In the world in which we live in - a summary of David Crystal's plenary at IATEFL 2013

 

David Crystal

I have to admit that, despite my best intentions, I didn't manage to see much of this year's IATEFL conference in Liverpool live, but I'm certainly catching up now by watching the recordings.  There was one session I saw live, though - the opening plenary by David Crystal.  It felt great to 'be' there, even though I was sitting at my desk 6,000 miles away in Vietnam.  Before the plenary began, Eric Baber invited the audience in the hall to wave to all those of us following online, wherever we were in the world.  I'm sure I wasn't the only one to wave back!!  What follows is a summary of David's presentation.  I realise I am by no means the only one to do this, but I'm writing it anyway for my own PD and as a reference for anyone else who wasn't there on the day.

The full title of the session was:

In the world in which we live in - Beatles, blends and blogs 

 

Clearly, the inspiration for the first part of the title comes from a line in the Paul McCartney's hit, 'Live and Let Die', 'This ever-changing world in which we live in'.  There is a double preposition here which people don't notice when they listen to the song - it only becomes apparent when you see it written down.  Indeed, so many people noticed it when it was published in the pre-conference material that David was inundated with messages from people telling him about the 'mistake' in the title of his plenary!

 

So, what do we have here?  Well, it's a syntactical blend.  We're quite used to lexical blends (new words formed from two existing words), such as brunch, motel and heliport.  Indeed, such words usually find their way into dictionaries when they are accepted into common usage.  Syntactical blends, in contrast, don't find their way into grammar books.  No matter how widely they are used, they are still considered to be wrong.  Grammar books do not help language learners to understand the syntactic blends they will hear all the time in spoken English and even see written down.

 

Look at these examples:

• I don't know to which hotel I'm going to.
• From which country does a Lexus come from?
• For which party will you vote for?

Syntactic blends happen when people are unsure which structure to use.  This often happens when there is a clash between formal and informal usage.  The old rule was always - Never end a sentence with a preposition.  This led to ludicrous and some tongue-in-cheek examples, such as Churchill's famous '...something up with which he would not put'!!  This rule has left a legacy that an end-placed preposition is wrong, but natural speech makes it sound better, especially if it's a monosyllabic preposition that naturally goes after a verb to make a phrasal verb. 

 

We are more likely to see these blends when there is a lot of distance between the two prepositions.  Blending, though, can take place between any two or more constructions.  They happen all the time in spoken English.  These blends even have a name - anacoluthon (plural - anacolutha) - meaning constructions lacking in grammatical accuracy.  They often happen when you start a sentence, change your mind about what you are going to say half way through, and finish in a different way.

 

Until comparatively recently, blends rarely appeared in public writing because they were edited out.  Now, however, with the popularity of blogs, we are seeing them more and more.  When it comes to publishing blogs, there is little or no external editing.  The style might be spontaneous and conversational, but, because it is written down, the image is that it is formal and careful.  As blog writers, we could self-edit, but the evidence is that we rarely do.  Therefore, blends appear in blogs all the time.

 

Grammar helps us to psychologically process what's going on.  The number of chunks we can process is limited by our memory.  Therefore, if there are too many words between the noun and the verb phrase, errors are likely to occur.  Comprehension is governed by the distribution of weight throughout a sentence.  In English, we usually put the weight at the end of a sentence, after the main verb.  There is sometimes a little adverbial length before the main verb, but not much.  If too much information is put before the main verb, it's difficult to understand.  The longer the subject goes on, the more irritated the listener gets.

 

For native speakers and proficient users, blends occur when the grammar doesn't keep pace with the writer's thought.  So, it is obvious that learners' writing will often contain blends, especially if they are trying to use more complex structures.  Blends tend to be more common when there's pressure on the speaker or writer, homework deadlines or presentations in front of the class, for example. 

 

In our learners, blends should be seen as evidence of growth, not as errors.  As emotions rise, blends increase.  It's no good telling a student blends are wrong if they see them all the time on the internet.  As teachers, we need to be tolerant.  We shouldn't teach blends, but we need to know how to disentangle and explain them.

