The KOTESOL International conference 2009 is just around the corner and pre-registration has been open for awhile now. If you’re going you’ll want to pre-register before October 5 in order to avoid line-ups and also save a little money.

Invited speakers included David Nunan, Rod Ellis, Kathleen Bailey and Scott Thornbury among others. I’m not sure why the conference site doesn’t have bios and pics like it has in previous years. This year you get to try and read a conference poster that is only available in low res – good luck with that.

Anyhow I’ll be there and pre-registering shortly.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Sep 15, 2009 at 07:38 PM
Public_Service_Announcement | Conferences | KOTESOL | |

Yesterday was the KOTESOL National conference. The first session I attended was by Jake Kimball on the topic of Breaking into Research. Jake gave an excellent presentation which was well recieved by the audience. Several people asked for his powerpoints, but Jake didn’t have a place to upload his powerpoint to so I volunteered my blog.

Here is Jakes powerpoint – Breaking into Research: Selecting a Research Topic.

——

To the woman I talked to in the hallway about blogging, my apologies for not remembering your name. The blog that I recommended to you was Larry Ferlazzo, check his blog and blogs he links to and I can guarantee that you will find something of interest.

Also had a good chat with Joe while waiting in line for the lunch that never materialized. We got to lunch a little late, waited 10 minutes to get a small bowl of rice and some wilted salad. Mmm tasty, not.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Mar 29, 2009 at 07:45 AM
KOTESOL | Conferences | |

The annual Seoul KOTEOSL conference is coming up in a few weeks on March 28. I’m planning on attending and will probably be spending most of my time in the “Research Strand” room – you can see what’s on offer by checking the schedule on the page linked above.

The Extensive Reading SIG is also having a meeting following the conference. here is the email I recieved – I will also be attending this meeting.

A few Extensive Reading Special Interest Group announcements and updates:

1. We’d like to have our first ERSIG meeting of the year on March 28th at 5 PM at Soonshil University. This will follow the KOTESOL Seoul Chapter Annual Conference, which will run from 10 AM – 4:45. We were originally planning on having the meeting during the National Conference, but this is a bit late in the year for the things we need to get going.

The agenda for the meeting is as follows:

A. Set the ground work for our two main events of the year, the Extensive Reading Colloquium held during the KOTESOL International Conference, and our own Extensive Reading Symposium (held in Cheonan last year, tentatively planned for Seoul this year).
B. Discuss website issues (see next)
C. Discuss an ER Mentor program to help people set up ER in their schools.
D. Anything else ERSIG members would like to bring up.

Not sure yet what room we’ll be meeting in. More on that soon. We might even make it a dinner-meeting at a nearby restaurant. Please let me know if you plan on attending.

2. Call for a new ERSIG Webmaster
Currently our Webmaster if Tim Dalby, but he’s moved on to a bigger position in KOTESOL and we need someone to fill his shoes. After much discussion with KOTESOL brass, we’ve decided that the ERSIG site should stay on the KOTESOL domain. This means we need someone who can work with the Drupal content management system. I’ve been assured that it is relatively user-friendly. Any volunteers?

Hope to see a lot of you on the 28th!

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Mar 4, 2009 at 08:19 AM
Public_Service_Announcement | Conferences | KOTESOL | |

The following is reprinted from KOTESOL’s English Connection Magazine with permission:

What is the problem?

I have university classes of around 25 students each, and see them for about two and a half hours a week, a situation similar to many teachers in Korea. Not much time for learning by any standard. We work hard to create a positive English-focused class community in school driven by more than mere external motivation. I believe that many of us to a large degree achieve it. However, what happens when our students leave the classroom? Simply put: life happens- while students certainly aren’t alone outside of the school, they are largely alone in their language learning. Even with the best of intentions, and the best of in-class communities, a focus on English interaction tends to dissipate in the absence of a framework which naturally integrates English into communication (as is done so in the classroom).
My goal for my own classes is simple: double the amount of time they spend each week in an English community. I turn to technological solutions, but not without some hesitance.

What is often wrong with Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL)?

Despite writing a tech column, I can think of nothing worse than tech for tech’s sake. Too often it only serves to confuse and further divide teachers and students- an add-on that is tacked on to the program artificially and no more connects students together than more traditional paper-based solutions. Instead of doing regular homework alone they are doing homework online…and still alone. The question is one of whether we can find ways to use technology to make larger English interaction (beyond that with the homework itself) a natural part of students’ weekly cycle.

What can be done?

One solution, but by no means the only one, is to use the Ning social networking platform (ning.com) to replicate your classes online. What is it? The easiest comparison would be to say that Ning is like Facebook or Cyworld, only owned and controlled by the teacher, all for free- a walled garden vs. an open world approach.

