session announcing, on entering the room, that we actually had 10 minutes to present instead of the scheduled 20, with a hurried compromise for 15 negotiated just as I was about to start speaking - but it was good to see what my colleagues are up to, and a useful opportunity to air some of my thoughts about Bakhtin. I do think now, though, that there is much room for improvement in my presentations: the Finland conference, where I was presenting for the first time, was really just about getting it done, about reaching that milestone; but with the other two, and particularly my Manchester presentation, it became clear to me that I'm too wordy, too complex, and essentially presenting a condensed written text. I think perhaps I'm so complacent about my written communicative ability that I expect this to carry over into my presentations, and of course it doesn't. This will be a focus for this year, starting with the Society for Research into Higher Education Newer Researchers' Conference in Newport in December: I'll be presenting my thoughts on motivation and critical EAP to an interdisciplinary group of HE researchers, and will be unable to assume anything like the level of knowledge and expertise of my previous audiences. The first of many challenges this year...

My submission to Gender and Education was rejected, which was far less of a disappointment than I expected it to be - possibly because it wasn't directly connected with my doctoral work and doesn't have the same level of emotional involvement. Anyway, the chief criticism was that the scale of it was too small, which gives me a useful frame of reference regarding scope; and I've come away from it feeling like I've had a trial run at something for which I'll know how to be much better prepared in the future. And, importantly, to ask for help with - but that too, I think, will be easier now I have a clearer idea of what is expected. That was the fear, actually - that if I brought my work to someone saying I wanted to try and publish it, someone I knew, they might think me ridiculously deluded; but from an anonymous reviewer it's far, far easier to take. And besides, having done it once, I now know that no-one WILL think me ridiculously deluded - or if they do, it'll almost certainly never get back to me. Wow - see, this is why blogging's great. I've only just articulated that. There's always a bend in the learning curve...

So this is looking rather like a review of recent(ish) developments, which might be a good way to leave it, as for the verbally unchallenged such as myself these blog posts can easily over-extend themselves. I have thoughts on the future to spew forth also, but to keep it continent I'll end this here and blog again later in the week, when meetings have been had and thoughts/autumn skirts have been gathered.

From my splendid new study at Plas Heulwen, and the lovely rusting tree outside my window - am hwyraf!

May-hem, in a good way

Ooops - too long since I did this. Too long. There are excuses (or reasons, depending on your benevolence): I had post-holiday blues for a week or so, for, having spent Easter in beautiful places, I learnt afresh how little Manchester, though it has much to offer in many departments, casts in the way of aesthetic balm. I've also been mired in marking, which I hate, and am crap at - feedback, fine, but numerically categorising and boundarising is not my forte. But it's over now. Just finished. I'm sure there'll be something I've omitted to attach/tick/upload somwhere, but I've a few days before deadline to remember it...

In PhD news, I've started recruiting participants, and found my advert on the University's Research Volunteering page to be quite effective - after two Masters dissertations and various MSc assignments trying desperately to get ANYONE to take part, I've been comparatively inundated with responses. Many asked about reimbursement and didn't get back to me after I told them they'd be paid only in tea and cake and self-exploration, but those who expressed interest nonetheless have been very enthusiastic. And I too have been cranking up the enthusiasm (not that there's not tanks of it already, mind) on account of an insight from the first potential participant I met, who, after yet another ethically-conscious reminder that they were free to withdraw at any time, said to me: 'You keep telling me I can withdraw, but you never tell me I can stay'. I felt slightly ashamed of myself for sacrificing human warmth and welcome to become an ethics-form monkey. Or parrot. Or ass, perhaps. Anyway - twas a good insight.

In other news, I've had a book chapter proposal accepted, which is most exciting. The working title is Social identities and multiple selves in foreign language education, edited by Damian J. Rivers and Stephanie Houghton. The chapter is based on my MA dissertation, and the blurb is as follows:


Lou Harvey (UK)

The social and pragmatic parameters of L2 motivation: Investigating the motivation of three UK ESL learners

An investigation of 3 UK ESL learners motivation in relation to globalizing world, identity, future selves and selective participation in social development. Very much rooted in Gardner and Lambert, and Dornyei.


This is also the subject of the paper I'll be presenting at the 14th Warwick International Postgraduate Conference in Applied Linguistics (28th - 29th June), for which my abstract has just been accepted. So I've got this paper to write, plus my paper for the New Dynamics conference in Jyvaskyla at the beginning of June. I'll also be presenting at two conferences here at the School of Education in Manchester: From Here to There and Back Again: Conference papers by the Language Teacher Education community on 3rd June, at which I'll be presenting my Jyvaskyla paper; and I'm about to start work on an abstract for a paper for the Student Research Conference on 5th July, which will be based on my methodological work on Bakhtin, voice and agency (I'll post a link to the abstract when it's written). So there's plenty to keep me busy in June: four conferences, initial interviews, transcription, two hen weekends (both of them mine, so no escape), and moving house.

Think I'll miss out on July but come up smiling in August.

Ethical approval, funding, and huzzahs!

The University Research Ethics Committee (known by the charming acronym of UREC, which always conjures images of gouty professors) has finally bestowed approval on my PhD, which means I can go forth and collect data. Or at least, I can do so after recruiting participants, which will be the hard part - I've started with an advert on the University's Research Volunteering page, so we'll see who that yields. Having originally been approved subject to minor changes, I had to do the following to fully satisfy the committee:


- encrypt my laptop for data security purposes;

- add my supervisor as a 'what if something goes wrong?' contact instead of myself (in case the problem should be with me);

- provide contacts for various relevant support organisations in case participants become distressed;

- provide a statement explaining that I would seek cover under the Lone Worker's Policy if I conduct any interviews in participants' homes (rather than in, for example, a public cafe).


It's a relief for it all to be over - going to the committee was a strange experience, calculated in every way to remind me where the power in the University lies (hint: not with me), and clearly much more about University liability than about the ethics of research. But at least I can now push on with data collection and analysis, aka The Interesting Bit...

I also found out this week that I've been granted School of Education funding for the New Dynamics conference in Finland - along with the remainder of my ESRC research training grant, that's the conference almost entirely covered. Which is great, because Finland ain't cheap. I'll need to keep to UK conferences for a while - speaking of which, I'll be attending and hopefully presenting at the 14th International Postgraduate Conference in Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, 28th and 29th June (abstract pending approval), and will be attending the 5th BAAL Gender and Language Special Interest Group Event (GaLSig) at Aston University on 20th September. Exciting stuff, eh?

Now I must get ready to go dub-dancing to Jah Shaka in Sheffield tonight. I've always had an antipathy for Sheffield on account of having hated the school I went to nearby (well - on a Pennine) - but it's shifting, friends, it's shifting. Partly because I enjoy a bit of undulation after Manchester's relentless flattitude; but maybe also because, as my friend Slinky Jones keeps telling me, it's kind of a cool place...