 

David's final thought - 'Don't condemn yourself if you use a blend - after all, it;'s the world in which we live in!'

 

 

You can find the pdf of David's slides here.





IATEFL interviews - part two

 

As the first step in catching up with IATEFL 2013, I'm spending some time watching interviews with key players at the conference.  I find that this gives me real insights into some aspects of our profession that I might not have known about or sought out before.  I wrote about the day one interviews here.

Day two began with an interview with Victoria Boobyer, one of the founders of eltpics.  This is a fantastic resource for classroom use.  Teachers around the world share their photos under a creative commons license.  The photos are shared on Twitter (using the #eltpics hashtag) and then uploaded to Flickr by a dedicated team of volunteers.  They are organised into themed sets so that they can be easily accessed and utilised by teachers.  I have both shared photos with eltpics and made use of the resource myself in the classroom and recommend it to all teachers.  At IATEFL this week, Victoria presented on 'teaching with hand-held devices'.

The next interview was with David Crystal, the opening plenary speaker.  I'll hold off on writing about his interview, or indeed the next one with Deniz Kurtoglu Eken here, as I intend to summarise their presentations later.

There followed an interview with Katie Quartano and Paul Shaw talking about DAF, Disabled Access Friendly.  Their aim is to teach EFL and raise awareness of disability issues at the same time.  Their website, which has been live for just over a year and already attracts 10,000 hits a month from over 100 countries, has free teaching resources to use in the classroom.  They currently have 60 graded reader texts and lesson plans, all of which are free to use with no registration required.  They have plans to expand and are always looking for new ideas.  Teachers are welcome to send materials to the site for consideration.  The goal is to raise awareness in students who have no knowledge or experience of disabled people, but the material also challenges teachers.  Does the teacher have the confidence to question his own preconceptions and stereotypes?

Chia Suan Chong, Ken Wilson and Caroline Moore were interviewed next about the thinking behind the 'Failure Fest' that was coming up later in the week.  'Out of disaster comes success'.

Next up were Eryl Griffiths and Laxman Gnawali.  Eryl is on the IATEFL committee which co-ordinates the scholarships which allow participants to attend the conference.  Laxman, from Nepal, was one of this years' scholarship winners.  There are currently 28 scholarships on offer for each conference, though the hope is to increase that number for the 2016 50th anniversary IATEFL.  Applications for scholarships to attend next year's conference in Harrogate will open on 20th April and close on 22nd August.  Details will be available on the IATEFL website.

Mark Hancock was next, talking about a pronunciation SIG pre-conference event on English as a lingua franca.  The idea was put forward that we should look at the sounds of English that students have in their L1 rather than the ones they don't.  He also previewed his presentation on the problems of connected speech with this example:

• Watch or a dress?
• What's your address?

Also, which song did this student transcribe?

• Yes, today.  Old mens' doubles teams so far away........   :-)

Duncan Foord

Being interviewed next was Duncan Foord.  He was talking about an 'open space conference'.  Based on the idea that at conferences, you often learn more during the coffee breaks than you do during the sessions themselves, creating an 'open space' gives an opportunity for an exchange of views and ideas rather than a speaker just addressing an audience.  Such a conference works on the 'law of two feet', whereby people can just walk away if the topic doesn't interest them.  Duncan hopes to add 'open spaces' to future IATEFL conferences. 

There followed two interviews with representatives from the British Council, Anna Searle and Martin Peacock before Philip Prowse came in to talk about the Extensive Reading Foundation, a non-profit organisation which runs the Language Learner Literature Awards.  Philip pointed out the use of the word 'literature' in the title of the awards, saying that just because a learner is a beginner at a language doesn't mean that he is a beginner at life and so he deserves to read something of quality.  Extensive reading is lots of reading at an appropriate level.  This has been proven to improve all skills, leading to better exam results.  The right level is deemed to be 95 - 98% comprehension.  Simply by reading, students improve their language ability, but material for graded readers needs to be interesting and appropriate.

