As many of you know, this past weekend was KOTESOL's annual international conference. Attendance this year was about 1500, which is the largest to date, and also makes it the second largest conference of its type in Asia. That being said, I didn't actually attend that many seminars/workshops--fewer than any other year, I must admit. There are a number of reasons for this, but mostly because I was too busy just chatting with people. I'm not going to say that I simply don't need to attend workshops because admitting so would be admitting that it is time to stop teaching. There is always something to be gained from these sorts of conferences. However, more and more of the workshops are covering things that are completely unrelated to me (teaching children, for example), or are simply old news. Since I regularly spend time in bookstores catering to English teachers (such as Kim and Johnson or English Plus), and I meet with someone from each of the publishers at least once a semester, the publishers booths were not that appealing to me. I didn't buy any books, though I managed to pick up catalog from every one. I accidentally went to the wrong room and was handed a sample text book. I sat down, looked at the book realized I was in the wrong place, and walked out (but kept the book--is it a matter of
shame on me or
Thanks Suckas?) and went to the room I intended to go.
I've been thinking about making changes to the reading curriculum in my department, and got some good ideas to incorporate some extensive reading into the Freshmen General English classes that currently have intensive readings that are too difficult for many of our students. For that, I am glad I attended the conference. I look forward to going to the Extensive Reading Symposium next month. Here is a picture of Aaron Jolly's baskets of graded readers that he uses at his school.
He separates them all by levels that he created--not relying on the publishing company's leveling system. He's got levels from one to eleven. In the background, he had slides of his classroom in which they are used. That must be one of his students.
This year there were some great names present.
David Nunan, Rod Ellis, Kathleen Bailey, Scott Thornbary, Rob Waring, among others.
Here are a few of them as they are being called on stage during the opening ceremonies.
Here's David Nunan chatting with Tim Dalby just before things got started.
I managed to have lunch with a couple of Korea bloggers, namely
Chris in South Korea and
GangwonBrian, at a nice new Italian restaurant near the campus. The staff was enjoying a nice slow Saturday afternoon, then we came in. Then a group of twelve came, followed by another several groups. Soon, the place was packed with conference attendees.
After the conference, I joined Gangwon Brian, Sean aka
eflgeek (and now aka
repatriate me), Duane (+3 guests), John, and Adam at the great Brazilian restaurant Ipanema. They had a buffet, and eight courses of meat, each cut from a skewer: sausage, chicken, pork, turkey, garlic beef, chicken hearts, more beef, and then a potato and what they called 'yellow meat' which was roasted pineapple. After they brought us all the courses, the servers walked around with their skewers and kept the plates as full as we wanted. Here are a few pictures.
This was the plate of bones and tropical fruit husks (I can't remember what they are... not lychee, but sort of like it)
Just as the place was closing, we were joined by Joe (
Zen Kimchi /
Seoul Podcast) McPherson and Danial Craig. Not the actor; the teacher. Some people went home, others went out for another round of beer. It was a nice evening.
(There are a few more on my flickr page
here)
Which made Sunday morning difficult. I must admit that I didn't make it to the conference until about noon. I only attended one workshop on Sunday. The other one I was planning on seeing was canceled because the guy didn't show up. Bastard.
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