MA TESOL Students Win Writing Awards

The MA TESOL program was well represented at this year’s Library Day. At Library Day, the 19^th Annual Paul LeClerc Library Research Paper Awards were given out and three Hunter MA TESOL students were winners.  Raoul Calleja and Lizz Kaune won first place in the Best Research Paper – Graduate level. Meanwhile Giulia Zeni won second place in the Charlotte Katz Millenson in the Book Review category.  Calleja and Kaune won for their SLA paper titled: Blogging and Autonomy in ESL Writing. The reception featured Research paper award recipients each read an excerpt from their winning papers.  Winners received $200 gift cards to the Hunter Library. Congratulations again to all three winners!

Principals' Panel

Come join us on April 26th for the Principals Panel.

New York City Department of Education (DOE) Principals and Assistant Principals with a high English language learner population will share their insights and expertise. Learn more about the interview process, demo lessons, ESL Program models, and advice on what to expect on the first year on the job.

For more information, please contact Professor Baecher at lbaecher@hunter.cuny.edu.

Please RSVP

Thursday, April 26th

W1007

5pm to 7pm

Samar in Philadelphia...

by Samar Aal

Attending TESOL 2012 in Philadelphia was definitely an amazing experience. I got to attend a lot of workshops, meet new people, network and grab a lot of free books.

The Workshops .... Okay, here is the thing. There are so many workshops being held at the same time and you just want to attend all of them. I found myself running from one to the other, grabbing handouts, listening for like 10 min and heading to the next one. The highlights:

Peer co-Teaching This illustrated how beneficial working with another faculty member is and how teachers can learn from each other by sharing ideas and giving feedback to each other.

Project-based Learning and how to design a project for your students that they can work on throughout the semester.

Incorporating Non-native and World Englishes in class. I love this one. It demonstrated how you can teach using speeches of Nobel Prize winners from all over the world.

How to Design Wikis, Websites, and Videos for your classes. How to create videos, edit and annotate them.

Meeting new people and networking
On Thursday evening, a warm get together was held between Hunter students and the Cooperating teachers of the English Language Fellows (ELF) program at Georgetown University. I got the chance to meet other colleagues in the field and speak about their experiences.

On Friday night, a nice reception was held by NYS TESOL. This was a blast! Hunter students and faculty got together in a very friendly chill out environment . We all met with members of NYS TESOL. And folks, the next NYS TESOL will be held November 2-3, 2012 in Albany, NY. I think we should all present. The deadline for proposal submission is May 31, 2012. If you need more info. Check their website or contact me.

Networking: here is a tip, if you go to such a conference, make sure to have business cards. Something simple and professional. I got the chance to exchange business cards with a lot of presenters, book publishers and teachers from all over the world.

Free books:
This is your sweetest treat. In the exhibition, you can sign up for free books. They will be sent to you shortly after the conference. And, here is a little secret. Publishers give away free books on the last day of the conference as they don’t want o go back carrying all the books they have. I went home with more than 25 books. In short, seriously, if you haven’t attended TESOL this year, you should go next year. It will be held in Dallas. See you there. In the meantime if you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at samar.diamond@gmail.com

Reflections from a First Time Presenter at Philadelphia 2012

by Jane Eleanor Oates

After working in the hotel conference world for years, I was fascinated to be on the other side of things! In December, my independent study supervisor (Professor Christine Rosalia) and I submitted two proposals to the Electronic Village Fair (part of the TESOL Convention 2012 in Philly). It felt like a shot in the dark at the time, but both proposals were accepted! Both projects were very meaningful to me and were inspired from work in EDESL 772- First and Second Language and Technological Literacy with Professor Rosalia. Our proposals focused on how to use technology in the classroom: 1- Teacher Education Fieldwork through Moodle 2- Digital Storytelling as an Assessment Time Capsule. I enjoyed the intimacy of the EV fair; it was easy to cater our 'talks' to the needs and interests of the small triads of observers in each twenty-minute presentation. The presentations also gave us a way to connect to other educators that have ideas about the projects - the interactions we had were truly 'give and take'.

