Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Conference Season

It is conference season, and two big conferences have been keeping me busy, TESOL in New Orleans and AAAL in Chicago.

TESOL
I had never been to New Orleans, and this was my first time to this magical city. Unfortunately I didn't see very much because I was so busy, so I will have to go back some day, but I did get a flavor of the city and while working very hard. I gave three talks, and moderated a panel, ran several meetings, and attended various other meetings. I was only able to see a few speakers. Wow. The highlites for me were 1) meeting two students from my past webskills classes in person 2) seeing Jenifer Jenkins give her plenary and 3) dinner my last night in a wonderfully, warm sidewalk cafe next to the trolley line.



AAAL
I love Chicago, and this time was no exception. The city is so beautiful, even if very windy and cold in March still. AAAL is much smaller than TESOL and I like the size. The book publishers exhibits always have outstanding research oriented books. I met and talked with some very interesting people whose work I have admired for a long time, including Tracey Derwing who works on pronunciation and Leanne Hinton who works on language preservation and maintenance of endangered languages.

I believe being at these conferences helps to make me a stronger teacher. As teachers I think we can never cease our learning.
Posted by at

8 comments:

  1. Zoila TapiaApril 8, 2011 at 11:06 AM

    Hello, Robert
    You are a busy person, however you have time to organice and generously you give us new skills in our
    I would like to go to USA. I think that it very beautiful and it has many wonderfull and interesting places.
    But first I have to speak very well English language.
    I want share with you my experience in English teaching. In Ecuador We don't speak English. We don't practice english language. Our students like english, sometimes I teach to sing them. I like to sing english music, like the theme of Titanic movie.
    I think that with the new strategies and skills I will learn in this course I have tools to improve my teaching.
    thanks again
    Zoila Tapia

    ReplyDelete
  2. Robert ElliottApril 10, 2011 at 11:59 AM

    Hi Zoila
    Thanks for your comments. I love to use music and movies in my classes when possible. I think Ecuador is lucky to have you as a dedicated and constantly evolving English teacher.
    Robert

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nori MoralesApril 17, 2011 at 3:05 PM

    Hello Robert I really like your pictures specially the pictures in Chicago. There my sister has lived for more than 30 years so I would like to visit her in her house. I hope to go early there and I really would like to be attending the TESOOL for me it's the best seminarium that an english teacher can share experiences with other english teacher.
    So I hope to assist.

    Nice you blog.

    Nori
    Quito- Ecuador

    ReplyDelete
  4. ferchoApril 28, 2011 at 6:37 PM

    Hi Robert let me tell you that I read your post and it is fascinating to have the chance of kmowing different places to show the world the English teaching language through beautiful places, and as Norita said the TESOL seminar is a great expectation for English teachers.
    P.S: Continue with the teaching energy you have because it is noticed that you love what you do (teaching) like me

    Fernando

    ReplyDelete
  5. Rachel SUApril 30, 2011 at 3:36 AM

    Hello, Robert,

    You shall be very busy with attending two conferences at the same time. I wonder how come you still have time to take care of this online interactive course. However, what kinds of context or topics will you share in the conferences? I found your presentations will be in a TESOL one and an applied linguistic area. And I am always curious to new areas of TESOL or TEFL; applied linguistic is always to difficult to me. Hope there will have more coming information for these conferences in the future and you can share more ideas of this part. Actually, I found I obtain more than what I think when I interact more. I really want to express my appreciation for the way that you guide of learning. It keeps me more active than ever.

    And, the Chicago as you post is a modern city, which looks as pretty as you described. I have been to some cities of American, it all looks very different. I will go and visit someday just for my pleasure if I have more spare time. Thanks you a lot again.

    Good luck to the conferences!
    Rachel

    ReplyDelete
  6. SaraMay 20, 2011 at 8:08 AM

    Hi Robert
    Just like you, I love conferences as I always seem to come home much more motivated. It's a freshen up moment in my professional life.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ShardaJuly 1, 2011 at 3:25 AM

    Hi Robert

    Thanks for the mails. I will try out posting to your blog.

    Regards

    Sharda

    ReplyDelete
  8. G. Javier BurgosAugust 18, 2011 at 6:12 PM

    Hi Robert,

    Thai is great to now that you were in New Orleans in the TESOL International Convention. Four teachers from our University were there as well, they said, it was great. This coming year the Convention is going to be in Philadelphia, so far I know, and four more people will be going there I might join them as well, I hope you are going there too, If so, we might meet there.

    Take care!

    Javer

    ReplyDelete

Leave your comments here:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)