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International TESOLChile Conference
Universidad de La Serena, October 5th – 7th, 2007.
Santiago, October 25th 2007
Our international conference was
an important and challenging event, with almost 400 participants.
We want to thank teachers and students from the University
of La Serena who were most welcoming and worked incredibly
hard to make the conference a true success. We also have to
highlight the beauty of the campus, the quaint old city streets
and constructions, the lovely churches (each one with a different
story), the market place, their delicious food and restaurants,
etc.
We had presenters from various parts
of the world, four excellent plenaries, three given by Diane
Larsen-Freeman and one by Michael McCarthy. Both of them also
participated in a memorable exchange of ideas on grammar and
vocabulary teaching in the classroom. It was reassuring to
confirm that in Chile we seem to be on the right track, giving
more importance to the development of as much vocabulary as
possible and teaching grammar in context, never as the lesson
organiser. Grammar fans were grateful to learn that grammar
is not a dirty word!! And that it has its own legitimate place
in the teaching/learning English process. Vocabulary fans,
on the other hand, were happy to find out that it is possible
now to teach using corpora straight from the Internet.
The Ministry of Education invited all
the 76 English network leaders, who participated enthusiastically,
not missing any of the presentations. We intend to work with
them very actively planning seminars and workshops to satisfy
their need for more methodology,
strategies and exposure to the language.
A final word to let you know that our
next 2008 conference is in Santiago, that means we need HELP.
Therefore, we warmly invite you to work with us, members of
the Board and other friends, to start planning with plenty
of time, making sure we offer an excellent service, have a
beautiful venue, invite the most outstanding gurus, organise
pre-registration (early birds), the call-for-papers, registration,
etc. as smoothly as possible.
Download
TESOL CHILE's Newsletter Vol I, Issue 4. October 2007
Download
TESOL CHILE's President Message, October 2007
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