Mark Walker was interviewed next.  He talked about the IELTS test and its global reach with 1.9 million tests now taken every year.  China and India are important markets for the test with the results being used for study, employment and emigration purposes.  The Take IELTS  and Road to IELTS websites from the British Council provide free practice materials for students, as well as tips for teachers.  The most important factor though, in Mark's opinion, is that students have a good grounding in general English before they even think about preparing for the IELTS test.

Jim Scrivener

The next interview was with Scott Thornbury who spoke about holistic learning and humanistic language teaching.  He was followed by Jim Scrivener talking about 'demand high' teaching.  This is an idea he came up with together with Adrian Underhill.  They both felt that students often just go through the motions when it comes to learning English and we, as teachers, don't push them hard enough.  We need to make students explore the language further.  Jim doesn't consider 'demand high'; to be a new methodology.  Rather, it's an idea, a meme.  He wants us all to ask ourselves:

• Am I challenging my students as much as I could?
• What more could I do?

Often, too much time is spent 'covering' the book or having fun.  We need to question the orthodoxy of what we're doing in ELT and where we've got to.  Teachers feel that their job is to keep turning the pages of a coursebook.  That's OK, but we can tweak it a bit so that we always ask, 'Where is the learning in this?'  Once we've understood where the learning is, we can help it to happen more.  We need to worry more about that and less about making sure we've got pretty pictures and great games.

Go to Jim's 'demand high' website to download some observation tasks for peer or self observations.  These will help us to look at how much we demand of our students.

Next came an interesting interview with Philida Schellekens who was talking about work-based language learning, trying to prepare students for the language they'll need in the workplace and using the medium of English to teach concepts, a little like CLIL for adults.  Based on her work with immigrant workers, particularly in the construction industry, Philida suggests that the best way we can help our students is to really understand the job they are going to do by shadowing a worker who does the job already.  Record what they say in order to get a real understanding of the language a student will need.  If possible, leave the recorder running and walk away - this way you'll get a more accurate picture.  For example, when it comes to swearing, you may well need to teach your students not only meaning, but appropriacy in context.  When you see what English is really needed and compare it with English syllabi we teach from, even ESP ones, the two don't match very well!!

Shaun Wilden gave the penultimate interview of the day.  His theme was 'autonomous CPD begins at home', a topic which is close to my heart and which usually involves me in a weekly 'meet-up' with Shaun for #eltchat.

Paul Seligson

Finally, it was the turn of Paul Seligson who spoke about the need for different approaches to teaching monolingual classes, particularly of low-level adult students.  Adult learners need confidence - they need to believe in their English speaking selves.  So many of them find the process of learning English too difficult and they give up.  We need to find ways to prevent this and one way would be to allow the limited use of L1 in the classroom.  Total immersion has its place with children and teens, but immersion with adult beginners is torture!  We need to allow them to use contrastive grammar and let them speak about it in their L1.  Prohibition is a blunt instrument which doesn't take account of the cognitive process.

So, those were day two's interviews..... and the answer to the song lyrics - 'Yesterday' by the Beatles - as if there's anyone reading this who didn't get that!! :-)

 

IATEFL 2013 ends - now the reflection begins

 

IATEFL 2013 ended last night in Liverpool and from my perspective here in Vietnam, I have to say, it's been quite a week!  Full of resolve and good intentions at the start of the week, by Tuesday I was feeling rather overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information coming at me from all directions!  Then, work commitments had to take priority, so, for the latter part of the conference, the only connection I had with proceedings was via the Twitter feed.  I still felt, though, that I was part of it and I was inspired by the snippets I was reading.

Now it is Saturday morning and I am beginning the mammoth task of catching up on what I missed.  Several members of my PLN have been saying the same thing - it feels like we've got several months' worth of interviews and presentations to watch, blogposts and articles to read, links to follow.  With so much information out there, it's tempting to think, 'why bother?'  For me, the answer is simple - it's for my own CPD.  I will learn a huge amount by following up on events in Liverpool and reflecting on them.  As is my wont, I will write up a lot of what I see and publish posts here on my blog.  This is mainly for my own benefit, but if others read what I write and gain some insight or ideas from it, then it's all to the good.

