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.

Unfortunately the ER colloquium extended into the next presentation slot so I had some free time. Yah, coffee. A short walk down to Starbucks and I was properly caffeinated. I also used this time to hit up publishers for samples of extensive readers and am expecting inspection copies in the mail over the next couple of weeks.

The next event was Jeremy Harmer’s plenary speech. I was quite looking forward to this as Harmer is the author of the first book I ever read on teaching theory, The Practice of English Language Teaching, and really helped me to become a better teacher. Not only is Harmer a brilliant author he is a dynamic, exciting and funny presenter. If you ever get the chance to see Harmer present be sure to go, you won’t be disappointed.  Harmer clearly does not live in an ivory tower and can easily connect with the audience. Just watch out for teachers, in the audience, who suggest that the word ”I” is the most important ”verb” in the English Language.

Harmer’s presentation went a little long and I was unable to make the next session. A short bit of walking around followed by listening to Neil Anderson talk about ACTIVE reading. Active English is the acronym in the image to the left. It is also the title of a series that the talk was promoting. The talk was quite interesting and was more academic than commercial.

At 2:00 I went to Thomas S.C. Farrell’s talk about reflective practice. This was a very interesting presentation. One thing that stuck with me was the idea that teachers may think a class went well or poorly but how do we know that. Teacher response is often I think, I feel, It seems that… Farrell actually asked a teacher one day and she responded with I think the class went well. He encouraged her to ask her students for confirmation and she found some out in the hall and asked them and apparently they felt the opposite of this teacher. It’s necessary to get concrete evidence.

Additionally Farrell further talked about teacher beliefs about how we teach vs how we really teach. He recommended setting up audio or video recorders in your class and then watch/listen to yourself to see if you teach the same way you believe you do. Turns out that quite often ones actions do not match ones beliefs. I am planning on actually recording myself before the end of this semester just to test this out.

I skipped out on the 3 pm presentation and went to Starbucks again. However at 4:00 I went to Marc Hegelson “So You Want to be an Author” presentation. This was really informative as there was a lengthy Q&A with Hegelson, an editor, a publisher, and a marketer from Pearson Longman. I definitely came away with some good ideas to apply towards the book that myself and a friend are writing.

Dinner
After dinner myself and a few others went out for dinner. I went with long time friend and co-author of the book I am writing DH. Jmac long term reader of this blog and infrequent commenter. It was really great to finally meet him and hope to meet again though he lives rather far away in the countryside. Also went out with two other teachers from my university who work in a different department and surprisingly read this blog though they did not know they worked at the same school as I do. Great conversation all around.