Steve Schackne 

Experience

Steve Schackne--since 2005, Schackne Online has reverted back to a non-commercial, free-access web site, focusing on educational resources. I am still contracted with the University of Macau, Macau . 1/06-present.

Schackne Online--under my web site name, I have been developing online courses, conducting tutorials, and taking short term contracts
with schools and students in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Ming Chuan University and Fooyin Institute of Technology in Taiwan are two schools I was associated with from 1999-2001. I recently finished a two-year stint teaching graduate linguistics and English at Xiamen University, and since 2004 have been under contract at the University of Macau, where I have taught EFL courses and research seminars, and have conducted teacher evaluations. In addition, I am on the distance teaching faculty of Akamai University and CALCampus. 8/99-12/05.

University of Macau, Macau --was a lecturer at the University of Macau--Macau was a Portuguese enclave (until 1999)  located on the coast of China, about forty miles from Hong Kong. I  taught advanced English classes, applied linguistics (methodology), and language acquisition to students aged 18 to 45. In addition, I served on the English Studies Curriculum Committee, the Pedagogic Council, the Academic Council, the English Studies Recruitment Panel, and I was appointed by the Senate as a qualified examiner for the enclave; that is, I shared responsibilities in developing and evaluating entrance examinations for the university. I served as Director of Language Lab Services for the university from September 1993 to September 1996. My research interests were in the areas of CALL and extensive reading and, in February 1994, I was awarded a research grant to expand on previous research done in the field of extensive reading. Was also local adviser for two masters theses in TESOL, one done at the University of Surrey in England, the other done at Nova University in the United States. In 1998, developed and constructed a resource and teaching web site, designed for education, business, and communications majors at the University of Macau. 9/93-8/99.

 Oklahoma State University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan --was the Resident Director for OSU-HELP, a 6-level academic English program aimed at young Taiwanese who wanted to pursue undergraduate studies in an English speaking country. My primary mandate was to "oversee and maintain a credible academic standard for all OSU activities conducted at this school." I supervised a staff of four masters level teachers who taught grammar and culture courses, as well as the core listening-speaking and reading-writing. In addition, I was in charge of developing new courses and new resources for teaching. During this posting, I developed a listening-speaking course for "true" beginners, and also authored several computer assisted language learning programs for our school. I scheduled and staffed the administration of the Michigan test (our placement instrument) in both Kaohsiung and Taipei, and subsequently sectioned the levels and assigned the classes to teachers. I was solely responsible for the periodic administration of the institutional TOEFL. My administrative duties were paired with contact teaching and student advising duties--I carried a teaching load of 10-21 hours a week throughout the year. The load not only included a full range of EFL courses, but a small selection of credit bearing undergraduate courses offered by the English Department at Oklahoma State University. I taught a senior level grammar course and sent four of those students on to pursue a TESOL degree at OSU. I also had ongoing contact with the students and offered them advice in such areas as developing study skills and evaluating overseas schools. 6/91-6/92.

 Culver Educational Foundation, Culver, Indiana --was the Director of ESL for CEF, which is the administrative body for Culver Military Academy, and the Culver Summer Schools. I was hired to develop an ESL program for approximately fifty students, mostly Hispanic, who attended Culver Military and Culver Girls Academy. Was in charge of placement testing; sectioning; developing goals, materials, and pedagogy for four levels of courses; developing promotion standards; and teaching three courses of academic reading and writing. Was also responsible for advising on foreign student admissions, ESL staff requirements, and international student concerns, such as bilingual counseling and foreign student advising. In addition to my ESL duties, I also served on an assessment team which evaluated the Academies in the areas of foreign language, and curriculum and design for the North Central Association (NCA) and the Independent School Association for the Central States (ISACS). Cofounded a resource network of over fifty private secondary ESL programs across North America. Was also cocontracted with the University of California at Santa Barbara  during the summer of 1990. 8/89-7/91.

