Dr Phillip Mahnken
BA(Hons) ANU, DipEd Canberra CAE, MEd Tas., PhD Tas.
Position: Lecturer, Indonesian
Office: D1.15
Tel: +61 7 5430 1254
Email: pmahnken@usc.edu.au
Teaching areas
- Indonesian language and culture
- Politics and International Relations
Research areas
- Computer-assisted language learning utilising applied linguistic theory in the development of multi-media programs
- Experiential and intercultural foreign language learning
- Language policy formulation and implementation
- Professional and community activism in languages education
Profile
Dr Phillip Mahnken began his professional life as a school teacher in the Education Department of Tasmania in 1975. He spent one year in Europe and a year working in Indonesia before undertaking Master of Education Studies with an emphasis on Applied Linguistics. He has always loved the challenge of improving Australia's performance in the study of foreign languages and cultures.
Philip's research interests moved from languages policy formulation to Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in the 1990's. He completed a PhD in 2002 on student perceptions of second language knowledge, interaction and motivation in a CALL environment. Besides developing online multimedia resources, he has recently been exploring online audio-conferencing as an international language learning medium. Summer periods are given to supervision of the intensive in-country program in Lombok, Indonesia.
In 2006, a consortium of Indonesian language lecturers at four Australian universities and Universitas Mataram in Lombok won substantial funding from the Commonwealth's CASR Fund and from the Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH) to re-design Indonesian language and culture curricula in three modes: on-campus, online and in-country. The model of collaboration is as important as the teaching resources and methods and will be significant for all university language teaching in Australia. Phillip Mahnken is Chief Curriculum Designer and the Curriculum Development office is housed in USC's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
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