Becoming a TESOL Ambassador

Let me begin with an anecdote. My teaching career started when I was 18 but without any experience. During my initial days as a teacher, I had no idea what all those teaching methods—CLT, learner-centered, task-based—meant, and, thus, chiefly employed methods that my teacher had used when I was a student. I was totally unaware of all the latest developments in teaching and learning contexts in terms of teaching methodologies and pedagogical approaches to address the needs and challenges of the changing contexts.

I realized the need to enhance my teaching skills, however, only after being associated with a TESOL affiliate, Nepal English Language Teachers’ Association (NELTA) and attending its annual international conference. After joining TESOL as a Global Professional member, I had an opportunity to attend the 2014 TESOL International Convention & English Language Expo in Portland, which was, indeed, a long-awaited and much anticipated dream-come-true event for me. My first-time attendance at TESOL left an indelible impression on me.

Madhukar K.C.

Now, as one of the TESOL 2018 Ambassadors, I have three ways in mind to fulfill my responsibilities: Networking, Volunteering, and Inspiring Others.

Networking
Since TESOL hosts an annual international convention every year with more than 6,500 attendees, 1000 education sessions, and 150 exhibits, TESOL for me is an ideal place for global professional development. As always, I will be looking forward to meeting like-minded professionals: teachers and teacher-educators from around the world with whom to share and exchange ideas on classroom teaching practices and research issues. Meanwhile, I will also have a unique opportunity to learn about the latest teaching and research issues in the field of TESOL. I am sure those attending or presenting at the TESOL convention will benefit from professional networks that will enhance their teaching career and professional growth.

Volunteering
As an ambassador, I will be actively engaged in volunteering at convention registration, bag and certificate distribution, the TESOL-IS booth, and other events. I will also provide information about TESOL and the benefits of being associated with the world’s largest English language teacher’s association and professional network, and I will share my TESOL convention experience with TESOL professionals before, during, and even after the convention. What would interest me most would be to welcome first-time attendees and share my experience as to what they can expect and how they can get the most of their convention attendance.

Inspiring Others
TESOL has significantly enhanced my teaching career and professional growth. It has been one of the best professional development platforms for me as a TESOL professional. My purpose this year as a TESOL Ambassador has not only been to benefit myself but also to inspire other TESOL professionals from across the globe. I will help TESOL professionals engage with TESOL and encourage them to attend education sessions they’re interested in so that they will gain knowledge of current trends in TESOL. I will also encourage them to gain international exposure through professional networking with like-minded professional from around the world.

Author Bio
Madhukar K.C., a graduate in ELT from Kathmandu University, is a dedicated EFL professional with wide experience in teaching K-12 English classes for more than a decade. He has also worked as a teacher trainer and supervisor. His areas of interest include using literature in the language classroom, content-based language teaching, nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) teacher professional development, NNES teachers’ role and identity, World Englishes, and English as an international language. He has presented at the TESOL, IATEFL, and NELTA conferences.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/becoming-a-tesol-ambassador/

💫St Patrick’s Day Idioms💫

💫💫St Patrick’s Day is right around the corner!  

  I love using this holiday to teach about idioms!
💫St Patrick’s Day Idioms💫

What is an idiom?

Idioms are words that don’t mean what they say!  They are usually a group of words, well known and used by native speakers of a language, that can’t be understood by the individual meaning of the words.

 Click here to go to my TPT store for this fun St Patrick’s activity!

Why teach idioms?

Students develop a clear understanding of idioms with direct instruction, read-alouds, teacher modeling and student-centered activities.  According to readwritethinkteaching idioms offers students the ability to further comprehend texts that contain metaphorical and lexical meanings beyond the basic word level.

Here is one way to teach idioms:

 

·      When presenting idioms to students, introduce a group of 4 to 5 idioms together.   It is best to group the idioms into a category, for  example; before St. Patrick’s Day teach idioms that use green in them!

·      Always use stories or relate personal conversations to introduce each idiom in context.

·      Use an Idiom Journal to record the idiom and it’s meanings.  Don’t forget a picture.

·      Practice by offering students a student centered activity.

Now you are on your way to teaching idioms!

Click here to go to my TPT store for this fun St Patrick’s activity!

I like these idioms for green!

