Day 4 - Mar 18

The final three sessions I had planned to attend before checking out of the Marriott and heading back across the tortuous skies home were: "Moodle Online for Peer Assessment;" "Collaborative Internet Activities;" and "Computer-mediated ESL Peer Review" (this last one I was really keen about, particularly in light of the session I'd seen the day before). So, having teased you this way, I must admit that I stayed in bed all morning instead, hoping to throw off the cold that I had suspected the day before I was getting (but went out in the evening air anyway). So I can't report on them first hand, but will try to get the handouts, and will perhaps come back here with comments if there seems to be anything interesting to say.

After lolling about under the duvet all morning, I managed to get packed and checked out and off to the airport by noon. I shared the city shuttle (which was in itself a miracle that it came just as I stepped out to the curb as the hotel reception had said the shuttles were unreliable and I'd be better off taking a cab). Anyway, I shared with one other person, who was also headed back to Seattle (Olympia, actually, but still!) and then we both ended up talking to the driver who had just moved out to Florida, at his wife's behest, after 25 years in Redmond. He said he missed the cool and cloud of the Puget Sound. As pleasant as the temperature had been during the conference, I was sure that Seattle is the best place for me: for the blue water, blue skies in its lovely summers, and for its blue state politics. Seattle has it all!

I was very pleased with Tampa International Airport, however. It had free WiFi so I was able to get a bit of compensation for having to shlep my computer all over the country on my shoulder. I killed an hour answering email, and wrote a bit more on this blog (or, perhaps rather, did some proofreading and editing--proving correct those presenters who said that having one's writing out in public provides incentive to try to get it right). So, 10 hours or so later, I was home in beautiful Seattle!

By the way, I have been checking the TESOL website (http://www.tesol.org) this morning, hoping to download some of the handouts I missed, or get contact info for the presenters, but it is down (an onslaught from post-conferencers like me?). I'm not sure if you have to log in to get handouts, but I'll check that and let you know. (Thanks for the Comment, Kris!) Or, try it for yourself!

Oh, and TESOL is in Seattle next year. Halleluyah!

Day Three (Friday, Mar 17) - Flagging a bit

Couldn't rally for the 7:30 session (won't tell you what it was because it sounded good), but got out of bed in time for "Designing Web-based Integrated Tests" at 8:30. It was unmemorable but I'll get the handout if I can (none were available at the session. In fact, it seemed that the presenter was standing in for the one scheduled).

At 12:30 I went over to catch the 6 or 8 poster sessions I was interested in that were all on during a 45 minute period. The exhibit area was very crowded and only one presenter had any handouts left by the time I got around to their presentation. Titles of some of the posters I tried to see were: "Corrective Feedback During Synchronous Online Tandem Conversations;" "Blogs for Fluency, Pragmatic, and Rhetorical Skills;" "Using Web-based Authentic Texts for EFL Reading Classes;"
"Literature Circles for Cooperative Reading, Creative Response;" "Concept Maps in Content-based Language Instruction" (for Tony Wilson!); "Five Minute Student Music Videos A-Z;" "Analyzing, Designing, and Implementing Rubrics in the Language Classroom."

I had heard from Karen Fernandez by email that Catherine Haras (formally one of Highline's reference librarians before she left for a job at Cal State LA) was going to be presenting at the conference so wanted to be sure to catch her. As it happens, I ran into her before her session. She seems to be doing great. She and her partners gave a good presentation at 2 PM called "Preparing ESL Students to be Information Literate." It was built upon parts I'd seen presented at Highline, but had lots of good new stuff. It inspired me to create more substantive units for my course in each quarter over the year. Sessions I had to miss at 2 PM to see this were "Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Advice" (sounded like a novel approach for authentic interaction) and "Daring to Enter the Blogoshere."

The next two sessions, at 3 and 4, were in the same room, so I just stayed put. They were: "Weblogs and ESL Writing Development" and "Reconstructing Peer Review for Today's Universities." The blogs session was good. The key point for me was the notion that it's good to avoid the "turn-in, grade, hand-back" cycle. The presenter cited Marcy Bauman (1997) who posits that grading every writing assignment sends the message that students should write for the sake of evaluation. The presenter said that having students write with the expectation that everything they produce will be corrected and graded defeats the real purpose of writing, which is for communication. He mentioned having taught previously using "The Silent Way," a method developed by Caleb Gattegno more than 40 years ago that requires that the teacher does not speak at all. The Silent Way and this presenter's method of allowing students to write without marking any but a random 4 essays facilitate deductive learning. The presenter reports that his students become engaged in the communicative task and that they improve through negotiating meaning with readers out of interest to present the best work they can.

