The Japan Association of Language Teaching is over thirty years old now, and currently numbers around three-thousand members. One of it’s larger special interest groups is the CALL sig with an internationally peer-reviewed journal, and last weekend I attended it’s annual conference. Paul Lewis, one of the co-chairs and someone with a longstanding involvement with the sig, details the history of the conference here.
As well as making two presentations of my own, I did a few interviews, went to plenty of great presentations and plenaries, and met a lot of very nice people. Like most conferences, this one had a theme, and I thought it would be interesting to reflect on it as I walked around the campus. The question is “What’s your motivation?”, and like most conference themes it is open to interpretation.
(Teacher Development Series Number Two – Attendance of professional workshops, lectures and conferences)
When I asked ‘How do you learn to teach?’ this was another of the popular choices, at about 20% of the popular vote. People love a good conference! As IATEFL is fast approaching, I thought it was an appropriate time to tackle the topic. The trouble is, so did everyone else. Rather than trying to squeeze any more out of it myself, you are probably better off visiting Jeremy Harmer’s recent post on ‘What makes a good conference?’. If you are presenting yourself (or planning to) it is also worth checking out this four part series from One Year, on presenting from the planning stage right through to publication…
The title of this post alludes to the elements I personally feel make a good conference. Please, please don’t read me your slides. And if you can’t get the powerpoint working within fifteen seconds, just talk. That will be fine.
If you are not presenting, take a breather between sessions. And if you hear someone is interesting and / or funny, go and see them, whoever they are or whatever they are talking about. If you want to read my recommendations in more detail, I have an article in English Teaching Professional (November 2008) which was perkily re-titled ‘See you at the Coffee Stand’ during the editing process. If you can’t get hold of it, then this slightly inferior rip-off by notorious ELT chancer Alex Case will probably do just as well…..
Can you express the perfect conference in 140 characters or less? tweet me at @livesofteachers or comment below.