I know there will be plenty of people, many of them better qualified than I, writing about IATEFL in the coming weeks and months, but I make no apologies for adding to the plethora of posts which will appear.  Watch this space - there's plenty to come!!

The IATEFL effect - I think my head might explode!!

 

As I write, day two of IATEFL 2013 (day one of the conference proper) is still in full flow.  Here in Vietnam, however, Tuesday 9th April is almost over and I am reflecting on how it's been for me so far.  The answer is .... frenetic!  In my desire to be a part of things, even from 6000 miles away, I've definitely tried to do too much.  After experiencing technical difficulties yesterday (I wrote about these here), I got up at the crack of dawn this morning (actually, that's a lie - it was still pitch black outside when I switched on my computer!) in an attempt to catch up on all the recorded interviews I'd missed.  I was largely successful in this endeavour and wrote a post about what I'd seen, but the consequence of my nocturnal writings was that I was already tired when I started work and was in no fit state to cope with the cyber onslaught I was bombarded with when events got under way in Liverpool at 9am BST (3pm here)!

I was geared up to watch David Crystal's plenary.  It was important for me to experience it live, rather than watch the recording later.  What I wasn't prepared for, though, was the huge amount of activity in the hour or so before the conference actually started.  My wonderful PLN were tweeting and retweeting like crazy.  The sense of excitement was palpable, even from all these miles away.  I was desperately trying to keep up - I didn't want to miss a single choice nugget - but it was impossible; my Twitter feed has never whizzed by at such a rate in all the years I've been using it!



Sandy Millin

One member of my PLN, the fantastic @sandymillin, was tweeting about Mike Hogan's presentation which was on before the opening plenary.  It was the next best thing to being there myself, but I was blown away when notification of her summary of Mike's talk in the form of a blog post published on her site, dropped into my inbox at 2.51pm (8.51am in the UK)!!  At that point, I gave up any idea of trying to keep up and sat back to rethink my strategy!

I did watch the opening plenary live and really enjoyed it, especially when Eric Baber invited delegates to wave down the camera to all those of us tuning in around the world and we all waved back!  By the end of David's talk, I had reminded myself of why I was following IATEFL online (for my own PD) and had accepted that there was no way I'd be able to record all the amazing things I was seeing and hearing.  Instead, I decided that, for the rest of the week, I'll watch as much as I can live, bookmark everything else I don't want to miss, and then write measured, reflective posts when I have time to do so.



Chia Suan Chong

So, that's my plan, but, in the meantime, @sandymillin, @chiasuan and all the other truly amazing people who make up my PLN, please keep the tweets and posts coming - there's a whole world of us out here who really appreciate your sharing!!

Day 1 of IATEFL 2013 - interviews with key players

In my role as registered IATEFL blogger I am happy to record my thoughts on the first day of events in Liverpool from my desk 6,000 miles away in Binh Duong, Vietnam.

The conference proper doesn't actually get underway until today (April 9th), but yesterday saw several SIG (special interest groups) events, as well as a series of interviews with key players from the conference.  Some of the SIG sessions and all of the interviews were live streamed and my intention was to watch these online as they happened in order to experience as real a sense as I could of being 'at' the conference.  In the event, however, the technology let me down.  

I was hoping to follow the LTSIG (learning technologies) presentations and, after a few technical hitches in Liverpool, this seemed as if it would be perfectly possible.  I could 'see' some familiar faces in the room (@Marisa_C and @ShaunWilden to name but two) and 'chat' to others in the livestream chatbox.  I was enjoying the first presentation on CALL and Learner Autonomy by Huw Jarvis and was looking forward to the next on the flipped classroom when ...... my internet connection dropped out and the reality of living in a developing country hit me full in the face!  After a few short bursts of a very dodgy connection at too slow a speed to watch anything properly, I gave up.  I was surprised at just how disappointed I felt to be prevented from taking any further part in the live events.

This morning, with renewed resolve, I got up early to watch the recordings of yesterday's interviews before I went to work.  Doing so gave me a real sense of the conference ahead and some leads for further reading.