Why does it work?

At its core, Ning works because, like other social networking platforms, recreating human interaction is one of its key functions. That this functionality can also be used to facilitate the same sort of group and pair activities we do in our classes is a grand side-effect. Our role then as the teacher it to figure out how to use the various features (blogs, forums, videos, etc.) to place a snowball at the top of the hill and release- letting it accumulate conversations and feedback as it gathers momentum. When students log in they are never alone. They do their homework but just of of the corner of their eyes they can see others in their class working alongside them. Human curiosity leads to peripheral persuasion; they click to see what others are doing, what they are up to, and even just to say hello. We are taking social networking, an activity most of them already spend hours doing for fun, and embracing its potential for near-peer modeling, student-to-student feedback loops and group collaboration.

What is the result?

On a quantifiable level, in my own classes student feedback has improved across the board. More importantly, the level of student output (writing, speech and feedback generation) has increased dramatically- seeming to indicate that given the proper framework English community can succeed outside the classroom walls. What is not quantifiable is the overall better sense of togetherness my classes are experiencing. They are no longer just seeing each other twice a week in an English environment, but also whenever they log onto the network, and that appears to have lead to a much richer development of their second language personas.

Where can I learn more?

Explaining something like Ning is always better done by showing rather than telling. To aid this I’ve put up a large number of screencasts that will walk you through the various steps of creating a Ning network for your classes at joshuawdavies.com/ning, as well as links to my own Ning networks to use as examples. I hope you’ll join me there, as well as on education.ning.com (a site for educators using Ning) to continue this conversation.

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Joshua Davies inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Dec 30, 2008 at 11:46 AM
useful_web_sites | KOTESOL | teaching_application | |

Yesterday was the first day of the KOTESOL 2008 International Conference. I can’t link directly to the conference site as the KOTESOL site is down and I can’t navigate to the conference section. The problem here being that KOTESOL relies on donated server space rather than spending the $100 to $150 a year to get hosting that they should. I heard a rumor that this might change - I guess when your web site is down on the most important event of the year it’s pretty good motivation to spend the money that you should’ve done years ago.

Day One

One thing that KOTESOL definitely needs to be given credit for this year is the introduction of the brown bag presentation. Immediately following the plenary address attendees were able to pick up a free lunch (western or Korean) and either scarf it down quickly or bring into the next session and eat. Everyone that I talked to thought this was a big improvement on previous years where you had to go off site to get a lunch and this inevitably resulted in many people walking into presentations late. I definitely want to see this continue in the future.

Back to the topic at hand - the conference. This year the presentations so far have not been as good as they have been in the past. I’m not sure if this is due to lack of topics of interest, poor presenters, or that I’ve been attending conferences for several years and have seen it all before. In any case there was 2 hours that I skipped yesterday due to lack of interesting presentations and one presentation that I quietly & discretely walked out on after 20 minutes.

The presentations I did see felt like I could have been the presenter except for the plenary address by David Graddol, which was excellent. Didn’t take notes and it’s 5:30am right now so my memory isn’t particularly great - no summary, sorry. I was, however, surprised and extremely annoyed by all the people in the balconey who noisily left with 20 minutes to go.

The presentation by Merton Bland on the Ten Commandments for Teaching English in a Changing World was rather entertaining. A little google search found a 2001 article with the complete list and notes. I don’t agree with them all, but it was definitely entertaining to listen to him.

(1)  Do not teach English.  Teach something, anything, IN English, using English as a vehicle of communication rather than an object of study.  This is sometimes called the content-based curriculum.

(2)  Do not teach grammar.  Ingesting rules can be counterproductive:  We are all familiar with students who are unable to apply rules learned through rote memorization.  Instead, the grammar of English is best acquired inductively by the students formulating their own hypotheses.  (This reflects Krashen’s acquisition vs. learning.)

(3)  Do not teach vocabulary.  The schema, the concept pods which constitute the lexigraphical units of language, vary from language to language, even from person to person.  No language is a direct translation of any other.  Thus, vocabulary must be forged within the target language itself in a manner not unlike that of first language acquisition.  To do otherwise is to risk forging the chains which prevent the bifurcation of the native and target languages and forever making your students translate in their heads word for word.

(4)  Do not teach pronunciation.  There is no longer any standard English.  Well over two-thirds of the world’s 1.5 billion English speakers are non-native speakers.  Their English is certainly as acceptable as the Received Pronunciation (RP) of a tiny fraction of the British or the Broad Midwestern of Hollywood—as long as their English is comprehensible to the greatest number of persons who do not share that particular accent.

