Job Discussion Forums

esl_prof

My wife and I are heading to Toronto tomorrow and, following a vacation day on Tuesday, will be attending the International TESOL Convention from Wednesday through Saturday.

Like the handful of others on these forums who plan to attend, I'll probably be too busy networking, attending workshops and, otherwise, just hanging out to post much here on Dave's. However, I will try to post at least one interesting thing that I've learned from the Convention each day while I'm there, and I encourage others who are attending to do the same. It will be fun to share what we're learning, both with each other as well as those who aren't able to attend.

In the meantime, I'm brushing up on my Canadian phonology . . .

santi84 · Joined: 14 Mar 2008 Posts: 1317 Location: under da sea

"A beer, please" and "thanks" whenever someone steps on your foot is good enough. Have fun!

esl_prof · Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:05 pm Post subject:

santi84 · Joined: 14 Mar 2008 Posts: 1317 Location: under da sea

esl_prof · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 11:54 am Post subject:

esl_prof · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 12:19 pm Post subject:

Day 1: Pre-Conference Institutes

The focus of yesterday's program was ELT Leadership Management. Lots of good stuff!!!

One (of many) very useful take away was the "3 Approaches to Teacher Observations."

1. Direct/Informational Approach -- largely intended for new teachers, the supervisor observes the teacher and than tells her/him what needs to be improved and how to do it.

2. Collaborative Approach (which is basically what we do in the ESL Department at my school) -- The supervisor and the teacher work together to determine the area of focus for the observation and, then, the supervisor gives feedback to help the teacher improve in the area(s) that s/he has identified.

3. The self-directed approach (which was new to me and something that I want to discuss more with our department when I return) -- Basically, the teacher tells the supervisor what s/he wants to work on, comes up with a plan for improving and assessing herself, and lets the supervisor know how s/he should be involved.

Basically, this is a very rough breakdown of the three categories without a great deal of nuance. What's interesting, though, is the progression (approach 1 to 3) from inexperienced to highly experienced and the requirement that teachers involved in the latter approaches be able to exercise a greater degree of metacognition than those in the earlier approaches.

Okay, I need to run.

Is anyone else here at the conference? If so, please consider sharing at least one useful or interesting thing that you've learned today.

adaruby · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 1:08 pm Post subject:

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Conferences I went to were usually a strange mix of BS, socialising and boredom with the occasional useful meeting. Often hectic and quite stressful. OK if someone else is paying !

My bosses at Saudi Arabian Airlines were quite good at picking up the tab for me to visit weird and wonderful locations.

johnslat · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 7:22 pm Post subject:

Dear scot47,

Like (to quote a curmudgeonly poster) Detroit ? Very Happy

Regards,
John

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Never made it to Motown.

johnslat · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 8:58 pm Post subject:

Dear scot47,

You left out the "b": Mobtown. Very Happy

Regards,
John

esl_prof · Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:11 am Post subject:

esl_prof · Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:13 am Post subject:

esl_prof · Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:24 am Post subject:

Day 2: The Conference Begins

I finished up the ELT Leadership Management workshop sequence today, and picked a handful of additional workshops as well.

Perhaps the most useful was "Political Ads: A Bridge to Organized Persuasive Writing," which is something that I can implement in my comp classes almost immediately. Basically, the presenter showed how political ads (she used examples of stuff she received in the mail during the last campaign season) typically make some sort of claim about a candidate and then provide neat bullet points to support that claim. She then showed a number of class activities that she's used at various levels that require students to take the information from those ads and write paragraphs (topic sentence-supporting points-conclusion sentence) or, in some cases, multi-paragraph essays. In addition, she had a number of sentence-level activities that required students to practice using transition words (e.g., however, therefore, for example) with content from the ads.

All in all, simple, straightforward, and something that I plan to use in my classes as soon as possible.

AGoodStory · Joined: 26 Feb 2010 Posts: 738