·      Get or give someone the green light

·      Green with envy

·      Grass is always greener on the other side

·      To be green

·      Green thumb

·      Green around the gills

Here are some fun sites for idioms!

·      Eye on Idioms–THE IDIOM CONNECTION

·      My English Teacher

·      Learn English

What are some of your favorite idiom activities!  I would love to hear about them.

Happy Teaching,

Happy Teaching! Lori
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2018/02/st-patricks-day-idioms.html

ELTpics: A Digital Picture File for English Language Teachers

In the previous blog post in this series, How to Create More Engaging Conference Presentations, I talked about how conference presentations can be made more interesting by using images that fill the entire screen to convey ideas. Of course, as teachers, we also want to use images in our own classrooms. Although the Internet is full of wonderful pictures, it can sometimes be a challenge to find just the right picture that is also free of copyright restrictions.

A rack for sorting 35 mm slides

When I was first starting out in the field, about 35 years ago, no self-respecting English language teacher would venture into the classroom without that key audiovisual aid known as the magazine picture file. To make a picture file, a teacher would painstakingly comb through popular magazines, cut out photographs that might be useful in the classroom, and then paste them on construction paper or card stock. Some teachers even laminated their pictures. You would then organize these in some kind of filing system, perhaps by category. So you might have one set of pictures that you would use for a lesson talking about food and another set of pictures for a lesson talking about clothing. You might have a section of pictures representing action verbs that you could use in the classroom as prompts. Teachers would also organize 35 mm slides to use in class to show images.

Today’s teachers, of course, are much more likely to use of digital materials. And now the picture file has gone digital as well. Fortunately for you, an enterprising group of teachers got together and harnessed the power of their collective knowledge and cameras to create a massive online picture file for English language teachers. The website is called ELTpics. The idea came from a group of international teachers who gather regularly on Twitter to discuss classroom ideas and other issues of interest to language teachers. They combined their knowledge and put out a call to teachers to contribute photographs of their own that could be used without any royalty payments.

Albums by category on the ELTpics Flickr site

ELTpics exists in two locations. The first is at www.ELTpics.com. This website explains how ELTpics works. Every two weeks teachers and others involved in ELT are invited to take and share photos on a given theme. This theme is publicized on Facebook and Twitter and users are encouraged to post photos related to the theme. The site’s curators then take the pictures and upload them to the ELTpics photo-sharing Flickr site. Teachers are then free to go to the Flickr site and download photos for noncommercial use.

On the Flickr site, the pictures are organized in more than a hundred categories called albums. The albums are listed in alphabetical order. They include photos on such themes as adjectives, animals, beverages, body, colors, daily routines, and so on. Instructions on the ELTpics website explain how to download the photos for classroom use.

A photo of dolphins from the ELTpics category of animals. Photo by ELTpics/@cerirhiannon

So, the next time you are looking for good pictures to use for teaching purposes or for a blog post, check out ELTpics. And if you feel like giving something back, take a look at the categories and consider contributing some photos of your own.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/eltpics-a-digital-picture-file-for-english-language-teachers/

💕Friday Freebie!💕

Hello everyone,

It is Friday and time for another freebie!

Today if you click over to our Teachers Pay Teachers Store you can download this great unit:

Bathroom Vocabulary Advanced ESL and Grammar Unit and Lesson Plan

Polish up your students’ bathroom vocabulary.
This ESL and ELD unit builds upon the ever-popular children’s story – The Lady with the Alligator Purse. Kids love this sing-song rhyme, and we do, too!

The Lady with the Alligator Purse provides the strong foundation from which we build schema and expand students’ knowledge of BATHROOM VOCABULARY. We provide all you need to teach the English your students need to DESCRIBE LOCATION and COMPARE.
This unit includes reproducible black lines for advanced level of language instruction. This unit has approximately 49 pages.

This unit includes:
-Grammatical forms to go with each lesson.
-Word lists for topic vocabulary, nouns, verbs, idioms, and more
-ESL Lesson plans that connect grammatical forms to two language functions
-Songs and Chants
-Say It Quick picture sheets
-Sliders
-Student booklets
-Picture cards
-Picture cards with words
-Game boards and game cards
-Assessment rubric  

Click here to download this unit and don’t forget to follow us and rate this great product!

