Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Woland]

There is a sticky on this page with info about the upcoming KoTESOL conference on October 28th and 29th at Sookmyong Women's University.

Here are two more conferences that I have just discovered info about today. Unfortunately, one of them overlaps with KoTESOL on one day.

Applied Linguistics Association of Korea: Their 2006 International Conference is being held at Korea University on October 27th and 28th. Featured speakers include Jan Hulstijn, Nina Spada and Paul Seedhouse. Go to www.alak.or.kr for more details. ALAK appears to be the Korean equivalent of AAAL, CAAL, and BAAL, for those who know.

Sadly, I have to work on the 28th, so I will be at neither conference that day. However, I am planning to be at ALAK on the 27th and KoTESOL on the 29th.

On November 4th, at Tongmong University in Pusan, the Pan-Korea English Teachers Association will be holding its 2006 National Conference. The featured speaker will be Peter Robinson, giving a talk entitled: The Cognition Hypothesis of Task-Based Learning: Implications for Focus-on-Form and Language Learning Aptitude Research. Go to www.pketa.org for more details.

I am extremely disappointed that I will not be able to go to Pusan for this; Peter Robinson is a very interesting speaker for those interested in TBL.

[Woland]

I'm going to bump this up to keep it on the first page as needed until the conferences are past, just so people can get the info.

Apologies to anybody who thought something new might have popped up here.

[Hotpants]

There's also another event - Cambridge Day - organized by Cambridge University Press. It's a free event with three or four prominent guest speakers. At Sookmyung Women's University, on Nov 11th. You can pre-register via the CUP website.

[Woland]

Thanks for the add, Hotpants. Maybe we can just keep this thread going as needed to announce events of this type for Davers.

[Woland]

bump

[Woland]

bumpity bump

[CBP]

What sort of events are available in Korea that cater to teachers who aren't interested in theory and linguistics? For example, seminars for native English speakers (ESL teachers) who want to improve their understanding of grammar; seminars for those who teach academic writing and TOEFL prep; get-togethers for elementary teachers; etc.

Also, are there any international organizations for ESL teachers that I ought to consider joining?

Thanks!

[OiGirl]

If you are in the south-west of the country or need an excuse for a road trip, the Gwangju-Jeonnam Chapter KOTESOL meeting is this Saturday. This month it will be held at Chonnam University. If you need help getting there, PM me and I give you more specific directions and meet you at the back gate.

Time: 2:00- 5:00 p.m. November 11th, 2006
Venue: Chonnam National University Humanities Building #1- Room #106

Schedule
2:00pm - Registration and welcome Gathering
2:30pm - "Resources and the EFL classroom"
3:30pm - Snack Break
3:45pm - "Using Drama in the EFL classroom"
4:45pm -� Drawing

Bios of Presenters and Abstracts

1.� About Bruce Wakefield
Bruce Wakefield is currently a Senior English teacher employed in the
English School at the New Zealand Centre for Culture and Education (NZC)
in Gangnam, Seoul.� His service in South Korea has included nearly four
years teaching in hagwons.� Plus three years teaching at Soonchunhyang
University, southwest of Seoul.� Prior to that he spent nearly 30 years
teaching in the New Zealand Primary School service.� Much of this time
was spent teaching pupils learning English as a Second Language(ESL). He
is a Master of Education graduate from Auckland University, New Zealand,
and a Bachelor of Arts graduate from Massey University, New Zealand.

Abstract
"Using the EFL Classroom, and its Environment, as a Teaching Resource"

This workshop will aim to teach English teachers a variety of ways to
think about, and use, their classrooms as a teaching resource.� In
addition the workshop will explore ideas regarding the use of the
environment beyond the classroom as a source of teaching resources.� In
particular one issue that the workshop will explore is how the EFL
(English as a Foreign Language) classroom, and its environment, can be
viewed as a low cost teaching resource. As a trained teacher from New
Zealand he finds the basic approach to EFL teaching in South Korea to be
very "textbook" orientated.� In turn he feels the learning of English
becomes too disconnected from the real world.� However another issue
that the workshop will explore is how teaching based on the EFL
environment can be used as the basis for tracking student progress. The
workshop will be activity based.� Participants will be involved in
"doing" and "thinking".� In addition a third issue that will be explored
is how the ideas to be presented can be adapted for use by teachers
working in a variety of educational settings. All the way from
Kindergarten and Elementary School pupils, through Middle / High School
and university levels, and� up to mature adult students.

2. About John Buckley

John Buckley holds an LLM in Human Rights Law, a BA in Law and French
and a Certificate in TEFL. He has been teaching English in Korea for the
past five years. He currently works at Chonnam National University. He
has a particular interest in the history of English and the development
of new vocabulary. He has been involved with drama since he was ten
years old and was a founder member of the "Hae-kom Players", a drama
group based in Ulsan. He has used drama in various forms in both his own
language learning (he speaks five languages) and in teaching his
students at all levels, from Beginners up to Teacher Training.

Abstract
"Using Drama in the EFL classroom"

When Drama is mentioned such words as "the stage", "acting" and "plays"
come to mind for many people. For many the situations or series of
events which have vivid, emotional, conflicting, or striking interest or
results and which happen daily in lives for .e.g. the drama of a murder
trial or the final dramatic minutes of the match are not really
associated with "drama". Life doesn�t require a stage for drama to
happen and neither does the classroom. For life it-self is the stage. As
Shakespeare put it "All the world�s a stage, and all the men and women
merely players: They have their exits and entrances; and one man in his
time plays many parts�"(As You Like It, II, vii, 139).� Shakespeare
realized the importance of drama and so among many others did Oscar
Wilde, "Give any man a mask and he will tell you the truth". This latter
comment is particularly apt for why we should use drama as a means of
getting students to express themselves in English. Give a student a
character part or an alter ego [Wilde�s mask] and they lose their
inhibitions. Students will speak [tell you the truth]. Thus, drama
provides the context for meaningful exchange in which participants see a
reason to communicate, and focuses on "how to do things" rather than
merely on "how to describe things". So while I will give a cursory
glance at the "Why drama in the classroom?" the main focus of this
presentation is "How to use drama in the classroom?" or rather how to
make English more vivid, emotional, interesting and striking.

Gwangju-Jeonnam KOTESOL
www.kotesol.org/gwangju
[email protected]