(5)  Do not give tests.  While testing is well embedded in many parts of the world, scaling is to be preferred to testing.  Usually tests only require the regurgitation of knowledge.  Scaling, placing people on a scale from beginner to educated native, has much more validity.

(6)  Do not use lesson plans.  Teach students, not lesson plans.  Many teachers come away from their teacher training institutions with a mandated compulsion to spend hours writing lesson plans.  Such planning is quite counterproductive since in an actual teaching situation the teacher must be alert to the reactions of the students—stressing pragmatic considerations, putting more time and effort where the lesson needs it and shortening or eliminating parts where the students seem to be in command of the concept being stressed.  Yes, the teacher should have a general idea of the objectives of the lesson.  Certainly the teacher should have available any materials which will be needed.  Most importantly the teacher should leave time after the lesson to reflect on it and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses.  But the focus of any teaching should be on the students, not on the constraints imposed by any preconceived lesson plan.

(7)  Do not use the native language in the classroom: Never, never, never!  If our aim is the successful bifurcation of the native and target languages, any use of the native language is by definition counterproductive.  Draw a chalkline on the doorsill and proudly use the native language outside the classroom, but create an immersion situation inside.

(8)  Do not use textbooks.  You know your own students better than any textbook author. Authentic materials are all around you.  For example:  Record the news from the VOA or the BBC.  Videotape CNN or Australian TV.  Bring in any expatriate Anglophone in town and have him chat with the students.  Have your school subscribe to the “International Herald Tribune” or “Time” or “Newsweek.”  Borrow English language videos.  If they have subtitles put a book in front of the bottom of the monitor to cover up those subtitles.  Buy, with your own money if necessary, paperbacks.  After you read them they can be the nucleus of an individualized reading program (each student reads his own book and then reports on it to the class).  Have your class keep journals in English, and write their own English to English vocabulary lists.  Have the class write their own book.

(9)  Do not teach the microskills: reading, writing, speaking, listening.  English is one language, indivisible.  And English is a living language; one only dissects the dead.

(10)  Do not teach.  Empower your students to take responsibility for their own learning.  This reflects a general trend, especially in North American education, to deemphasize the role of the teacher as the font of all knowledge and provide the students with the means to further their own educative process beyond the classroom.  This is called the student-centered classroom (as opposed to the teacher-centered classroom).

I may or may not post more about the conference after I return home this evening.

Dinner

After the presentations I went out to On The Border for dinner with a couple of friends.

Day 2

Day 2 summary in the extended entry.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Oct 26, 2008 at 04:29 AM
KOTESOL | Conferences | |

Will you be attending the KOTESOL 2008 International Conference this coming weekend?

I’ve added a poll for you to vote and/or you could leave a comment.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Oct 19, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Polling_Station | KOTESOL | Conferences | |

I just recieved the following email from KOTESOL regarding the Seoul Chapter annual conference. If you are intersted in presenting or attending click the link to learn more.

Dear KOTESOL Colleagues,

KOTESOL Seoul Chapter is seeking workshop presenters for the Seoul Chapter annual conference on March 28, 2009.

For more information, please check out the notice on the Seoul Chapter main page (http://www.kotesol.org/?q=Seoul).

The conference offers an opportunity to share your research and teaching insights with like-minded colleagues in a professional yet warm and cordial setting. We urge you to send in your proposals, even if it might be a first for you!

Best wishes,

Grace Wang
KOTESOL Seoul Chapter, Secretary

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Sep 25, 2008 at 01:20 PM
Public_Service_Announcement | Conferences | KOTESOL | |

I just received an email indicating that I will be presenting later this year at the KOTESOL 2008 International Conference. I’ll be presenting in an Extensive Reading Colloquium and my topic will be: Supplementing a general English course with graded readers.

I first mentioned this last month when I was invited to participate - it’s good to hear it’s been confirmed. Now looking forward to October.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Apr 13, 2008 at 08:56 AM
KOTESOL | Conferences | |

I’ve been invited to participate in an extensive reading colloquim at the KOTESOL international conference in October. This is a room with 5-6 different presenters at their own individual stations where they speak and answer questions for about 20 minutes three or four times. attendees move from one station to the next and thus get several different points of view and experiences with Extensive reading in an intensive and personal manner.

Coincidentally March is Reading Month, at least in North America. My next column for the Korea Herald will be an introduction to Extensive Reading.

Additionally KOTESOL has started an Extensive Reading SIG. I’ve copied and pasted the information below including contact information for Scott Miles (he’s in charge). I’m not sure why there isn’t a spot on the KOTESOL web page for the SIG. I guess it’s coming soon.