Happy teaching💕,

from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2018/02/friday-freebie.html

The 5 Habits of Highly Effective TESOLers

The TESOL Annual Convention & English Language Expo is an incredible event, for teachers looking to find their ground and develop as professionals as well as for seasoned experts striving to share their knowledge and experience with others.

Kira Kondratkova

If this is your first convention, or if you would like to improve your experience for next time, here are a few tips that can help you get the most out of TESOL 2018.

• Take risks. (This does not mean parachuting in to Chicago, but if you decide to do this, be sure to post pictures with #TESOL18 in your Instagram!) Do not limit yourself by choosing only sessions on topics you are most proficient in. Discover fields you know little about and you will learn a lot of new information and get fresh meaningful knowledge.
• Engage. The TESOL convention is a wonderful opportunity to meet teaching professionals from all over the world and learn from them in the environment of understanding and exchange of experience. It was amazing to look around and realize that everyone around me was my colleague, that I could come up to literally anyone and speak about teaching English, about the ups and downs of our profession, our joys and challenges. Everyone I talked to was extremely friendly and as excited as I was, and each had their unique story to share. Be sure to do lots of networking and exchange contact information to stay in touch and continue sharing your experience and practical resources after the convention.
• Speak up. The convention brings together teachers of English from multiple countries, who are truly passionate about what they do and are ready to share this passion. The presenters always welcome comments and questions from the audience, and they are usually willing to stay after their presentation to exchange their contact information and answer any additional questions. I was delighted to find that the people who write the articles and textbooks I have read are extremely approachable and happy to talk.
• Organize. The convention website and the TESOL app (available in February) have all the necessary information to help you prepare for the event in advance. Be sure to plan your time before you get to Chicago: Prioritize the sessions you most want to attend, but have other options available. Make a contingency plan in case you feel overwhelmed or want to explore more.
• Log in. Here I do not only mean the convention app, which is definitely a wonderful tool to use before, during, and after the event. Log in to all your social media and discover the magic of hashtags and location sharing! Find the people, with whom you have had this most amazing conversation, in LinkedIn or Facebook; like and share pictures from the convention on Instagram; tweet about your TESOL discoveries. And definitely do not forget to take a selfie with your favorite presenter! Your experience may help other people, and of course it is simply excellent to be able to keep up with your colleagues’ successes and achievements.

Author Bio
Kira Kondratkova is a Fulbright student from Volgograd, Russia, currently studying at MA TESOL program at San Francisco State University. Graduating with a major in teaching Mandarin Chinese and English, Kira had taught at Russian language schools and as a private teacher for several years. Fulbright scholarship brought her to California, where she is continuing her education in the atmosphere of cultural diversity and unlimited opportunities for professional growth.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/the-5-habits-of-highly-effective-tesolers/

ESP Project Leader Profile: Andrew Silberman

Hello, ESPers worldwide!

Can you believe that this is the 40th ESP project leader profile published on the TESOL Blog since May 2015? This profile features a recognized leader, ESP practitioner, and lead singer in a rock band in Tokyo, Japan.

Please read Andrew Silberman’s bio:

Andrew Silberman has been coaching high performance individuals and teams since 1989.  At AMT Group, which he co-founded in Tokyo in 1992, he leads a team of multinational facilitators and staff whose mission is “developing global thinkers.” His clients are managers and executives from leading firms throughout Asia (as well as occasionally in the U.S. and Europe).

Since 2010 he has been an adjunct professor of HR (Managing and Developing Human Capital) for the Temple University Japan Executive MBA program and since 2016 guest professor for Keio University’s business school’s Global Passport Program. His volunteer activities include leadership positions at the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ), where he was awarded Leader of the Year in both 2006 and 2009 and was elected governor in 2012–2014. He is also a board member of International Secondary School (ISS), a high school for kids who have difficulties adapting to the regular school system.

In his “spare” time, under the alias Andy Atkins, he is the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for Moonshots, a feel-good/roots rock band, playing for weddings, charity events, private parties and “live houses” in Tokyo.

Andrew holds an A.B. in the political economy of industrial societies from U.C. Berkeley (1984) and an MBA in international management from the Fisher School of Business at the Monterrey Institute of International Studies in Monterrey, CA (with distinction, 1988).

