Quick review of KOTESOL 2009
A mixed list of impressions from the conference:
1) Registration was a nightmare as per usual. The sheer untidiness of the “Problem” desk was a problem in and of its self. The computers were down again when I was in there (similar to 2 years ago I was told) and the initial perception was not one of professionalism; in fact I would say that I was quite embarrassed to be a member of KOTESOL regarding this level of amateurism regarding conference registration.
2) I’m not sure if they had overflow rooms last year or not but those were great. The down side being that there were no handouts available in those rooms so made them undesirable to be in.
3) The tech teams seemed far more proficient this year — ie in problem rooms in a flash and got things up and running in a jiffy! Well done tech team!
4) There needs to be a suggestion box.
5) At the KOTESOL table where you can get your certificate of attendance there needs to be a guru that knows all and can find out all.
6) The booklet with the presenters in it needs some touch ups:
a) on the cover it says “17th Annual” but the binding says “16th Annual”.
b) contact information of all the presenters needs to be with each presenter – crazy to have to chase after presenters to ask for email addresses.
c) a list of the publishers tables should be in the book.
7) The 5 sessions on “Research” were an interesting and well needed addition and I would like to see more presentations of that sort at future conferences.
The “Conversation About Teacher Training” should have been much longer as there were some great ideas flowing.
9) It would be great to hear more about the specific future of ES/FL in Korea regarding hogwons, public schools, universities etc. (I realize that is much more difficult than it sounds but, hey, we can talk about it right?).
10) Plenary speakers should be required to provide us with new and geographically relevant material; Ellis’ slides were from 2007, Thornbury (Featured Speaker) was stressing about “the benefits of memorizing vocabulary” which is not an issue here, although it could be in Spain (?).
I wasn’t very impressed with the other featured speakers as they were a little too focused on the “love of thy student” and not focused enough on theory or anything tangible or useful.
I was very pleased with Scott Miles from Daegu Haany University – very useful material as well having an enjoyable presentation style. I hope that he will be back next year.
That’s it. I most likely will go back next year as I DO like to hear what’s going on in Korea and I do think that KOTESOL will improve. And although I work at a university I have to echo the thoughts of one member of the audience that mentioned about the lack of support regarding hogwon teachers. KOTESOL needs to increase advertising to get these people in and to get more Koreans into the conference (in fairness I don’t know what the breakdown of attendees was regarding Korean:International).
Did you go? What did you think?
Do you know Tzechuk? She is a friend of mine and worked hard on the conference. Would you mind if I sent her the link to this post? Cheers!
Not at all!
I went to the conference – my first KOTESOL / teachers conference here in Korea. Although I wrote about it on my own blog – http://chrisinsouthkorea.blogspot.com/2009/10/kotesol-conference-2009.html – I wish there was more for the ‘average’ teacher. A lot of things were definitely focused to the ‘academia’ crowd – a crowd that’s quite different from other English teachers in Korea.
One would assume that was because the theme of this conference was “Pursuing Professional Excellence in ELT” and that next year’s will have a completely different focus.
Thank you for this review. We live and learn. Constructive criticisms are always welcome. I will be sharing this with next year’s conference chairs. Thank you mommy cha for letting me know, too.
Overall though, wevegotseoul, I hope you had a positive experience.
Thank you for joining us at the Conference.
I honestly think that attending conferences is always a positive experience. As committees and focuses change as does the quality of service that is provided, and I assume that many of the individuals involved are volunteers and only so much can be pushed on them – regarding a demeanor of professionalism. Of course you can’t please everyone and it is easier to complain about what didn’t suit your needs, I think that everyone that put on the conference does deserve a round of applause regarding the amount of work that they do do. And with all of that, what I should really do is volunteer myself …