TESOL EVO 2014

Looking forward to TESOL's annual Electronic Village Online this year, which has just opened its call for participation.

I am giving a session and helping out with the moderating of Teaching English to Young Learners and Teenagers. Their blog is here and communication between members is taking place on the TEYLT2014 Yahoo Group.

Crafting the ePerfect eTextbook promises to be a very interesting session, so I've signed up for that too. This group is connecting through a Google+ community and is using Listly to share resources and using the Twitter hashtag #EbookEVO. The session syllabus is here and the The list of moderators is extensive and includes many well-known teachers, teacher trainers and material writers. It's being sponsored by the IATEFL TD SIG and IATEFL MaW SIG and aims to help participants "outline, design and complete 1 chapter of an e-textbook that meets their learners' needs ". The moderators and other participants on the session will provide feedback during the five weeks.

The final EVO session I've signed up for is ELT podcasting. I used to do a lot of podcasting, but haven't done so much in recent years. I've decided I'd like to start a new podcast this year, and so through this group, I'm interested in connecting with other podcasters and seeing what's changed and what people are doing. This group has three blogs: a session blog, an activity blog and a readings blog. They are communicating through a Yahoo group and through Twitter (#podcasting2014 is the hashtag).

Are you participating in EVO2014? If so, what sessions have you signed up for?

TESOL Spain 2007 - Sant Sebastian

I am exhausted but happy after attending the 30th annual TESOL Spain Conference in Sant Sebastian (Donostia)last weekend, whose name 'Killing Two Birds with One Stone' refers to the very popular (at least in Spain) CLIL (Content Integrated Language Learning)movement.



I took the overnight train there on Thursday night, arriving at 7.00am on Friday morning. The conference wasn't due to start until 15.00, which in theory left me sufficient time for sightseeing, but, as I was due to present (on 'Online Student Publishing Projects') that evening, I spent much of the time beforehand, holed-up in my hotel room, making sure my presentation was up-to-scratch.



I arrived at 15.00 and found that I was one of the first people to arrive. Waiting around, I bumped into another early bird, who turned out to be the incoming President of TESOL (Sandra J Briggs). Quite by chance, we chatted about her taking over the presidency in Seattle later this month, and I was able to talk to her about the TESOL Electronic Village Online projects. She wrote down names, and promised to look up some of the people when she goes to the Convention. She also attended my presentation, which was very nice of her.



I was happy with how the presentation went, and surprised at how many people attended - over 50. I didn't have enough handouts for them, and so promised to post a copy of it on the TESOL Spain Website. Afterwards, quite a few people stayed to talk to me, and many said then, and later that weekend that they were going to start either blogging, podcasting, or using wikis with their students - Incidentally, if you are one of the people who attended, and who happens to be reading my blog afterwards, thankyou very much for the warm reception!



As for the rest of the weekend, I wish I had time to say just how much I enjoyed the other presentations I attended - it was fabulous to get so many ideas and hear so many competent speakers in such a short space of time. I think I have had my teaching batteries fully recharged, and have already been trying out some of the ideas (Thankyou Mario Rinvolucri and Paul Seligson)that I picked up while I was there.