In his ESP success story, he focuses on a program that prepares employees for successful communication in teleconferences.

---

Andrew W. Silberman
President and Chief Enthusiast, AMT Group

Define leadership in your own words.

Leadership is “influence.”  Anyone can demonstrate leadership by the influence they wield over a group.

In my MBA HR class, Dr. Loren Moore wrote, “Leadership = f (L, F, S).” He explained that leadership is a function of the leader,  follower(s) and a situation.

And then there’s my little brother Blaze, who, at age 14 was told by my step-mom that he needed to “be more of a leader.”  “I am a leader,” he said. “I just don’t have any followers yet.”

Tell me an ESP project success story. Focus on your communication as a leader in the project. How did you communicate with stakeholders to make that project successful?

Background

A challenge in Asia is global teleconferences.  The time differences often mean late nights calls, but that’s just an inconvenience. More difficult are the cultural barriers when faced with assertive and sometimes aggressive participants on the other side of the world.  Companies want to help their more reticent participants participate more effectively.

Delivery

A large financial news gathering and reporting organization contracted AMT Group to implement “global teleconference impact” training for their Tokyo office.  The training takes a total of three hours and requires no preparation by participants.

The workshop opened with a fuel-tank analogy. We asked how much people like conference calls. In this case, like most, the average of all “tanks” was less than one-quarter full.  The purpose of the training, therefore, is to move the needle just a few notches up, so that everyone is at least more than half-way looking forward to their next call.

We then used a flip chart and asked, “What are the first impressions given by people who are on a call but who don’t speak up?” The answers included “not interested,” “not prepared,” “bored,” “shy,” “intimidated.” One said, “not even there,” and another, “doing something else.” One person said, “good listener.”

“Most of these are negative.  So why don’t we speak up more often? What are the barriers to speaking up?”  We listed possible reasons, some of which matched the impressions given above:  “not interested,” “not prepared.” Also “didn’t understand,” and one said, “didn’t want to interrupt.”

We then shared that all of those may be their reasons but that  “other people have excuses, I have my reasons.” And we went through this second list, one by one, checking to see if it’s worth creating the negative impression that silence gives. Instead of “not understanding, “ and giving the possible impression of “not interested,” how about  asking for clarification?  After all, no company is paying you to be “not prepared,” and this client was no exception.

What about that person who said the silent one was a “good listener”?  We asked, “When was the last time you heard someone complimented on how well they ‘listened’ on a teleconference?”  That brought laughter from the whole group.

We then introduced the analogy of a crew team (rowing) and shared that a teleconference has an objective, just like the rowers on a crew team, and that all call participants can help the call reach that objective efficiently.  We shared seven “conversational oars” that can get the job done, among them, breaking in with a compliment, asking questions, recapping, paraphrasing, and three more.

Finally, we ran through three simulated calls, and recorded them on a digital audio recorder, playing back for review. We encouraged participants to jump in whenever they wanted by stating a speaker’s name so the speaker would stop for a split second, and they experienced what it feels like to be acknowledged with a “great point” or an “I agree,” and how that differs being interrupted.

Outcome

Participants and call leaders learned that just like successful crew teams, conference calls have no dead weight (silence).  The Tokyo office earned kudos from their New York counterparts on their next call, and some brought the list of seven oars to their next call.  Another client did the same, and he received a congratulatory email from his overseas boss on how well he participated on the call. We’ve now delivered the training across Asia and have licensed their in-house trainers to deliver it around the globe.

Comment

What I love most about this training is that people can put what they learned into practice immediately, and they can raise their profile inside the company.  And some great ideas that used to go unsaid are now openly and freely discussed.  For those who successfully completed the training, their tanks are now way more than half full.

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After reading Andrew’s success story, I thought carefully about the “deliverables.” The training left his students with a set of communication strategies that they could take with them to their various sites of engagements to get the job done. I am currently working on a program in which such a set of communication strategies will be especially important takeaways, so Andrew’s profile is particularly relevant to my own work at this moment.

I was also inspired by Andrew’s accomplishments in a wide range of fields. The connection between them seems to be leadership and professional communication, which are the two themes that appear in the ESP project leader profiles. You can access all of the profiles on the TESOL Blog or, if you are a TESOL member, in the TESOL ESPIS Library.

