Clesol Day 1

http://www.clesol.org.nz/index.html is in Wellington and runs for three days.

This year Clesol is hosted at Victoria University. This is my first visit to Rutherford house.
Using #Clesol on twitter I could only locate 6x other educators attending the conference.

The conference launched with a welcome function sponsored by IELTS. I was excited to see a few familiar faces so as Paul Nation walked by I grabbed him for a group photo.

The first plenary began the following day and as I sat in that first session and looked around, I  saw maybe 6 educators using a device. The challenge is most teachers have been given a TELA since 1996 so why were most educators here still using pen and paper.

William Grabe

Powerpoint available via email.
william.grabe@nau.ed
Foundation for L2 Reading development.
William highlighted essential aspects of reading comprehension. He spoke about instructional applications as well as a few specific practices that are not commonly considered in many reading instruction curricula. I was listening to him share about building a reading curriculum.

‘Coming to grips with quality in language assessment’. John spoke about an ongoing concern in language teaching is how to assess learner abilities through good-quality assessments that are suitable for their intended purpose. He stressed the importance of moderation and expertise amongst teachers in their own subject area. Again the slides are incredibly text heavy and for a learner like me, I like my pictures.  I give a quiet chuckle when he spoke about computer familiarity. I was not sure if this included mobile devices but probably not.  

In the afternoon session I attended Heather Thomas session on Mindfulness practice and pedagogy that could enhance English Language Teaching (ELT) by increasing attention, emotional 

The session was not what I expected but is actually what I needed to hear. We often rush from one thing to the next but never take time to stop and smell the roses. 
She shared with us the following documentary. ‘Room to breath’.

Heather’s session was on Mindfulness meaning about being in the moment, being present, being in the now.

Probably the best part of the day was the discussion that happens between the sessions.