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%

On the Truce to the Grammar Wars.

Calling a Truce to the Grammar Wars. Content Area: Grammar.

T. Leo Schimitt, New York University, USA

Brian Skelton, Fox Valley Technical College, USA

I ran into Keith S. Folse in one section in which we were having a dicussion between descriptivism and prescriptivism. Participants were divided up into two groups. Folse, Deryn Verity and I were part of the smaller group which consisted of twelve prescriptivists. The larger group, composed of twenty one participants, did not believe in explicit grammar teaching. During the debate Folse made it clear that grammar has to be explicitedly taught at higher levels, but that lower level students do not have enough vocabulary for complex grammatical explanations that introduces the titles, thus simple explanation is to take place. The other group argued that grammar must be taught in context, meaning that grammatical instruction be done as questions arise. The conclusion that I came to is that there has to be a middle ground between prescriptivism and descriptivism in order to teach grammar communicatively, within a context, as questions arise while teaching it explicitly.

            At the end of the presentation I introduced myself to Folse as a Grad student from CSULA and I asked him if he happened to have any handouts from his presentations. He gave me his notes, which in this case consists of a copy of two units of his book, Clear Grammar 2 (2012).

Calling a Truce to the Grammar Wars. Content Area: Grammar.

The following was based on notes I took at the Tesol Convention in Philadelphia. 

Calling a Truce to the Grammar Wars. Content Area: Grammar.

T. Leo Schimitt, New York University, USA

Brian Skelton, Fox Valley Technical College, USA

Notes from the presentation:

Do students need grammar instruction? If so, in what capacity?

(Explicit vs. Implicit)

(Discrete vs. Integrated)

(Communit, IEP, Bussiness and industry, etc)

-         Context: Who, where and why

-         Comfort: What and where

-         Politics of language learning

-         Instructional preference

-         Assesment: Paper vs. IBT or TOEFL

-         Expectations of the institution

-         Knowledge of the instructor