Do you have any questions or comments for Andrew? Please feel free to contact him directly.

All the best,
Kevin

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/esp-project-leader-profile-andrew-silberman/

Preposition song…A bit closer!

Click to go to our Teachers Pay Teachers Store!

Our prepositions unit is packed with word and picture cards, songs, word wall cards and more.

Here is a fun song from that unit to practice early advanced prepositions!  Sing it to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or as a call back.
Have fun with it!

 

A bit closer

A bit farther

A bit higher

A bit lower

A little to the left

A little to the right

Not quite in the middle
Within an inch…or a ????

Happy Teaching!

from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2018/02/preposition-songa-bit-closer.html

TESOL Convention Update: New Strand Models

Attendees at the 2019 TESOL International Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, will be greeted with something new: a new organizational system for concurrent sessions. Following the recommendations of several task forces, and a successful pilot at the 2018 TESOL International Convention, the new system will shift from the complex categorization of overlapping settings, contexts, and content/skill areas for convention proposals to a streamlined number of strands. These changes will be reflected in the call for proposals for the 2019 TESOL International Convention that will be released shortly. The purpose of this shift is to enhance the overall convention by improving proposal reviews; enabling the program to respond to new trends, issues, and topics; and helping proposal authors and convention attendees navigate the convention program more easily.

This change is the latest in the series of enhancements that have been made to the TESOL International Convention over the past several years. Many of these changes have been small or have been changes to the planning process. Although many other associations such as the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) and the American Educational Research Association (AERA) have been successfully using similar models for some time, this shift to content strands represents a major change to the organization of TESOL’s overall program, which itself has not changed significantly in several decades.

History

As the annual convention is single largest and most significant event for the TESOL profession each year, the leadership of the association is continually looking for ways to ensure that it is of the highest quality for attendees and presenters. For the past several years, the Board of Directors has been reviewing recommendations from a successive series of task forces on the convention and its role for the association and the field.

In 2011 and 2015 the board created task forces to review the shape and scope of the convention and provide recommendations on improvements to ensure it continues to meet the needs of the field and profession. Both the Convention Task Force and the Conferences of the Future Task Force made numerous recommendations to the board, including ways to improve the adjudication process and the overall convention experience. Both groups found that the categorization and content areas within the call for proposals and for the convention had grown significantly overtime, making the proposal submission and adjudication process increasingly complex. Both task forces recommended developing strands for the convention to help make the proposal submission process, and the overall convention experience, easier to navigate.

In its report to the board in 2014, the Governance Review Task Force had found that the association’s governance system had become overly complex and bureaucratic, limiting its ability to efficiently serve the needs of members and the field. One example it had found related to the adjudication and planning of convention sessions. Any major new content programming area for the convention necessitated the creation of a new TESOL Interest Section (IS), a process that could take up to two years. The task force recommended numerous ways to restructure the governance system so that it was more agile and responsive, including creating more leadership opportunities, and changes to processes, structure, and culture. One outcome of the governance restructuring was the creation of the Conferences Professional Council (CPC) in 2016, which now oversees content planning for the annual convention and other conferences.

As part of the 2018 TESOL International Convention, a pilot was planned to see how a strand model would work. Four specific strands were developed and incorporated into the call for proposals. The adjudication process was monitored, and the strand model worked well. Subsequently, plans were developed to expand the strand model for the 2019 TESOL International Convention. A 12-member advisory panel of IS leaders was identified to help guide the work of the CPC in developing this new strand model. After the proposed model was drafted, additional feedback was collected from IS leaders, Professional Council members, and the Board of Directors. This feedback is being reviewed now, and final changes are being made to the strand model in preparation for the 2019 call for proposals.

The strand model will not only make the proposal submission and the convention program easier to complete but will also provide greater agility in the program to respond to new trends, issues, and topics. Moreover, the strand model will help improve the quality of convention sessions by providing the opportunity for specialized training in the proposal review process. This training will be facilitated by a new leadership position: the strand coordinator.

