Professional Development

Here's some information about the upcoming KOTESOL International Conference in Seoul (October 28-29). Unfortunately, Jeju POE is NOT sponsoring the new teachers to attend - even though that is stated in the last email on this page. The web site is www.kotesol.org. Unfortunately, some computers won't connect to the site's information about the conference. Most computers, however, do seem to connect to it.

Hey everyone, below is an email sent to Ganwon EPIKers, might be ofinterest to y'all in all those other provinces too!

Just a reminder to those that might be interested that the KOTESOL International Conference will be held this saturday & sunday, oct 28-29, at Sookmyeong University in Seoul.

Its a pretty big deal as far as conferences like this go. Volunteers have worked quite hard to organize a slate of several dozen speakers (some of international renown), workshops, & resource publishers -- a buffet of info for those in the english-teaching trade. Its also an opportunity to mingle with hundreds of fellow teachers.

A couple disclaimers, based on my experience of having attended 3 of these events. Presentations vary in quality. Some are gems, which can truly enrich you as a teacher, & some, honestly, are duds. Some are theoretical & some are practical & more interactive. A fair number are university oriented. But with intuition & a careful reading of the schedule you should be able to find topics of value to you.

You can also meet representatives of schools offering advanced TESOL training, if thats of intrest.

Presentation & schedule info is outlined in pretty good detail on the KOTESOL homepage: www.kotesol.org Attendees are also given a thick printed program on admission.

The website also offers suggestions for getting to the venue & places to stay. Best bet is to take a subway directly from the bus terminal & to think about accommodation at the end of the day (you can check your bags at the conference). I've never planned ahead & always found somewhere convenient & affordable to rest my head.

The conference is nonprofit but do understand it's not free. Admission for the 2 days is 60000 won, or 35000 if you also buy a chapter membership (40000) which is easy to do at the door. Many find they can recoup much of the expense in freebies & discounts from publishers at the conference.

Membership also brings certain benefits, including subscription to a slick quarter-annual magazine as well as helping support our Gangwon chapter, which holds monthly meetings in Sokcho. Thanks, by the way, to those of you who have attended our last couple meetings. Hope you benefitted & enjoyed yourselves.

Whether you attend the conference or not, please consider our chapter meetings as a viable (& free) option for professional development.

Finally, please dont think I'm trying to sell you something. EPIK & KOTESOL are totally distinct beasts & I volunteer as the Gangwon KOTESOL chapter prez just out of personal interest in teacher development.

I believe the two organizations can go hand in hand. But if you'd like me to drop you off this mailing list, just let me know.

Dear all,I attended the KOTESOL conference last year and will be attendingagain this year. I found it to be a personally and professionallyenriching experience as I was able to gather materials and books thathave proved to be useful, brush up on some educational theory andpractical skills, and brainstorm some new ideas to put into use in theclassroom. If you want to learn more about education/TESOL or want tomeet other English teachers, then the conference is a greatopportunity.

(I hope that one day the Gangwon-do Office of Education will providefunding for interested EPIKers to attend the conference, as theJeju-do Office of Education does.)

If any of the new people need help navigating from their city to theconference or while in Seoul, please feel free to contact me and I'lldo my best to help you get sorted.

This link will work to get to the conference information:

http://www.kotesol.org/conference/2006/invited_speakers/invited_speakers.html

I stumbled across this info today and thought it was worth sharing with you. 99 ways to say "Very Good". There's only so many times you can say "Good job", "Great work"....hopefully you will enjoy.

http://www.careerlab.com/99ways.htm

Cheers,

Kirsty 

I have modified my computer and MS Word a while ago so that I can easily type in Korean. However, in doing so, I lost access to a tool that I used to use in MS Word that would check the readability of text.

I have attached a tool on the Teachers page of my website for all to use if you need one. I liked this particular tool because it gave reading levels and the corresponding magazines that were at those levels. Soap Opera Digest made it, but alas, Playboy (but mom, I don't look at the pictures, just the articles) did not, lol.

Hope it is useful to you.

Lee Lalka

이신한

李新韓

website: http://leelalka.googlepages.com Specifically orientated to my students and teachers in Uljin and Jukbyeon. Hopefully useful to all.