The first interview was with the presenters of IATEFL online who gave an overview of what was to come and advised the audience on how to get involved and keep up with the events in Liverpool.  This was very useful, although, I have to say the IATEFL online website is so clear and easily navigable that participants shouldn't have any difficulty in finding the relevant information for themselves.

Next up was Monika Knapkiewicz, a member of the online team who described her role as moderator of the online communication channels (Twitter, Facebook and forums) as 'the best job I've ever had' despite the fact that she spends most of the week shut in a tiny office!!  She described the buzz she gets from knowing that thousands of teachers around the world are using IATEFL online as part of their CPD, watching live sessions together with their colleagues or reviewing videos of presentations later.

Eric Baber

Outgoing IATEFL president Eric Baber was interviewed next.  He explained how he got the job and what the role involves.  He said that his greatest achievement as president has been to position IATEFL so successfully in online networks and that, contrary to what you might expect, providing stuff for free online seems to have increased membership rather than caused people not to bother joining.  IATEFL now has over 4000 members with 15 SIGS, the newest of these being MAWSIG (materials and writing) which is intended for anyone who's involved in creating materials (i.e. all teachers), not just professional coursebook writers.

Eric's interview was followed by one with the incoming IATEFL president Carol Read.  She has an idea to produce a history of IATEFL from the very first conference which had only 125 people and a flimsy eight-page leaflet to accompany proceedings.

Gavin Dudeney

Gavin Dudeney was next.  He talked about keeping people informed about IATEFL online, the aim being that first time visitors to the conference are better informed than they would otherwise have been.  Despite Gavin's online presence and his advocacy of technology (including the development of the IATEFL app), he said, 'There's nothing quite like having people in the same room drinking coffee together.  Five minutes face-to-face beats an hour online.'  

Gavin also previewed his own presentation which will take place during the last session before the closing plenary on Friday.  He will talk about digital literacies ahead of the publication of his new book written with Nicky Hockley and Mark Pegrum.

The next interview was with Tim Phillips, the British Council's Head of Teacher Development, who talked about the Teaching English website and its benefits for teachers throughout the world.  Through the site, teachers can access a range of free webinars and a wealth of other materials to help with their CPD. He talked about the development of 'a global community for a global profession'.

Deborah Healey from the University of Oregon was interviewed next.  She is visiting IATEFL for the first time as part of an exchange arrangement between IATEFL and TESOL.  She noted more similarities than differences between the two organisations.  She also talked about English language learning through playing computer games.

The penultimate interview of the day was with Kevan Cummins, the man in charge of the British Council's family of learner websites - for kids, for teens and for adults.  He told us that the Learn English Kids site gets over 1 million hits every month and that the new 'Grammar with Gran' feature is particularly popular.  The teen site uses lots of video material and also has a skills section which gives users handy exam tips.  Kevan explained that his main challenge now is to make the content of the sites work on mobile devices and to make them more intuitive for kids to use.  More and more youn learners are using tablets on their own rather than desktops with supervision.

The final interview was with Julian Wing and Martin Heineberg, two of the people responsible for maintaining the IATEFL online website.  Their goal is to provide a great conference experience for teachers who are unable to attend in person.  Online coverage began with the Aberdeen conference in 2007 and attracted a worldwide audience of about 3,500.  This contrasts sharply with last year when over 80,000 teachers took part.  This year promises to be even bigger.  As Julian said, 'This project democratises knowledge.  It gives access to people for whom international travel is impossible.'

I, for one, am grateful for the efforts of all those involved in making IATEFL accessible and am looking forward to following events during the rest of the week - technology permitting, of course!!

What every EFL teacher should know

 

This was the title of Paul Nation's closing plenary at the recent CamTESOL conference.  His speech picked up on parts of his latest book of the same name and its sister publication, 'What every ESL teacher should know', which he has generously made available as a free download here.