 Kansas University, Lawrence, Kansas --was a lecturer in the Applied English Center. I taught academic writing and structure to graduate and undergraduate non-native speakers of English. Contributed in ongoing meetings designed to restructure and develop internal departmental policies. Also assisted in pre and post semester testing, and enrollment. In addition, I conducted research in the areas of error analysis and contrastive analysis. 8/88-8/89.

 Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan --was a lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature. I taught EFL and rhetoric to first and second year English majors. In 1986-87, I was a coordinator for a comp-oral course at Tunghai. The course had two major elements--functional conversation and beginning rhetoric (writing at the paragraph level). I supervised six teachers whose backgrounds were quite different--ranging from general linguistics to comparative literature. That same year I acted as a bilingual student counselor, serving as a liaison between teachers and class representatives when problems arose. In the area of curriculum development, I teamed with a linguist to formulate a two year program of courses aimed at developing the four language skills. Several elements of that proposal (most notably, extensive reading) were formally introduced into the curriculum and are still part of the freshmen program. In addition, I also worked in the area of program planning; that is, I helped evaluate and modify specific EFL courses designed to fit in to our language and literature curriculum. 8/85-8/88.

 State University of New York, Albany, New York --earned an M.S. in Applied Linguistics-TESOL while working as a Master Teacher in the evening language program. 9/84-9/85.

 Taipei Language Institute, Taipei, Taiwan --taught beginning to advanced English to Asian students. Also taught business English; clients included Continental Bank, Chase Manhattan Bank, and Sealand Service. While at TLI, I was one of the curriculum supervisors--we set goals (stated in behavioral terms) for the skill courses, then convened a panel of MAs who developed materials and techniques designed to meet those goals. In addition, I supervised evaluative testing for educational institutions in the United States and Asia. 8/81-8/84.

Education
 

 University of Macau, Macau

          Three months postgraduate study in Cantonese; elementary certificate

State University of New York, Albany, New York

          M.S. Applied Linguistics-TESOL

 Taipei Language Institute, Taipei, Taiwan

          Three years postgraduate study in Mandarin; advanced certificate

 University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina

          One year postgraduate work at the School of Business and Economics

 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

          A.B. in Drama
          A.B. in English

Languages

English, Mandarin, Spanish, Cantonese

Addenda

1979-1980 Published a series of three book reviews--"The Beaches Are Moving", Wallace Kaufman, Orrin Pilkey;
"Chase the Game", Pat Jordan;   "The Edsel Affair", C. Gayle Warnock in Chatham County Herald.

1983 Published "A Glimpse Behind the Mask--Keeping the Knife in Place," Knight-Ridder Newspapers, feature article.

1987 Published "Nature and Nurture," Mao Tou Yin, Taipei, Taiwan.

1990 Presenter NAFSA Region VI and TESOL Southeast Region joint conference, Louisville, Kentucky, "ESL Programs in    Independent Schools."

1991 Presenter TESOL 91, New York, New York, "ESL Programs in Independent Schools--Out of the Closet."

1992 Presenter TESOL 92, Vancouver, Canada, "ESOL in Independent Schools."

1992 Presenter NAFSA Conference, Chicago, Illinois, "Independent School ESL Programs at the Crossroads."

1994 Published "CALL and Applied Linguistics: Sometimes the Marriage is Successful," Abacus, Macau

1994 Presenter ILEC Conference, Hong Kong, "Reading for Pleasure and Language Acquisition--Revisited." (A work in progress).

1994 Invited Lecture, Shenzhen, China, "American Universities--Revolutionary Change in the Last 30 Years."

1995 Published "Extensive Reading and Language Acquisition: Is There a Correlation?", empirical research in ERIC Clearinghouse on Language and Linguistics, ED 388 110.

1996 Presenter United Kingdom Reading Association Conference on Literacy and Culture, Newcastle, England, "Extensive Reading and Language Acquisition: Is There a Correlation?"

1996 Presenter ILEC Conference, Hong Kong, "Extensive Reading and Language Acquisition: Two Studies."

1997 Presenter Teaching Social Sciences in East Asia Symposium, Macau, "Language Teaching Research--In the Literature, but Not Always in the Classroom."