We are very happy to announce the formation of the Extensive Reading Special Interest Group (ERSIG). Extensive reading is a great way to develop reading and overall language skills, and we’d like to do what we can to promote in further in Korea. Some of the purposes of ERSIG are as follows:
1. Promote extensive reading as a viable approach to reading and general language development in Korea.
2. Share ideas on how to apply extensive reading in the language classroom in Korea
3. Promote and disseminate research related to extensive reading practices
This spring we hope to recruit a number of people to join as officers and members and then hold our first meeting to define ERSIG’s structure, policies and goals. We will also try to get some time to speak in local KOTESOL chapter meetings to drum up some interest. Finally, to get ERSIG started off with a big bang, we plan to hold a symposium focused on extensive reading in the early fall. We hope to draw in some of the bigger names in the field of extensive reading.
We encourage anyone interested in joining ERSIG or just getting more information to contact us:
Scott Miles: (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Aaron Jolly: (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Mar 9, 2008 at 08:24 AM
Public_Service_Announcement | KOTESOL | |

Korean mothers only want a White Native-Speaker English teacher for their children: Myth or reality?

In blogs and break rooms alike, you may have heard that Korean mothers prefer native speakers to teach their children English. But who counts as a native speaker? Do Korean parents of hagwon kids want anyone who has spoken English from early childhood? Those of us who have taught here for a while have looked around and noticed that, in Korea, not all native speakers are created equal. If this is true, then what kind of native speaker do they prefer? Are Korean and other non-White teachers unilaterally seen as less preferable, or are there factors that might increase their appeal? Does gender matter? Do mothers prefer female teachers, as we’ve heard? We know age is important in Korea, but how important is it for choosing an English teacher? Or perhaps we’re assigning blame where none is due. Is it the hagwon owners who are to blame for hiring on the basis of race, age, native-speaker status, and plain old good looks?

We were curious about what Korean moms really look for when shopping for an English teacher for their child. As part of our research into the issue, we have been asking Korean mothers from a variety of social and economic backgrounds what they want in an English teacher for their child and why. Our research aims to heighten the understanding of the issue and to better address non-native English speaking teacher (NNEST) inequality in Korea. There have been only a few studies on this subject (Chang, 2005) and our study serves as an investigation into the factors that influence perceptions and preferences for English teachers.

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kmacd inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Jan 24, 2008 at 08:43 PM
general_linguistic_study | Teaching | KOTESOL | Guest Author | |

On day two of the conference I ended up seeing a lot less presentations. The first presentation that I saw was on Extending Speaking Opportunities in the EFL context. This presentation focused on a Japanese universities use of something similar to an English Club, but with NS facilitators with the meetings set up at lunch time. It was interesting but not something that I would want to try. I saw the same speaker in the next hour talking about Book Report Forms for Graded Readers. This was a much more interesting presentation and I will be taking some of the ideas away and using them this semester with my Advanced class as they are about due to be finished their novels (not graded readers but the principle is still the same) During the discussion time I was asked by the OUP rep for my email and it looks like he’s interested in something I do with graded readers (regular freshmen and moodle). I also talked to him about the possibility of materials review and development - hope that pans out.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Oct 29, 2007 at 03:19 PM
KOTESOL | Conferences | |

I just got back from the KOTESOL conference today. I had a good run of presentations with no technical problems as has been this case in years past. However I did talk to one presenter who had loads of trouble so clearly KOTESOL still hasn’t ironed out all thier tech issues yet.

I started off the day by attending an Extensive Reading Colloquim with six speakers. I had time to listen to two of them; Marc Helgelson (who just happens to be one of the best presenters I have ever seen and always enjoy his presentations) and Tracy Waring. One other presenter I am friends with and didn’t need to see his presentation though it would have been worth going to. Hegelson gave an overview of extensive reading (ER) and various approaches to using graded readers in the EFL classroom. This was a good presentation especially if you are new to ER. Even though I know some I came away enriched. I then listened to Tracy Waring talk about how to choose extensive readers for your class. This was an interesting discussion and I especialy liked the chart that he provided that listed all the publishers and the how many books available and at what headword level they are available.

Both ER presentations gave some ideas of how to confirm that students have read the books. These ranged from the traditional book report to drawing a picture of a scene in the book, to how would you change the book if you were the author. Everything was excellent. One thing that I found interesting is that for extensive reading it is best for students to be reading at or below their current ability. I always thought it was best to be on target. But it was suggested that rather than Krashen’s approach of i+1 with extensive reading it should actually be i-1. The best part of the colloquim though were the tons of free samples available. participants were asked several times to go to the books and take copies. I walked away with six more graded readers for my personal library that I make available to students to borrow. I would have gotten more but the majority of the readers were for young learners.