Nation proposes that there are twenty most useful language teaching techniques:

Notes on a few of these:

1. Listening to stories - the teacher reads to the students.  This is appropriate and useful at all levels.
2. Read and listen - using digital recorders, the speed of the playback can be changed according to the learner's ability.
3. Speed reading - make use of some of the many free downloadable speed reading courses available online.
4. 10-minute writing - here the focus is on fluency rather than accuracy so the work is uncorrected.
5. Linked skills - integrated skills tasks.
6. Issue logs - students choose a topic and gather information about it over a few weeks.  The narrow focus of the research means that vocabulary is repeated and students are more likely to retain it.
7. Word cards - deliberate learning = implicit knowledge (Language Learning 2010).

The five most significant changes you can make to an English language programme are:

1. Use linked skills activities - activities which integrate reading, writing, listening and speaking.
2. Introduce an extensive reading programme at the appropriate levels for input and fluency development.  This exposes students to a great deal of authentic material in the target language.  Don't teach so much and use the extra time to do extensive reading.  Several research projects have proven the effectiveness of this idea. 
3. Introduce a fluency development programme incorporating 4/3/2 speaking activities, speed reading and 10-minute writing.
4. Encourage peer listening and speaking.
5. Introduce vocabulary size testing.

The teacher's jobs:

1. Plan a good course - this is the most important job for a teacher.  At the planning stage, you must ensure that all four strands mentioned in the table above are covered.
2. Organise learning opportunities both in and outside the classroom.
3. Train learners in language learning strategies so that they are encouraged to be independent in their learning.
4. Test learners to make sure that they are making progress and that they know how well they are doing.
5. Teach - the least important of the five jobs, but still vital!  Teaching should be less than a quarter of the course time.

Getting balance into a course

The amount of time in a course for the four strands, the four skills and teaching activities:

So, the key is to devote a quarter of the course time to each of the four strands.  The aim is for students to be fluent (appropriate to level) at all levels of a language course.

Principles

1. The four strands
2. Input - from reading and listening.  Make use of graded readers with audio recordings, available from 100 to 8000 words.
3. Time on task - spend time on what you want to be good at.
4. Direction of effort - focus on things you want to learn.

Free resources

• Look on Paul Nation's website for mid-frequency readers, the Range programme with lists going up to the 25th 1000, the Vocabulary Resource Booklet, two parallel forms of the 20,000 Vocabulary Size Test plus a detailed description of the test.
• The Compleat Lexical Tutor
• An online vocabulary size test

 

The language educator and globalisation – how do we best prepare our learners?

This was the title of the opening plenary at the recent CamTESOL conference.  The speaker was Richmond Stroupe and what follows is a summary of his talk.

Richmond Stroupe

The English language is a source of economic opportunity for many of our learners.  Nowadays, being able to speak English is seen as a basic skill – a given, an expectation – rather than an advantage.  As this trend continues, the age at which users become proficient in the English language will decrease.  It takes eight years for a language learner to achieve proficiency, so children are beginning to learn at a younger age.  There is also a growing importance placed on plural-lingualism.  Many people are learning multiple languages in different contexts.  English language skill is just one skill in a basket of skills that learners need as competitiveness in business increases.

English is not enough anymore.  English language teachers often have to teach study and workplace skills too.  Some questions we need to think about:

• How do we empower our students?
• How do we make them global citizens?
• How do we bring these skills into our ELT classroom?

There are many examples now where institutions are introducing ESP workshops and short courses as part of their ELT programmes.  Skills covered might include:

• Negotiation
• Report writing
• The etiquette of meetings
• Social English
• Collaboration
• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Responsibility
• Critical thinking

The importance of the last one – critical thinking – cannot be underestimated.  CT skills are extremely important and teaching them shouldn’t be limited to high-level students only.  We need to scaffold the skills back to make them appropriate to the level and then develop them over time.

We can teach many of these academic and workplace skills through task based learning and group work, where the final product is a poster presentation for example.  Here, the teacher’s role is facilitator rather than teacher.

