The Thai TESOL conference 2010

The Thai TESOL Conference 2010
"ELT in the Next Decade: Sharing, Caring, Daring"
(held at the Twin Towers Hotel, Bangkok)

This weekend, I accepted an invitation to look in on the Thai TESOL Conference in Bangkok. Let me share my observations.

Although I've been a teacher for a good many years, I am not one who usually has much time to attend conferences, whether academic or any other kind. The fact is, I have always shied away from these kinds of gatherings as I had it in my mind that they were populated with lots of avuncular, professorial types in hunting jackets, smoking pipes, and tilted their heads to the right, like Sir Ken Robinson, the creativity expert says in his amazing TED video "...who live in their heads and see their bodies as just a vehicle for getting themselves to meetings!" (link at the bottom of the page)

However, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at the event as a whole. There were lots of interesting people there, an ambient atmosphere, chatty interludes, interesting presentations, shared life as well as classroom experiences traded, and overall, comfortable surroundings in which to forget about the outside world for a few hours.

Although I was there principally to arrange an interview for the English Language Gazette newspaper with the president of Thai TESOL, the engaging Assoc. Prof. Ubon Sanpatchayapong, I was kindly offered an opportunity to see for myself what was planned for the two-day event from 29-30 January, 2010.

 (The president of Thai TESOL, Assoc. Prof. Ubon Sanpatchayapong addresses the delegates.)

The Welcome Speech

The conference began with a welcome speech by the esteemed lady above. She talked about the present aspects of the conference, how the theme of the conference - "ELT in the Next Decade: Sharing, Caring, Daring" was to be understood by us all in this industry and that with delegates from over 30 different countries represented, how we can pool our resources in sharing our knowledge. In terms of caring, she talked about the support from many institutions for the ELT sector in Thailand which helps us care for our students. At times too, we should be daring ourselves to take risks in this ever-changing multicultural world, as well as seeing these challenges as a stepping stone towards ensuring the students to go the extra mile even if that means making a mistake and daring to be wrong.

This opening speech was followed with the keynote speech by Khunying Kasama Varavarn Na Ayudhaya, who gave an inspired talk about the three most influential teachers or educators who affected her as a small child, what she termed as opening the "three black boxes". She mentioned a famous book series called the "Little Lulu" series which I personally have never come across, but would like to, and she reminded all the delegates how important a good primer of a book can be as a good introduction to the English language for small children, although as she said, this particular one is now sadly out of print.

This made me reflect on how important teachers are to our own development and further about the list that might make up my "three black boxes"? Who were the teachers that influenced me? I once had a teacher called Mr. Tomashewski, a Polish woodwork teacher in London, who was very strict and would always make us stand behind a line that was drawn (with military precision) exactly one metre from his desk. I am not sure what I learned from him, for I cannot say with any conviction that he was either inspirational or likeable. However, he did teach me to begin something and then finish it like the wooden newspaper rack I made for my mother and which I abandoned at least two times before he took me to one side and showed me how to complete it. This made me realise that even the teachers we don't feel much of a connection with have something to teach us.

Another, perhaps who might have made it onto my list, was a headmaster who took me under his wing when I was at boarding school, and he always had an ear for me when things were bad and I got into trouble - a regular occurrence. The fact is, my school days were far from inspiring as I had about as much interest in education as an elephant does for sleeping in a roomful of mice. Funny of course, nowadays, as I am a teacher and heavily involved with learning in one shape or another. The phrase "Poacher turned gamekeeper" springs to mind.

(Edward Geerson and Assoc. Prof. Suchada Nimmannit host the Graduate Student Research Forum.)

The first plenary speech

After the keynote speech, we were treated to the first of the day's three plenary speeches by Prof. Chris Davison, an Australian academic who is heavily involved with designing and developing the educational curricula in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Brunei, and who appears to be a proper dyed-in-the-wool English language academic. She talked about Assessment For Learning (AFL) and how as teachers, we should all strive for assessments that directly help the students and are integral parts of the educational and pedagogical dynamics, not simply an instrument that is used exclusively for grading and ranking students. In other words, she suggested that we use this as an educational tool as well as deciding that little Johnny is X level and tiny Navaporn is Y level simply based on a written or spoken test.

I thought her story about using this assessment methodology in Singapore was quite funny as she quoted the eminent educational theorist, Michael Fullan, who famously said that "It takes at least 7 years for a new educational development to be successful anywhere" and in Singapore, Chris Davis was told "we can do it tomorrow as our students are very diligent!" Ah!! If only it were that simple!!

Other worthy mentions...

Some other presentations of note were the following: Gail O'Connell gave a great talk about how to use pronunciation strategies that will help the students understand why particular words are stressed in a particular way. She had a sentence on the screen which was something like the following:

"I want you to see that it is this one, ok?"

She showed how you can get the students themselves to come up with ways to add emphasis which might focus on the original person speaking (I), the person receiving the information (you), the main verb (want), the second verb (see), the object (it) and so on. I found this interesting as we rarely if ever get the students to think about sentence stress themselves before we offer ways to separate and thus delimit possible meanings in a sentence ourselves.

Kristjan Bondesson also gave a good presentation about "Incorporating Local Insights into Materials Evaluation", and one that had delegates' feet and fingers gently tapping in other seminars or workshops was that given by the indomitable David Quartermain. You can probably work out why given the title - "From Classical to Hip Hop - How to Really Use Music in the EFL Classroom".

All in all, a fascinating look into the world of Thai TESOL and not one crinkly, head-tilted-to-the-right, octogenarian professor to be seen anywhere!!

Link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4964296663335083307#

Tom Tuohy is a teacher and writer. His interview with the president of Thai TESOL, Ubon Sanpatchayapong, will be published in the EL Gazette in their April 2010 edition to coincide with the IATEFL Conference & Exhibition in Harrogate, Yorkshire, the UK.