The following session, "Reconstructing Peer Review for Today's Universities," reported the presenter's study that compared 2 adult ed writing classes in Germany. The presenter wanted to improve results in classes that traditionally required students to produce only two essays, at midterm and final. For her study over one semester, she taught one class the traditional way, with only 2 essays written, both marked, and with a second class, increased the number of required essays to 6, but, like with the other class, marked only 2. Results showed that students preferred to have the extra writing practice and that they showed improvement compared to students who didn't have the extra writing, though they received no additional teacher feedback. This presenter's conclusion was similar to the previous one's: students learned better when they took responsibility for their own work, and paid attention to the communicative interactive with their peers. The two sessions paired very nicely back-to-back.


Well, there were a couple of colloquia I had wanted to attend, but didn't because they were 2 hours long. "Nonnative Teachers, Race, and the Postcolonial World" sounded particularly interesting. Another one I would have loved to attend was "Teaching Language and Culture Through Hip Hop." You can see the range of topics that were covered at this conference!

In the evening I met up with an old acquaintance from Kuwait University. I had known her in the 80's. She came to Amal's and my presentation and introduced herself. We strolled down the street away from the hotel to a little shopping/restaurant mall, looking with trepidation at some of the places that were already overflowing with St. Paddy's Day celebrants. But we found a very pleasant Tapas place with a patio, and had a nice meal while talking of Kuwait as it was and how it has changed. I hope that she and I will keep in touch!

Day Two (Presentation Day) - Mar 16

I was lucky to land in the Marriot Waterside, which was the venue for our presentation, and was where the technology sessions seemed to be, at least on this day. I didn't leave the hotel all day, and was in sessions all day. Our presentation was at 5 PM, but we got a full room and all went well. I think we had a pretty full contingent of tech-savvy people. We got lots of good questions (such as about college policy re. hybrids, and tracking attendance, etc.), and some good ideas from people who are teaching hybrids. I was interested to note that a few people were using Moodle as their LMS, which I thought was cool. (As a side note, Phil Quirke, in a session we both attended about wikis, mentioned that the latest version of WebCT, which HCT uses, can facilitate the collaborative features of wikis. Interesting.) Anyway, we were happy with the presentation, and, at least speaking for myself, glad when it was over (though I hadn't really been nervous!).

Okay--a couple of presentations I missed at 8:30, in favor of the one I did attend, were "Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Mobile Technology, Teaching ESOL on the Fly" and Lijun Shen's "Effective Strategies for the Multilevel ESL Class." Both of those were across the street at the convention center, so lost out on that account (though I hope I can get Lijun's presentation from her at Highline). I attended "Using Blogs to Promote Writing," which was pretty good. I noticed later that it was one of perhaps 5 presentations on blogging, so had I planned better, I might have gone to the mobile technology one instead, but sometimes laziness wins out, and I had had an enormous buffet breakfast so was even less inclined to hit the pavement. This presentation was less useful to me because it spent a lot of time demonstrating how to set up a blog using Blogger, which is something I already know. But the presenters did show some of their assignments and how they used Comments (for teacher feedback, since they thought that students never read comments unless directed so feedback there was fairly confidential--a point I didn't agree with). They asked students to respond to each other by making a new post, which they could do since all students were contributors to the same blog. (A subsequent session discussed the merits of the all-class blog vs. each student having their own blog.)

Next, I went to "Using Wikis to Advance Narrative Writing Fluency," which I referred to earlier. The presenters were from Spokane, so I might look them up later. They showed 3 wiki sites and demonstrated PBwiki, which I came back to my room and tried immediately. I didn't find it very intuitive, so will try Jotspot, but it was nice to get the presenters' assessments and recommendations. The conclusion I got from this was that wikis are the tool to use for collaborative writing. I brought up Writely.com during the session, which a couple of others had heard of but the presenters had not (there was a ripple of interest in the audience and I was asked to spell the url, so I'm sure the presenters appreciated that little diversion!). But the wiki is public and the revision process more transparent as compared to Writely. Anyway, it was an excellent session and the handout has lots of interesting resources.

After lunch I attended "An International Perspective on Weblogs, Photologs, and Audiologs." I was interested in the international aspect of the presentation as well as the technology side, and the presentation delivered on both counts. There were 4 presenters, each showing what they did in their classes in their respective countries, and showing how they collaborated with each other across borders. A salient point here was that the students were very excited about the communication with students in other countries, which was highly motivating for them. Presenters were from Canada, Portugal, Japan, and Germany.

There was a session I had wanted very much to see, though it was directly before our own presentation, called "Automating Distribution of Listening Lessons via Podcasting." However, the speaker didn't show. The room was overflowing, and a few of us hung around for 15 minutes, but to no avail. Ah, well. So I went back up to my room (the convenience, again, of being in the Marriott) and hung out the few minutes until I could expect to get into our room. (And that proved to be a problem! The group before us wouldn't clear out, even as we were trying to set up and they could have easily moved their post-session conversations outside the room, or at least to the back of the room. Hrrumph!) But it was all good. (Katie, slang gal, are you proud?)