We also need to bring aspects of intercultural communicative competence, such as flexibility, adaptability, interaction and respect, into our classrooms.  This applies even if we are teaching in a monolingual, mono-cultural setting.  In the global village we live in now, such homogenous groups rarely exist in the workplace.  We need to remember that culture isn’t just what we see on the outside – we also need to teach a deeper understanding of beliefs and behaviours.  Culture consists of:

• Beliefs +
• Behaviours +
• Artefacts +
• Institutions

Integrated language skills, such as those we teach in order for students to pass the TOEFL exam, are key to equipping our students for the 21^st century workplace.  This is the approach used all the time in academia and business and we need to do it in our classrooms.

English language teachers have a tremendous amount of responsibility!!

I am an IATEFL registered blogger!!

Yes, I'm shouting it from the rooftops!!

For those of you who don't know, next week sees the staging of the 47th annual IATEFL conference, the biggest and most well-known event pertaining to our profession anywhere in the world.  This year's conference is being held in Liverpool's Arena and Convention Centre from April 8th - 12th.  

If you can't attend in person, however, don't worry!  The plenary sessions and lots of interviews are being live-streamed throughout the conference so you can be a part of events no matter where you are in the world.  Go to the website now and register - that way, you'll be able to take part in the forums and discussions as well as follow the live events.

 

Click here to watch a welcome message from IATEFL president, Eric Baber and here to check out the schedule for the plenary sessions so that you can plan your time next week.

 

As for me, I've already filled my diary with the sessions I don't want to miss, but I have a confession to make.... I did the same last year and then work commitments got in the way and, to my regret, I didn't get involved in IATEFL 2012 at all!!  So, this year, I decided to apply to be a registered blogger for the online conference, figuring that it would force me to attend sessions and write about them!  Last night, I received my acceptance e-mail so it's all systems go!  This is the first of, I hope, several blog posts offering my summaries of sessions attended as well as thoughts on the overall experience of attending an international conference online.  I hope some of you will come on the journey with me!

CamTESOL 2013

Last weekend (February 22nd - 24th) saw the 9th annual CamTESOL conference in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  This event drew over 1,500 participants from 33 countries who came together to talk about, and share ideas on, all that is relevant in the world of teaching English as a foreign or a second language.  The theme of the event was 'Language and Empowerment' and, unlike perhaps more high-profile or fashionable conferences in our industry, it really did feel like we were making a difference by being there and empowering our Cambodian colleagues with the knowledge we were able to share.  In return, many foreign delegates, myself included, came away having been truly inspired by the dedication and passion displayed by the Cambodian participants, many of whom teach, or are training to teach, in institutions with very limited resources.

It is a credit to the Cambodian people that they are able to stage such a successful international event so soon after emerging on to the world stage in terms of language teaching.  English wasn't even taught in Cambodia until 1991.

The venues used for CamTESOL were the plush surroundings of the Cambodiana Hotel, where we met for the presenters' cocktail party on the Friday night and the gala dinner on the Saturday, and the rather more basic National Institute of Education.  Apart from the main hall, this collection of tired, rather run-down buildings lacking in any modern conveniences did not at first sight seem conducive to ground-breaking, inspirational teaching and learning experiences.  In reality, however, they were perfect.  For those of us coming from rather more modern and well-resourced facilities abroad, the venue was a constant reminder of the normal circumstances in which Cambodian teachers work and, stripped of the technology and other 'mod-cons' we take for granted, we were forced to go back to basics and really think about the audience we were addressing and, also, listen to those who were teaching us.  The enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge shown by the Cambodian teachers and trainee teachers was infectious and made the whole conference a joyful experience, despite the lowly surroundings.

For me personally, the conference was special because, as well as giving me the opportunity to meet with previously unknown colleagues from around the world, it also brought me face-to-face, for the first time, with several members of my PLN with whom I have been collaborating online for the past couple of years.  I presented with one of them, Lesley Cioccarelli, (I will write about this in another blogpost) and really enjoyed the time I spent with her and another 'virtual' colleague, Mike Griffin.

It was also good to exchange ideas with many participants, both Vietnamese and other nationalities, who, like me, are currently working in Vietnam.  I enjoyed being able to raise the profile of my institution, Eastern International University, by showing photos and explaining what our goals are.  I was also able to seek advice from all kinds of people about how best we can achieve these aims.

