TACON2016

The 22nd TESOL Arabia International Conference and Exhibition

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Hope you didn't miss it!

Friday’s highlights:

Mini pecha-kucha presentations for the classroom, by Andrew Imrie

A very simple idea, whereby a 3 minute (approximately) slideshow is created and you talk about each image. The fun in this is that the slides - which are made up of images – move automatically, so you have a specific amount of time to say what you want to say about each image.

Gamifying Teacher Professional Development through Minecraft MOOC, by Vance Stevens

My kids are wild about Minecraft and I am ignorant about it, so I came to this session for my babies. It is all very new to me, so a lot went ‘above my head’, but I will definitely get back to the slides and explore what seemed like endless possibilities to integrate Minecraft with teaching.

Intercultural dialogues in TESOL through international telecollaboration, by Daniela Coelho, Ana Pires & Angélica Galante

Interesting collaborative project, as it involved trainees from different countries and study areas. Isn’t it wonderful when we are able to share ‘cultures’ beyond the clichés of food, music & religion? When we tap into each others’ minds and souls, we are able to find more connections and similarities than differences. Unfortunately I had to miss the end of this session, to go set up my presentation!

Teacher professional development through classroom research, by Christina Gitsaki

Whenever I see the name ‘Gitsaki’ I know there’s a guaranteed great session to be had. I have recently started taking research more seriously in my teaching practice when doing research towards my MA in TESOL (Which I have recently finished – Yay!). This session was great as it reinforced the power of the teacher as a researcher, and it introduced the concept of SoTL – Scholarship of Teaching and Learning that is a bottom-up approach to professional development. Power to the teacher! Power to the learner! Right, need to run to another session!

Professional learning communities and their potential, by Fiona Hartley

Establishing a community of professional learning as a way to empower teachers to research their practices and the learning of their students. Left me thinking about my next job, which I will search for in December, after a 4 month-travel adventure with my husband.

CLIL meets flipped learning, by Patrizia Cugusi

I got lost in all the explaining about what CLIL can be, although I went in thinking I knew what CLIL was… so didn’t stay long. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t had lunch or coffee yet.

Pencil to paper, by Halina Stolar

A very simple but effective presentation about 5 class-opening activities Halina uses with her class over the 5 days of the school week. These involve dictation, dictation correction, paragraph writing, letter writing, and a reflection about the week/queries. A great idea in getting writing to flow and a simple way of bringing communication back into writing.

What I wish I had gone to too:

• Sara Cotterall’s session ‘I personally wanted to find out…’, which was about tapping into the students’ interests to enhance motivation to write.

• Claire Kramsch’s plenary entitled ‘Which culture should we teach in an era of globalization?’ I have spoken to a few people who participated in this plenary and they were all highly impressed and a couple even had to take a few seconds to work out adjectives to describe the session!

Applauses

• Registration seemed way smoother than last year.
• Love that there is a generous quantity of water in every room.
• Great to see 45-minute workshops, as opposed to last year’s 30 minutes.
• Large number of concurrent sessions.

Critiques

• I was surprised to see a managerial session as the Young Learners featured speech, because in my humble opinion it should have come from a young learner practitioner.
• Wish there were more YL sessions, but I understand why there aren’t… most participants work with adults or older students.
• Besides the pricey revolving restaurant, food options within the site are limited and unhealthy. Wish there were some yogurts, veggie options and fruit available.