Finally, especially in light of the motivation I got during our presentation to do some classroom research on my hybrid course, I attended (rather wearily), a session at 7 PM called "Classroom Research in TESOL" given by a professor from UBC (so my post-session question for her was "will you be my ph.d advisor?"--I was just kidding). There were only 8 of us diehards, and I must say the presentation was a bit dry, but it did inspire me just a little. And I might contact this professor at UBC about the possibility of continuing there since I have done a year's coursework there already.

Well, I'm about to lose my internet connection, and must run to poster sessions. Talk to you more soon.

Okay, Day One (Wednesday, Mar 15)

First thing in the morning I left my hotel to go over to the convention center, thinking the opening plenary would be at 9:00 (I wasn't able to get the schedule off the web site, but when I saw the program, maybe I understood a little why: it is 3/4" thick). I had my laptop in its sturdy bag, with all cords and cables, and its spare battery; I had my ipod, with its little recording device; and I had my new cell phone, which does everything but wash the cat. There was one little handy piece of technology I lacked, though, that would have served me very well as I started to go through the program book to plan my day: a pen (or pencil). Marc had said he had decided on the first day of a recent conference he went to to go light--just paper and pen--but that he missed his electronic stuff at the first session, which he had wanted to record. I had the reverse experience, and, actually, I haven't been tempted to record anything yet, though I am carrying my ipod (and leaving my laptop in my room safe). But I have been making good use of pen and paper. And what an incredible relief it was when I went back to my hotel later that morning and left that heavy stuff there! I love my laptop, but mostly on my lap while I'm on my sofa.

So, the first session I went to was the opening plenary. There was an amazing speaker: the "Homeless to Harvard" girl, Liz Murray. At about 23 or so, she is a honed public speaker who told the story of her background as the child of drug-addicted parents on welfare, and how she eventually went from the disintegration of her family (which had only barely held on at any point), the death of her mother to AIDS, and her life living on the streets of New York with her also homeless "Goth" drop-out friends, to finding a place in an alternative school, thriving there under the mentorship of a caring teacher, and finally winning a full scholarship to Harvard. It was a very moving story that she has told on 20/20, Oprah, etc. and that has even been made into a "LifeTime" (cable television) movie. Her message to us, as she said explicitly at several points, was that a caring teacher can make all the difference to a kid (a struggling person). It was that "affective factor" that changed her life: in fact, gave her a life that she wouldn't have otherwise had. It was powerful.

After the plenary, I had 2 serendipitous encounters, one right after the other, with the 2 people I had been keeping my eyes peeled for all morning: first, Amal, my presentation partner (our order for a data projector wasn't on record, so Amal had to get the confirmation number and sort it out); and second, Phil Quirke, my old supervisor from Abu Dhabi Women's College--the guy who wrote all the wonderful reference letters for me that helped me set out on my new career path. I had left a message on the message board for Phil, and he had that with him. Anyway, we had lunch the next day. It was great catching up with him. He has just finished his doctorate, and is hoping to move up from his current position as Academic Head at Abu Dhabi Men's College.

The first regular session I attended that first day was very good: "Better ESL Living Through Television Viewing." (Who could resisit that title?) I got lots of good tips about incorporating video into my curricula, which I already do, but knew I could improve upon. I show a DVD every quarter and link it to reading, writing, and discussion. But he showed interesting activities in which students build discussions around programs they select. This tied in with another presentation I saw on Thursday about internationalizing the curriculum, which showed how these discussions can cross borders, since shows like "Friends" and "Seinfeld" are popular in many countries, and students are familiar with them and like to talk about them. The Wednesday presenter talked a lot about demonstrating connected speech and filler and showed how to get students to listen for that, understand how it functions, and start to use it to give their own speech a more native-like sound. Good stuff!

I went to Phil Quirke's presentation called "Teacher Education Responding to New Knowledge Theory." It outlined a teacher training program that he has developed and that will be launched through DELTA (a company that produces a standardized exam in England). It provided a models for professional development that might be something we can show at HCC. (Hey, perhaps a new sign for MIDS!) I sacrificed "Transitioning Adult ESOL Learners Into Community Colleges" for Phil's talk, but I will attempt to get the handouts. Unfortunately, that was how it has gone throughout this conference: there are often 2 or more very compelling presentations offered at the same time and one has to choose. (And, of course, usually the choice is based on which one is closer.) But, I have found this conference to be extremely rich, so I will probably go to it again next year when it's in Seattle. It has been tons better than the Syllabus conference I went to in L.A. last summer.

The last session I attended for the day was also very good: "How to Develop Critical Thinking Skills in Online Discussions." The presenters (from Arizona, like several others I attended) demonstrated a number of discussion board assignments, many of which I will try. More on this latter, perhaps in another blog on "new stuff I'm trying."

Hi Highline!

This is a quick entry here on the first day of the conference. I have to run soon to attend the first plenary session. But I wanted to encourage my colleagues here at the conference to write their own blogs so that we can share what we are learning. It's easy to do. Just go to blogger.com and sign up. It's a great way to keep and share a journal of your thoughts, ideas, and experiences.

See you around!
Janice