English scholar from the University of Graz wins international doctoral competition

Silvia Lasnik won the final of the international Three Minute Thesis Competition in Finland with her presentation on the dragon of native speakerism. Photo: University of Graz

Why is "native speakerism" a dangerous dragon? Excuse me? What's that all about? Silvia Lasnik, an English scholar at the University of Graz, knows because she is researching the topic in her doctoral thesis. She explained her research in three minutes with wit and esprit at the final of the Three Minute Thesis Competition (3MT) on 6 June 2024 in Turku, Finland. The jury learnt something new and was very impressed by the presentation. They chose Silvia Lasnik as the winner.

The 3MT task is a real challenge: presenting your own research in three minutes in an understandable and exciting way to an audience from outside the field, in English, with just one PowerPoint slide, but with a lot of creativity. Silvia Lasnik chose the vivid image of a dragon to explain her research. That was convincing.

The Dragon of Native Speakerism
Who better to teach English than a person who learnt it as first language? Probably no one, according to many in the school system. Therefore, native speakers are often favoured when applying for a job as a teacher. That's not good, says Silvia Lasnik. "Because pedagogical and didactic skills are as important as language skills," emphasises the English specialist. In her doctoral thesis, supervised by Hermine Penz, she is investigating how the "dragon of native speakerism" paralyses teachers. "If they are afraid to speak in a foreign language because they don't think they know it well enough, then this has a negative impact on teaching," says Lasnik. Especially with English, which is used worldwide as a bridge language, communicative competence should come first, before grammar and accent. "That's why we need to slay the dragon of native speakerism," the doctoral student emphasises with her picture. This is already important in the teacher training programme so that future teachers can promote speaking more than reading and writing at school.

The 3MT is organised annually by the Coimbra Group, an association of particularly renowned and traditional European universities. After Silvia Lasnik had won the main prize at the 3MT of the University of Graz on 15 March 2024, ahead of ten other candidates, she also impressed the international jury of the competition and was invited to the final in Turku. She has now won this too.

Gudrun Pichler

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