Strand Coordinators and Assistant Strand Coordinators

To help organize the strands at the convention, new leadership positions are being developed to work with the CPC. Strand coordinators will work with assistant strand coordinators in recruiting qualified reviewers, vetting potential reviewers, providing specialized strand-related input to reviewers regarding expectations and commenting strategies, and facilitating the review and proposal selection process. Strand coordinators (SC) and assistant strand coordinators (ASC) will be selected by the CPC through an open call for applications. SCs will serve for two to three years: one to two years as an ASC, and one to two years as SC. It is hoped that these terms of service will give continuity to and sustainability in the strand leadership and administration. The number of SCs and ASCs per strand will be determined according to the projections for 2019 and the actual statistics from 2019 for 2020. The application process for SCs for TESOL 2019 is now open. For more information, please visit the TESOL volunteer webpage.

IS leaders will continue to play an important role in shaping the convention program by planning and developing nonadjudicated sessions such as academic sessions and intersection sessions. In addition, IS leaders will play an important role in suggesting competent professionals who might serve as SCs or ASCs and supporting the reviewer recruitment process based on the criteria listed in call for volunteers. Moreover, the CPC will solicit input and feedback from IS leaders on other aspects of the convention program, such as the selection of invited speakers.

These new procedures represent significant changes to the way the program for the annual TESOL International Convention is planned and developed. Feedback from members and leaders will be critical in ensuring that these changes are successful in improving the convention experience for everyone. As these processes move forward, feedback will be regularly collected from members. Comments will be collected from proposal submitters and reviewers, other TESOL leaders, and convention attendees at different points over the course of the next year and any necessary adjustments will be made to future convention programs. The goal is to seek continual improvements to the quality of the convention program, so your continued input and feedback will be vital as we move forward.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/tesol-convention-update-new-strand-models/

💕Valentine’s Day Resources from Fun To Teach💕

Hello Everyone!

Love is in the air and we have some great resources for you to use during this happy time of year!
💕Valentine’s Day Resources from Fun To Teach💕

Check out this 2 lovely products and give some heart to your teaching this February!

Valentine Word Wall Packet!

This 14-page vocabulary package includes 20 Valentine Verb Word Wall cards, teacher’s guide and ideas.

Words included in this packet are:
adored, admired, beloved, charmed, cherished, devoted, embraced, enamored, flirted, gifted, greeted, hugged, infatuated, kissed, liked, loved, romanced, smitten, wooed, and yearned.

Vocabulary games and activities included in this set:
Word Wall
Bean Bag Toss
Slap It!
Chant the Wall

This is a great Valentine vocabulary graphic organizer to use with your students. Just copy onto colored paper and cut and you have your Valentine Verb word wall ready to go!

A vocabulary word wall is an organized group of large print words posted on a bulletin board or wall in your classroom. Word walls draw attention to the words you are teaching and are used in whole class or small group activities.

Word walls provide a systematic visual vocabulary organizer that aides children in seeing and remembering connections between words and the characteristics that help them form categories and schemas to remember how to use them.

Click here for the Valentine Word Wall Packet!

Freebie Time!

Valentine Number Flipbook 0-19

Valentine Kindergarten Number Flipbook 0-19

This 10-page kinder math counting number flipbook pack contains a Valentine interactive number flipbooks for students to create. These are engaging kindergarten Valentine counting math books to make as a math center activity, or as an extension to your math lesson.

Get your students counting with this great math number flipbook. Students simply color, cut and assemble. Watch your young learners take off counting.

Kindergarten Valentine Number Flipbook 0-19 can be used during guided math as openers, small group time and math work stations or centers. The topics covered are number identification and counting.

COMMON CORE…
Counting & Cardinality
K.CC.2
Count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence (instead of having to begin at 1).
Click here for the Valentine Number Flipbook 0-19
K.CC.7
Compare two numbers between 1 and 10 presented as written numerals.

How to use this book:
Assembly:
• Print on cardstock.
• Cut at the dotted line to separate the base of the flipbook from the picture pages.
• Cut around each rectangle picture box.
• Arrange the number cards one on top of the other and staple or bind the top of all pages to the flipbook base.

This is an engaging way for students to practice their numbers and share their knowledge with family and friends.

