Redeeming Wedding Show Prizes

The day after the wedding show, my fiancee and I attended two "cooking classes". At the wedding show there were lots of vendors and we could sign up for raffles of prizes. So later in the we got the first prize winning phone call. They said we had won a two night stay at a hotel and a $25.00 gift card for a restaurant. In order to redeem the prize we were supposed to attend a meeting the next, which we did. The next day we got a second phone call saying that we had won a cooking class and another two night stay at a hotel of our choice. We thought that we were either very lucky or that maybe those "prizes" were not real. The only way to find out was to go to those meetings. My fiancee scheduled them both on the same day, one at 6pm and the other at 8pm. When we got to the first one, it consisted of a presentation on an "amazing" set of pots and pans that you can use to cook food without adding any oil or water. The concept is a good one, but the price is not! We have an expensive wedding ahead of us, and spending $2400 in pots and pans is not in our plans. So we redeemed our gift, a voucher for a two night stay at a hotel and left to the second appointment of the night, the cooking class. That "class" turned out be everything but a class. It was another presentation of a company who sells expensive pots and pans that do not need water or oil to cook food. So we set through the presentation, which turned out to be exactly like the other one, even though the pots were slightly different and the companies were not the same. Once again, after the 1 and a half presentation we redeemed our 2 night stay voucher and the gift card. We left without spending $2200 on pots and pans. We are going to be using those vouchers for our "mini" honey moon, the real one will be in December.

Wedding Shows

The week after I went wedding dress shopping with my friends, we went to a bridal show. There were five of us, my fiancee and I, his brother and wife, and his mom. I don't if you've been to a bridal show or if you even know what that is, neither did I. The show was at a hotel and they had all types of vendors and they also had two shows, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, in which they were showcasing wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses. Before and after those two shows there was a host giving away gifts. So he would ask for random things such as tic-tacs, skeleton keys, a CD, and so on. Well, it so turned out that between the five of us, we had almost everything that he was asking for. The first thing that he called for was somebody with a hole in his sock, well my fiancee had that!!! So he ran to the stage and showed his sock. I am not embarrassed to say that because you are about to find out what he got for that: a coach bag!!!!! Yep, a $250.00 coach bag for having a hole in his sock! Like I mentioned before, because we had a lot of the things that they were asking for, we got a lot of gifts: a free 3 hour photo booth for the wedding, a discount voucher for the DJ, a discount voucher for rentals, and a free bouquet! On top of that, we had a lot of fun running up to the stage (we are very competitive!). We are looking forward to the next show in June!

Wedding Dress Shopping

I never thought that wedding dress shopping could be so much fun. I'm not a shopper, thus shopping for a wedding dress was never in my dreams! This past weekend though, my attitude towards shopping has changed, or at least towards wedding dress shopping. My maid-of-honor (luckily for me I chose the right one) had scheduled an appointment for us to come in to try on wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses. Well, we started with the wedding dresses. I went straight to the "sale" rack and picked a couple dresses. It turned out they all fit, but the length was not the right one. So we moved to the regular priced dresses (yikes!). I had informed the lady at the store that my budget for the dress was no more than $500 to which she informed me that if I wanted to find the perfect dress, I would have to go over my budget. Of course that is something I expected her to say because after all she is most likely on comission. Wait, that is not the fun part, the fun part was putting on those really pretty (heavy) dresses and having my friends take pictures of me. Yes, I was the center of attention, and surprisigly I did not mind it! When I first walked in to the store I was a little shy and even nervous, but as we went on trying on dresses, those feelings were replaced by a feeling of pleasure and excitement. When I look at those pictures I can imagine myself walking down the isle to my groom, and that is the perfect thought!!!!

TESOL Convention 2013

If you are interested in presenting at the TESOL Convention 2013, you need to apply by Friday, June 1st 2012, pm Eastern time.

The convention will be held in Dallas, Texas, USA, from March 20-23, 2013.

You may visit their website for more information:

www.tesolconvention.org

Even if you are not a presenter at the Convention, I still recommend your being there. It's a great opportunity for networking. you will meet tesolers from all over the world and from all different states. You will learn what is being discussed in the field, what the new researches say about all diferent issues, as well as meet the scholars that wrote a lot of the articles that you may have read. For instance, I had a chance to meet the following scholars: Labov, Folse, Celce-Murcia, Kinsella, Snow, Kamhi-Stein and others that don't come to mind at the moment.

NNEST Interest Section

For those of you who want to get connected with the Nonnative English Speaking Interest Section of the International TESOL Society, below you will find the link to their blog. http://nnestblog.blogspot.com/

Interestingly enough, the last message blogged in January, authored by Dr. Lia Kamhi-Stein is on

Good English Language Teachers Are Those Who. I hope this to be helpful. 

Writing/ Grading L2 papers

Writing/ Grading L2 papers.

pjmlindsey@gmail.com

deborah.crusan@wright.edu

Project implicit findings

http://implicit.harvard.edu

projectimplicit.net

Teacher’s bias against or towards student’s writing based n markers such as nationality.

Tony Silva says that L1 and L2 writing is different.

Strategies for reduciong bias:

-         Test yourself as a teacher

-         Strive to be fair (alternate between holistic and analytic grading)

-         Swap papers with peers for grading

-         Conduct mini workshops with students

                                                References

Lindsey, Peggy, & Crusan, Deborah. (2011). How faculty attitudes and expectations

toward student nationality affect writing assessment across the disciplines. TESOL Quarterly, 8(4)

The Future of Tesol: Challenges and Opportunities. Plenary session.

The Future of Tesol: Challenges and Opportunities. Plenary session.

Dr. Jun Liu. Associate provost for International Initiatives at Georgia State University.

Today 80% of English speakers are nonnative. By 2040 there will be more speakers of Chinese than English.

The common factor between the the following three is globalization. 

1. Tesol as an association
2. Tesol as a profession
3. Tesol as a field of study

Percentage of nonnative English speakers in the global market according to the World Trqde Organization:

1996- 30%

2006- 50%

2011- 70%

Tesol as an association was founded in 1966.

Percentage of members per country:

1. U.S.A 73.3%
2. China 3.3%
3. –
4. –
5. Brazil 1.2%
6. Mexico 1.1%