The plenary speakers at the conference were Professor Paul Nation and Dr Richmond Stroupe, both of whom gave us plenty of food for thought.  Paul Nation's speech was particularly interesting - I will write it up in another post.

There were 376 presentations over the day and a half of the conference itself, with as many as 30 sessions running concurrently.  I felt that this was rather too many, particularly as I had problems deciding which sessions to go to!  The vast majority of the presentations I chose were interesting and useful and gave me ideas which I could take back and share with my teachers for immediate implementation in the classroom.  Sessions on pronunciation for Vietnamese learners given by Vietnamese teachers were particularly pertinent.  The presentation called 'A Bad Reading Lesson' given by the aforementioned Mike Griffin was a highlight of the weekend for me (I intend to write a summary of this session when time allows)!

For the vast majority of Cambodian teachers and trainee teachers in attendance, it was clear that the methodology sessions were the most popular.  They were desperate for ideas they could use straight away in their classrooms.  This observation set me thinking about what I want to present on at CamTESOL 2014 because, yes, I intend to be there!!  The date is already in my diary!!

7th VUS-TESOL Conference, City Hall, Saigon - 14th July, 2012

This was the first time that I had attended a conference such as this in Vietnam and I wasn't sure what to expect.  However, with Alan Maley as the keynote speaker, my hopes were high!

We travelled into the city straight from work on Friday night and enjoyed dinner at our favourite Indian restaurant, Baba's Kitchen.

Early the next morning, Mark went off to do his own thing and I took a taxi to the conference venue.  It was an impressively large building and there was no mistaking that we were in the right place - there were huge banners everywhere and a steady stream of attendees pouring through the gates and up the wide marble steps.

We were greeted by friendly looking security guards who directed us to the appropriate desks for registration.  Having pre-registered online, the process was quick and efficient.  I then picked up a bag of literature, free pens and a very impressive glossy brochure.  I was enjoying spending time looking at books and talking to representatives of the publishing houses when my colleagues arrived and urged me into the main hall which was filling up fast.  So fast, in fact, that the only available seats were right at the front of the auditorium.  We took our places and arranged our papers and bags and sat with notebooks and pens at the ready.  We were, however, soon moved on, being told that the seats, despite not being marked as such, were, in fact, reserved for dignitaries!  We were shown to the cheap seats upstairs, not nearly as comfortable and without the convenient writing desk in front of them.  At least we were early enough not to be condemned to the ubiquitous small red plastic stools which were hastily being arranged on the peripharies of the room!

'Crackerjack' - childrens' TV show 

Proceedings got under way a little late, as is the norm in Vietnam, and then were delayed further by a seemingly unending stream of speeches and presentations.  The people being honoured were party members, local dignitaries, lesser politicians, the conference speakers, publishers, sponsors, representatives of VUS and so on and so on.  Each presenter and recipient was sporting a lavish corsage and was accompanied on to the stage by loud applause and rousing music.  Once on stage, they were given framed certificates, elaborately wrapped gifts and bouquets of flowers.  As they stood in line for numerous photos, I was reminded of the final game of the popular 1970s kids' TV show, Crackerjack, where children were loaded up with presents until you could no longer see them behind a pile of goodies, and what they didn't drop, they could keep!!  It made me smile!

Alan Maley

With the formalities finally over, the conference proper could begin, with Alan Maley's plenary on 'Standardisation: Interrogations and Implications'.  It was very interesting, but seated, as we were, in 'the Gods', some of his message was lost on us.

That said, the day was very successful.  I made a couple of poor choices of sessions to attend, but, fortunately, my colleagues made better selections, so they were able to fill me in on what I'd missed.  Between sessions, there was an opportunity to chat to some of the other 2,000 attendees, browse the wide selection of books on display, talk to presenters and publishers, or partake of the very generous variety of food and drink on offer.

As the day drew to a close, there was a raffle draw which followed a similar drawn-out pattern to the early morning presentations and then a mad scramble to acquire a certificate of attendance.

As we emerged into the bright sunshine and heat of a Saigon afternoon, I felt it had been a worthwhile way to spend a Saturday and I'm already looking forward to next year's conference!