Click here for the Valentine Number Flipbook 0-19

Happy Teaching!
Lori at Fun To Teach!
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2018/02/valentines-day-resources-from-fun-to.html

Attending TESOL 2018: Focus on Second Language Writing

The 2018 TESOL Convention in Chicago is only a few weeks away, and I am happy to see a lot of helpful suggestions on conference attendance offered by my fellow TESOL bloggers. A couple of years ago, I also wrote a blog on how to make your conference attendance a helpful and unforgettable experience. Today, I’d like to address my blog specifically to those conference attendees who are interested in issues related to second language writing as well as those who would like to get involved in the professional and social life of the Second Language Writing Interest Section (SLWIS).

SESSION SPONSORED BY SLWIS

Every year, the SLWIS steering committee organizes many exciting sessions and meetings to offer conference attendees a wide range of professional and social opportunities.

SLWIS Open Meeting

• Time: Wednesday March 28, 6:45–8:15 pm
• Location: N135

The meeting is open to all SLWIS members as well as those who would like to learn more about this interest section and get involved in one or more capacities. It’s a great opportunity to engage in the life of this interest section, find future collaborators, and get connected with the SLWIS professional community.

The Friends of Second Language Writing Social

• Time: Wednesday March 28, after the Open Meeting
• Location: TBA

This informal event is a great opportunity to socialize with the members of the SLWIS community, meet established SLW scholars, visit with old friends, and enjoy the relaxing atmosphere over a drink and snacks after a long conference day.

Networking Sessions

This year, the Steering Committee of the SLWIS organized two networking events. Both sessions have an informal format to allow attendees to learn about a particular topic through engaging in a conversation with each other.

Session 1: Tips for Writing a Successful L2 Writing Conference Proposal

• Time: Thursday March 29, 3:00–3:45 pm
• Location: Expo Hall
• Organizers: Betsy Gilliland, Hee-Seung Kang, Soo Hyon Kim, Elena Shvidko
• Abstract: Getting a proposal accepted at TESOL has become more competitive every year. Join experienced proposal reviewers for a discussion of how to write a high quality second language writing-related proposal for next year’s conference. The presenters share tips and provide feedback on ideas.

Session 2: How to Get a TESL/SLW Academic Job in Today’s Market

• Time: Thursday March 29, 4:00–4:45 pm
• Location: Expo Hall
• Organizers: Aylin Atilgan, Ilka Kostka, Veronika Maliborska, Sandra Zappa-Hollman
• Abstract: SLWIS leaders exchange information about the academic job market in the United States, Canada, and Europe with SLW graduate students. The session advises on applying for academic jobs, creating an application portfolio, interviewing, and establishing a research agenda.

SLWIS/Bilingual Education Intersection: Teaching Writing from a Biliteracy Perspective in K-12 Education

• Time: Thursday March 29, 1:00–2:45 pm
• Location: E353a
• Presenters: Tanita Saenkhum, Yvonne Freeman, David Freeman, Mark Chapman, Mariana Castro, Maria E. Brisk, Aida Walqui
• Abstract: The session explores the complex issues surrounding teaching writing in a new or additional language, aiming to promote biliteracy in today’s bilingual programs. Panel members explain current research and theories, institutional and local challenges, and successful examples of biliteracy practices for the bilingual classroom.

Academic Session: Researching, Teaching, and Assessing Argumentation

• Time: Friday March 30, 9:30–11:15 am
• Location: N137
• Presenters: Tanita Saenkhum, Alan Hirvela, Silvia Pessoa, Ann Johns, Atta Gebril, Lia Plakans
• Abstract: The panel discusses the current state of argumentation in L2 writing, highlighting its important role in different academic disciplines and addressing its various dimensions of difficulties L2 students encounter. Through successful examples, speakers—established L2 writing scholars—delineate ways in which argumentative writing can be researched, taught, and assessed.

OTHER SESSION ON SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING

You can find other conference sessions on various topics related to SLW by going to TESOL 2018 and selecting “Full Schedule” under “Agenda.” From there, you can type “second language writing” in the search bar or select the “Track” tab on the left and check the “second language writing” box.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Whether or not you will be at the convention, you can stay connected with other attendees through social media by using hashtags #TESOL18 and #myTESOL18 and by joining the TESOL Convention event on Facebook. I also encourage you to stay tuned with other SLWIS fellow attendees via SLWIS Facebook page.

Hope you will have a great experience at the TESOL 2018 Convention in Chicago!

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/attending-tesol-2018-focus-on-second-language-writing/