As is my wont, I have once again preferred to let my thoughts settle a bit after a TESOL conference, rather than post immediate re-caps and impressions right after the sessions have ended. I like to let the old synapses do some sifting and filtering before putting cursor to WordPress, as it were, to see what remains as having had a particular impact on me. It’s rather like a process of gentle, simmering reduction – like a good French sauce – from a large casserole full of quality ingredients (two and a half days of great events, talks and conversations).
France TESOL has a special place in my heart, of course, as the very first EFL event at which I ever gave a talk. This was in distant 2009, as we were just beginning the coding of the prototype English Attack! website. So I guess it was fitting that, three years later, we would unveil our Teacher and Schools platform at the same event, in our home town of Paris, on the occasion of TESOL France’s 30th anniversary annual Colloquium.
The first talk that motivated me to take notes (a major caveat: I was unable to attend many talks that I would have liked to, so this list is hardly exhaustive nor representative of the fascinating topics and brilliant speakers in Paris) was Stephen Brewer’s keynote on Friday evening, during which he introduced the notion of learner “habits” they need to acquire in order to maximize their learning potential. It’s a notion I had not come across before, for all the talk of autonomy and intrinsic motivation, for habits are something slightly different: actions you perhaps force yourself into at first, or have forced on you, but which are then done routinely and automatically, without coercion or even self-coercion, simply because we know it’s good for us and we function better that way. The notion also feeds into my interest in frequency, out-of-classroom learning and in using web 2.0 principles to foster more involvement by the learner in the learning process. How can we, as teachers, suggest techniques, resources, approaches and exercises that will survive the “coercion” phase, imposed by us in a regulated environment, to eventually become ingrained, useful, and totally voluntary habits? Can imposed reading become reading for pleasure, as so often happens in a learner’s L1 early in life? Can increased exposure to authentic English, through online video assigned as homework for example, result into habitual browsing of YouTube clips in English for the pure pleasure of it? It’s a fascinating subject, and one that merits further consideration and sharing of ideas.
The second talk that made an impact on me was David A. Hill’s presentation “Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?” on how the same topics can look very different according to your national perspective. Towards the end of his talk, he handed out sheets with the lyrics of the Pink Floyd song “Time,” and played the song from his laptop. I’ve always been a Pink Floyd fan, and have heard this particular song and even sung along to it (badly!) dozens of times, but David’s highlighting of the significance of the lyrics was the first time I had ever truly understood them, and it was a wonderful demonstration of how song lyrics can illustrate and expand upon a rather amorphous concept like “time,” not just in terms of its measurement in seconds, minutes and hours, but also its deeper related consequences, such as opportunity, regret, wasting time, trying to catch up with its passing, and so on. A brilliant exposé by someone who has such an easygoing yet thorough mastery of all things EFL that he should be required listening for all pre-service teachers in training.
My talk on Saturday, The Challenges (and Rewards) of Motivating Teens in EFL, involved a great discussion with the delegates present on what we loved most, and hated most, about being that age. It’s not my usual style to start off a talk by involving the audience in defining and fleshing out the topic, but it’s something that I enjoyed and shall be doing more of in the future.
Finally, my TESOL France 30th Annual Colloquium concluded with our introduction and demo of English Attack! for Teachers and Schools, for which all conference delegates received a voucher entitling them, together with 30 learners, to three months’ free use of the platform. The presentation resulted in several France-based teachers now already using the platform, including the various teacher and class management tools, with their learners across a range of high schools, language institutes and businesses in various cities across the country. For anyone reading this having questions on how to use the voucher, or on our Teachers and Schools platform generally, just contact me at paul.maglione@english-attack.com.
So, in conclusion, hats off to Bethany Cagnol and the entire TESOL France staff and volunteers for yet another great annual event, this one more international than ever with visitors and presenters from as far afield as Brazil, Taiwan, Japan, the United States and Turkey. Would I like to attend and speak at the event next year? You bet. It would be an honor.
English Attack! website