News | Second Language Writing

Call for Proposals: TESOL 2009 CALL IS Electronic Village sessions

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 11:41:24 -0500

CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR FOUR TESOL 2009 ELECTRONIC VILLAGE SPECIAL EVENTS
TESOL 2009: "Uncharted Mountains, Forging New Pathways"
March 26-28, 2009, - Denver, Colorado, USA
EV FAIRS, HARDWARE FAIRS, EV MINI-WORKSHOPS, and DEVELOPERS' SHOWCASE

*DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Friday, December 12, 2008*

You are invited to submit a proposal for participation in one or more of these TESOL 2009 CALL Interest Section Special Events. You are welcome to submit proposals to more than one event, and it is possible to have more than one proposal accepted (depending on space availability and quality of the submission). Windows and Macintosh equipment will be available at no charge, along with CD ROM Drives, Internet connections, and (for the Showcase, EV Hardware Fair and EV Mini-Workshops) projection equipment. Plan to bring a minimum of 100 handouts per Fair/Showcase acceptance slot since these are very popular events!

WHAT HAPPENS AT THE EV FAIRS: Presenters have approximately 20-30 minutes to demonstrate their material on 1-2 computer(s) without projection equipment in a presentation format similar to a "poster session." Participants walk around the EV, dropping in and out of demonstrations, thus precluding highly structured presentations. A demonstration may be repeated a second time (an additional 20 to 30 minutes), if interest warrants and space allows.

WHAT HAPPENS AT THE HARDWARE FAIRS: A Hardware Fair is a variant of the regular fairs, where presenters will demonstrate their material for 20-30 minute intervals, so people can go around the room and see the event multiple times. The variation is that presentations will be on devices which may or may not include computers, but may also interact with them in some way (see description below for suggested items).

WHAT HAPPENS AT THE MINI-WORKSHOPS: One or two presenters introduce a topic to a small group of workshop participants. The workshop is "hands-on" in a computer lab setting. Each workshop - with instruction and "hands-on" practice - lasts 90 minutes.

WHAT HAPPENS AT THE SHOWCASE: A selected group of presenters will demonstrate their software or application for 8 to 12 minutes each. A brief question and answer session follows each presentation.

_____EV FAIR_____
Coordinator: Roger Drury (roger.drury@ esl.gatech. edu)

WHAT ARE EV FAIRS?

In the EV Fairs, teachers or teachers-developers share their use of computer-based and/or internet-based resources. These resources can be software (PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, Excel, Focus on Grammar, Word Attack, Skype, etc.) or websites (presenter-made or public like CNN.com, Yahoo! Groups, an online concordancer, etc.). Demonstrations may highlight student projects, activities or curriculum created for students or educators. Examples:

Email projects
Lesson plan archives for teachers
Vocabulary worksheets using an online thesaurus
Skimming/scanning activities using a local newspaper webpage
Research/writing exercises for investigating Internet hoaxes
A descriptive writing activity combined with HyperStudio illustrations
Web 2.0 activities, using social networking or SecondLife

Please submit your proposal(s) for the EV Fairs online at http://www.langconc epts.net/ ev2009.html

_____HARDWARE FAIR_____
Coordinator: Randall Davis (eslrandall@yahoo. com)

WHAT ARE HARDWARE FAIRS?

Do you have an innovative, effective or otherwise interesting instructional activity that utilizes hardware other than a conventional computer? Do your students use hardware in an interesting way? If so, why not share it with others in the EV Hardware Fair? Presenters will be located at stations around the Electronic Village demonstrating use of specific kinds of hardware like:

handheld devices
cameras
porttable technologies
smartboards
clickers
ELMOs
MP3 players
cell phones

It is suggested that you bring your own small hardware (as in hand-held device, camera or cell phone) or ask the company (like Smart) to send you a loaner for the larger equipment (like interactive whiteboards) to demonstrate at the workshop (they are usually good about this). Some responsibility for hardware by the presenter will be needed.