Outside the little EV pod, the Convention was an explosion of energy. I wished I had mapped out the space and presentation times for myself weeks prior to attending. I also wished I had been able to arrive on Tuesday, at the very beginning of the conference (I arrived when things were in full swing on Thursday night). The quantity of presentations combined with the physical enormity of space that the conference covered was a bit overwhelming. As a conference rookie, I realized that I could not make it to everything, get a hand out, and be able to sit close enough to see the PowerPoint on the overhead projectors. For this reason, I ended up enjoying the smaller, more interactive sessions the best.

Post conference, I've received emails from attendees hoping to receive a copy of my handout/PowerPoint. By going to the TESOL Convention, I felt very connected to the international TESOL community and enjoyed getting to know my own Hunter College TESOL community better while away form our regular long "to do" lists of everyday life. Even if I didn't get to go to everything, the TESOL Convention gives attendees the opportunity to get an overview of what is important in the field of TESOL today. It's clear that going to these conventions keeps educators abreast on what's important right now and what will be important tomorrow. See everyone in Dallas!

Musings from a First Time TESOL Convention Attendee

by John Bandman

For those who missed out on the National TESOL Conference 2012 in Philadelphia, here are a few things that I gained from my first time attending the national conference.

First, there were a number of seminars that aligned directly with both my ESL teaching position and several classes I take at Hunter. One such seminar was on ESL vocabulary instruction. Some of the activities discussed assessed understanding of polysemic (multiple meanings) words. In this case, two sentences were given, but with the same word bank. While more than one word from the bank successfully completed the first sentence, only one word completed both sentences. Those who were looking to polish their reading, writing, and pronunciation instructional skills had a smorgasbord of seminars to attend.

Second, there was a great diversity of presenters ranging from graduate students presenting on topics they researched, all the way to well-accomplished authors who are superstars in ESL world. One recurring theme is not every grammar rule that exists needs to be explained. Each presenter provided a market-driven approach in their discussion about content delivery in the classroom.

Third, numerous publishers came together and provided wide displays of the latest ESL books. While Hunter College has me trained to not depend on the presence of books, it amazed me to see the creativity that went into designing them. For example, University of Cambridge had some textbooks that focused on multi-level learners. Oxford University Press featured a number of books that focused on ways to teach grammar and vocabulary – never to think there would be a book on how to teach collocations.

Finally, there were numerous employers and recruitment agencies ready to share with us a future in many facets of ESL. Even those who already have a teaching assignment, interviewing is excellent practice. I went on two interviews, and from that experience emerged a better understanding of what employers look for when hiring ESP teachers – they want us to be willing to adhere to pre-set curricula. I would recommend getting a side job teaching online so that you can fulfill your creative satisfaction, while at the same time be ready to carry out responsibilities in a most diligent manner without being concerned about any loss of academic freedom.

Hunter College/Georgetown ELF Cooperation Teachers Meet Up

Here are the details of the Hunter College/ELF Cooperation Teachers Meet-Up:

Thursday, March 29th, 8:00pm

Field House Sports Bar

12th Street and Filbert (connected to the Philadelphia Convention Center - Marriott side)

There are other events at the same venue so tell the host you are with the Hunter/ELF group. You can order food and drinks. Stop by for a drink or have dinner.

If you have any questions, please text or call 646 732 6877. You can also email rcalleja@hunter.cuny.edu.

See you tomorrow night!

RSVP to Cooperation Dinner

The Cooperation dinner with the ELF Program at Georgetown teachers is scheduled for Thursday, March 29th at 8:00pm. We need to know the final count by Tuesday, March 27th, so please rsvp to rcalleja@hunter.cuny.edu or RSVP by posting your name in the comment box. We are eyeing a moderately priced Italian restaurant that comes highly recommended and has a Bring Your Own Bottle policy.