1998 Presenter New Technologies and ELT International Conference 1998, Kuala Lumpur,  Malaysia, "Applied Linguistic Theory: Lost on the Way to the Classroom."

1999 Presenter International Conference on Teacher Education (ICTED 1999), Hong Kong, "It's the Links, Stupid."

1999 Published "Applied Linguistic Theory: Lost on the Way to the Classroom" in Proceedings of the International Conference on New Technologies and ELT 98, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

1999 Presenter Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education '99, Macau, "The Worldwide Web as a Teaching Resource."

1999-2002 Was a registered web site reviewer for ESL Interactive at Washington State University.

2000 Established the ESLMoney, an employment discussion board for ESL teachers

2001 Presenter 18th Conference on English Teaching & Learning in the Republic of China, Taipei, Taiwan,  "The English Teacher's Web Site: A Simple Primer"

2001 Published "The English Teacher's Web Site: A Simple Primer" in Proceedings of the Eighteenth Conference
on English Teaching and Learning in the Republic of China, Taipei, Taiwan.

2001 Presenter JALT CALL 2001 The Changing Face of CALL, Ota City,  Japan, "The English Teacher's Web Site: A Simple Primer."

2002 Published "Language Teaching Research--In the Literature, but Not Always in the Classroom" in Journal of Language and Linguistics, Northumberland, UK.

2002 Appointed List Manager for CETEFL-L (Jobs Channel)

2002 Appointed Distance Learning Faculty, Akamai, University, Hilo, Hawaii

2003 Published "Teaching Useable Language" in DevelopingTeachers.Com, London, UK.

2003 Published "A Brief Analysis of Failure" in Schackne Online, Xiamen, China, Sanford, NC, USA,
re-published (by permission) as Common Behavior Traits of Highly Successful People in Biz-Whiz.Com

2003 Published From Where We Sit--It's Not About Education Anymore; Adjunct Nation (Commentary) in Ed Tracker Ezine, Xiamen, China, Sanford, NC, USA

2003 Published From Where We Sit--Illogic 101 (Commentary) in Schackne Online, Xiamen, China, Sanford, NC, USA

2003 Published From Where We Sit--The Politics of Language (Commentary) in Ed Tracker Ezine, Xiamen, China, Sanford, NC, USA

2004 Published A Common Sense Approach to Treating Errors in L2 Learners in DevelopingTeachers.Com, London, UK.

2004 Appointed Distance Learning Faculty, CALCampus, Rochester, NY

2005 Published The Common Sense Approach: How One Teacher Organized a Speaking Course for 200 Chinese Graduate Students in DevelopingTeachers.Com, London, UK

2005 Published The Common Sense Approach: Grades and ESL in DevelopingTeachers.Com, London, UK.

2006 Published From Where We Sit--Blessed (Commentary) in Schackne Online, Macau SAR, China, Sanford, NC, USA

2006 Published The Common Sense Approach: Liberate Your ESL Students, Lead Them Out of The Classroom in TEFL Asia Magazine, Bangkok, Thailand

2006 Published From Where We Sit--Why Isn't Globalization Working (Commentary) in Schackne Online, Macau SAR, China, Sanford, NC, USA

2006 Published The Common Sense Approach: Advanced EFL in DevelopingTeachers.Com, London, UK.

2006 Published The Common Sense Approach: The Flexible Syllabus--Balancing Time and Content in DevelopingTeachers.Com, London, UK

2006 Published Teaching isn't a Profession in America in Ed Tracker Ezine, Macau SAR, China, Sanford, NC, USA

2006 Published From Where We Sit--Zimbabwe For Millionaires: Macau and the Unintended Consequences of Rapid Development in Schackne Online, Macau SAR, China, Sanford, NC, USA (reprinted in Bix Beiderbecke's Macau)

2007 Published Leveling Your Students: The Common Sense Approach in DevelopingTeachers.Com, London, UK

2007 Published A Common Sense Approach: Vocabulary Building in DevelopingTeachers.Com, London, UK

2008 Published The Good Teacher in DevelopingTeachers.Com, London, UK