Please submit your proposal(s) for the Hardware Fairs online at http://www.langconc epts.net/ ev2009.html

_____EV MINI-WORKSHOPS_____
Coordinator: Laurie Moody (LMoody@pccc. edu)

WHAT ARE EV MINI-WORKSHOPS? The EV Mini-workshops are limited-seating ticketed events that provide hands-on experience. Participants gain experience in adaptation of software and/or hardware for CALL purposes and create products for teaching and learning. Examples:

Social networking
Working with multiple media
Creating Internet teaching and learning resources
Developing online collaborative environments
Students creating content

Please submit your proposal(s) for the EV Mini-workshops online at http://www.langconc epts.net/ ev2009.html

_____DEVELOPERS' SHOWCASE_____
Coordinator: Andrew Bowman (ielc.lab@wichita. edu)

WHAT IS THE DEVELOPERS' SHOWCASE? The Developers' Showcase is one of several ways in which the CALL-IS disseminates information about computers and computer-assisted instruction to the ESL/EFL professional community. The Showcase provides an opportunity for the designers of ESL/EFL software to display their work, and for potential users, software developers, and marketers to examine and react to it. We especially welcome projects produced by teachers for their own students or projects produced under development grants.

This Showcase includes materials in the following two categories:
1. disk-based software, including floppy-disk, hard disk, and CD-ROMs.

2. web-based software, including both programs that can be accessed directly from the web and those that can be downloaded.

The Showcase is not a commercial venue. Only work that is not yet on the market will be considered. The following types of software are not acceptable for the Showcase:

Software that is already contracted with a publisher
Software that has been offered for sale independently, or which the presenter plans to sell independently, including by subscription or as shareware
Software given away free to promote a commercial interest

Please submit your proposal(s) for the Developers' Showcase online at http://www.langconc epts.net/ev2009.html>

TESOL CALL IS: http://www.call- is.org/

Call for Proposals: 6th TALGS Conference

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 11:33:20 -0500

Sixth TALGS Conference, February 21, 2009

The 6th TALGS (TESOL/Applied Linguistic Graduate Students) conference will be held on Saturday, February 21, 2009, at East Carolina University. Organized by the Linguistics and TESOL graduate students and faculty, TALGS is aimed at providing a serious yet relaxed environment for graduate students and professionals working in a variety of applied linguistics fields and TESL/TEFL to present their work, receive feedback, and network.

This year’s plenary speaker will be a distinguished TESOL scholar and educator, Dr. Jodi Crandall of University of Maryland-Baltimore County, with a presentation entitled, Sharing Our Expertise: Working with Mainstream Teachers, and a discussion session on TESOL Standards. Please visit (http://core.ecu.edu/engl/talgs/conference/conference.htm) for more information.

We encourage area-specific and cross-disciplinary submissions from a variety of fields that can contribute to an understanding of language use, language teaching and/or language learning. For instance, proposals from the fields of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, sociology, discourse analysis, education, foreign languages, communications, and psychology will be considered. Proposals grounded in action research (inside and outside the classroom), works in progress, submissions based on successful term projects, and pilot research are welcome. Presentation proposals should be submitted via the conference website and received no later than December 7, 2008 (http://core.ecu.edu/engl/talgs/conference/proposal.htm). Conference pre-registration via the conference website ends January 18, 2009.

Please view the attached flyer and, if possible, share this information with your colleagues and graduate students.

Sincerely,

The TALGS team

Graduate student organizers, Zuzana Elliott, Lamont Cannon, & Yi Sun: copel@ecu.edu

Visit Linguistics and TESOL at ECU:
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cas/engl/graduate/tesol.cfm
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cas/engl/graduate/tesol.cfm

Call for Proposals: 2009 Symposium on Second Language Writing

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 11:30:16 -0500

The Call for Proposals for the 2009 Symposium on Second Language Writing, to be held at Arizona State University on November 5-7, 2009, is now available in PDF format.

http://sslw.asu.edu/2009/sslw2009cfp.pdf

Letter from the Chair

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:34:48 -0400

The Letter from the new SLWIS Chair, Gigi Taylor, is up on the SLWIS website.

