Thursday, April 26, 2012
MA TESOL Students Win Writing Awards
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Principals' Panel
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Samar in Philadelphia...
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
Friday, April 6, 2012
Reflections from a First Time Presenter at Philadelphia 2012
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!
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
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.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Hunter College/Georgetown ELF Cooperation Teachers Meet Up
Here are the details of the Hunter College/ELF Cooperation Teachers Meet-Up:
Thursday, March 22, 2012
RSVP to Cooperation Dinner
How to Get to Philadelphia
There are various ways to get to Philadelphia. Below are some of the more inexpensive options:
NJ Transit/SEPTA
Penn Station-NY to Trenton
Trenton to Philadelphia - 30th Street Station (on SEPTA)
http://www.njtransit.com
From $16 each way
Penn Station
to Philadelphia - 30th Street Station
http://www.amtrak.com/
$50 each way
http://www.megabus.com/
From $7 each way
Free WIFI
Boltbus
http://www.boltbus.com/
From $8 each way
Free WIFI
Friday, March 2, 2012
2012 TESOL Conference - Philadelphia March 28-31
The TESOL Conference is just around the corner. This year it heads east to Philadelphia, which is exciting for us east coast folks. If you haven't already registered, go to the official 2012 TESOL Conference website. The conference is March 28th-31st and is jam full of activities including The Electronic Village, Job Marketplace, and dozens and dozens of presentations featuring hundreds of speakers.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Cooperation Dinner with the English Language Fellow Georgetown Program
Interested in teaching overseas? The English Language Fellow Program at Georgetown University might be the way to go. The EL Fellow Program promotes English language learning and enhances English teaching capacity abroad. Through U.S. embassy projects, Fellows share their expertise, hone their skills, gain international experience, and learn other cultures.
Funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by the Center for Intercultural Education and Development (CIED), the EL Fellow Program places talented, highly qualified U.S. educators with Masters degrees with a focus in TEFL/TESL or Applied Linguistics in all regions of the world.
Club TESOL of Hunter College is organizing a dinner with cooperative teachers from the ELF Program. The dinner will be on Thursday, March 29th at 8pm. If you are interested in attending the dinner, please RSVP at rcalleja@hunter.cuny.edu.
For more information about the EL Fellow Program at Georgetown University, please go to the ELF website.