There is more in the extended entry.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Oct 27, 2007 at 08:15 PM
Teaching | KOTESOL | Conferences | |

KOTESOL has extended the pre-registration period to October 4th for the international conference on October 27/28. Details in the extended entry

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Oct 2, 2007 at 12:02 PM
KOTESOL | |

The KOTESOL national conference is coming up and early registration is almost over. For some reason I haven’t been recieving the KOTESOL emails lately so I forgot about the deadline. Anyhow if you are planning on going, you might want to register early in order to save a little money.

Plenary Speakers: Jeremy Harmer (The Practice of English Language Teaching)
                  Dr. Jun Liu (TESOL President, 2006-07)
Featured Speakers: Dr. Thomas S.C. Farrell, Dr. Mike Levy,
                  Dr. Tim Murphey, Dr. Neil Anderson,
                  Dr. Elka Todeva, Dr. Rob Waring,
                  Dr. Bill Snyder, Steven Gershon, Gary C. Rector

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Sep 20, 2007 at 05:10 AM
Public_Service_Announcement | Conferences | KOTESOL | |

The Seoul Chapter of KOTESOL is having an annual conference on March 31. I found out yesterday when I receievd a postcard in the mail. I’ve scanned it and removed my address in order to post it here. The direct link to the conference without much information is here. The postcard I received has more info including a map. click image for bigger size.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Mar 9, 2007 at 08:48 AM
Public_Service_Announcement | Conferences | KOTESOL | |

Will you present at KOTESOL 2007?

Total Votes: 25

Yes

 48% (12)

 

No

 28% (7)

 

I'd like to but the deadline is too early

 24% (6)

 

I recieved an email yesterday calling for papers to present at the 2007 KOTESOL conference. While I’m positive that I’ll be attending, I can’t quite plan that far ahead to have a presentation abstract ready. The deadline has moved from June to March 2nd. I’ve added a poll to this entry, please vote. The email and details are in the extended entry.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Thursday Jan 25, 2007 at 02:16 PM
Public_Service_Announcement | Polling_Station | KOTESOL | |

Today was the second and final day of the annual KOTESOL conference. I got there early to see a presentation only find out that it had moved to another room. Once I got to that room I found out that I had the wrong info, went back to the information booth where they then told me that in addition to the room change the time had changed as well. I ended up attending a presentation on CBI (content based instruction) which included alot of information I was aware from several years of having taught CBI.  THere was some new information as well and it was well worth attending.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Oct 29, 2006 at 08:16 PM
KOTESOL | Conferences | |

Day one is over. I got there very early Saturday morning to avoid line ups and to have enough time to look through the program guide in order to choose my first presentation. This year I was watching the presentations with more of a critical eye since I am teaching a presentation skills class. It was interesting to note that the first presentation I saw was a textbook example of what not to do. The final one I attended, on the other hand, was a textbook example of how to conduct a presentation. Wish I had a camcorder available during both of those so my students could see them.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Oct 28, 2006 at 05:49 PM
KOTESOL | Conferences | |

Are you going to KOTESOL 2006?

Total Votes: 17

yes, I live in Korea.

 47% (8)

 

yes, I live outside of Korea

 0% (0)

 

no, I live in Korea

 6% (1)

 

no, I live outside of Korea

 47% (8)

 

So are you going to the KOTESOL conference this coming weekend? I’ll be there and am looking forward to several of the presentations. ATTN: RSS readers - there’s a poll, you can vote and tell the world if you are coming or not.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Oct 22, 2006 at 12:49 PM
Public_Service_Announcement | Polling_Station | KOTESOL | |

I checked my mailbox this morning and had a postcard from KOTESOL informing me about the upcoming Spring 2006 Conference on May 13. The conference has mostly local speakers but there are a number of published authors that I am unfamiliar with giving presentations including David Paul, Dr. Caroline Linse, & Tomas Santos.

There are two keynote speakers, Professor Sei-Kyung Cho and Dr. Paul Nation, whom I have seen speak before and enjoyed thoroughly. I’ll probably go just to see Nation.

Interestingly the postcard tells me that early registration is from April 10-21, but today is April 19. I looked at the postmark and saw that it wasn’t even sent until April 14 - Way to be on top of things KOTESOL. But KOTESOL has a history of incompetence so I’m not surprised.

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Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Apr 19, 2006 at 10:06 AM
Public_Service_Announcement | Conferences | KOTESOL | |