And another conference has been added: The 3rd Conference on College English, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan, April 11, 2009.

CFP: Symposium on Second Language Writing 2009

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:16:21 -0400

The Call for Papers for Symposium on Second Language Writing 2009 is now available at this site. The conference will be November 5-7, 2009, and the deadline for proposals is April 30, 2009.

Spilman Symposium on Issues in Teaching Writing

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:29:25 -0400

The 12th Spillman Symposium on Issues in Teaching Writing will have as its theme “Reading to Write: What, When, Where, and Why?” and speakers will include Professors David Jolliffe (U of Arkansas), Deborah Holdstein (Columbia College Chicago), and Eli Goldblatt (Temple U). These speakers will discuss Jolliffe’s recent College English article, “Texts of Our Institutional Lives: Studying the ‘Reading Transition’ from High School to College: What Are Our Students Reading and Why?” Breakout sessions will continue the discussion in smaller groups.

Hosted by the Writing Program at Virginia Military Institute, "The Spilman Symposium on Issues in Teaching Writing is a one-day, annual event created to bring teachers of writing together for conversations with some of the major scholars in rhetoric and composition studies. Providing a forum for active engagement of timely issues, the symposium is designed as a think-tank for all instructors who are interested in the teaching of writing, including those involved with writing across the curriculum. Each year registration is limited to approximately sixty participants."

I've attended four of these symposiums in the last six years, and I can say that they are excellent for those who are interested in issues in teaching writing. Although it is not focused on second language writing, I always learn something useful in teaching writing.

NCTE Provides Professional Development

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:36:13 -0400

NCTE's Pathways Professional Development Program is ready for the new school year, both for individuals and for school or district teams. Areas of professional development include Adolescent Literacy, English Language Learners, and 21st Century Literacies.

Joint UK-Pakistan TESOL Conference

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:31:04 -0400

This conference (March 3-4, 2009) is coordinated by the School of Education at the University of Wales, Newport, and the International Islamic University, Islamabad. Proposal submissions are due by September 30, 2008.

ISLS 2009 Annual Conference

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:57:58 -0400

The submission date for the International Society for Language Studies 2009 Annual Conference is soon coming to a close on September 1, 2008. For more information, go to their website.

Update on Tamkang International Conference

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:55:33 -0400

I received an email from Yu-Lan Liu, a conference coordinator, that the site should be okay now.

Tamkang International Conference on Second Language Writing

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:56:24 -0400

I just learned about the Tamkang International Conference on Second Language Writing (via TeachEnglish). Wish I could go!! That would be great to learn about pedagogy and research on L2 writing outside of the North American context.

On a sidenote, my Firefox browser said that the official website for this conference was an "attack site," so I would use the information at TeachEnglish instead of going to the site. Firefox added that the site could have been compromised without their knowledge, and I imagine that it was (if it actually was).

SSLW Interactive

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:33:09 -0400

There's a new site for those interested in second language writing: Second Language Writing Interactive. Paul Kei Matsuda set it up just a short time ago, and it looks like it may become the site to go to for all things related to L2 writing. Go check it out and, if you like, make a contribution and help it grow.

Resources Moved to SLWIS

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:12:12 -0400

Most of the "More resources" page was moved to Teaching Resources on the SLWIS site, and the page was renamed "Email Lists" to reflect what remained.

Changes in Second Language Writing

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:35:38 -0400

As I am now managing the Second Language Writing Interest Section website, I've moved the pages for Organizations and Bibliographies over to it to avoid duplication of resources. Further changes to this site and to SLWIS will be announced here, along with pertinent news on L2 writing.