2010 Membership Form added

The ATESOL ACT Membership Form for 2010 has been added to the website (in Rich Text Format).

2010 - new ATESOL ACT Committee and coming events

The new ATESOL ACT Committee for 2010 was elected at the Annual General Meeting on 17 February. See our Contacts page for your Committee Members and their contact details.

Many exciting events are being planned for 2010. Keep watch on our Events page for details.

SUPPORT THE PENNY MCKAY AWARD BY PURCHASING BOOKS FROM PENNY’S LIBRARY

Dear Colleagues,

As you may know, ALAA and ACTA are co-sponsoring an appeal to raise money to support an award in the late Penny McKay’s name and to honour her contribution to language education. Once established, the award will be given annually to a doctoral candidate in an Australian university whose research will benefit the teaching and learning of second/other languages in Australian schools, including Australian standard English as an additional language or variety, English as a foreign language, languages other than English and Indigenous languages.

In order to raise funds for this award, Penny’s husband and friends have catalogued her extensive library (213 books on language education). Crossroad Books has agreed to act as a “drop site” via which these books can be bought. Go to http://www.crossroadbooks.com.au/ and click on the side bar for the “Penny McKay Award”, where you’ll see titles and prices listed (or click on the link below). Andy, Penny’s husband, will complete orders as they come in and the bookstore will forward the funds to the award account (hosted by ALAA).

Please support this worthwhile venture by checking out the website. Now, at the beginning of the academic year, it’s also a great opportunity for your students to purchase reference books for their studies—please bring this to their attention!

You may also be interested to know that an extensive tribute to Penny, written by Karen Dooley and myself, will appear in the forthcoming ACTA journal TESOL in Context.

Many thanks.

Helen Moore
Vice President Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA)
Vice President Australian Council of TESOL Associations (ACTA)

Link to Penny McKay Award books at Crossroad Books

Download PDF brochure about the The Penny McKay Award for Promising Doctoral Research in School-Based Language Development and Curriculum

Do you teach adults? Don't Give Up! best practice guide

Don't Give Up! Is a European Union language project that has written a book of 48 best practices for every level of language educators (schools, managers, teachers). The best practices will help improve the motivation and the results of language courses for adult learners. The project spent 2 years researching and analyzing the problems of adult learners, language educators were asked their opinions and ideas, as well. The results of the research were combined with the project team's ideas and experience. The best practices cover aspects of managing language schools and classes, enhancing lessons, engaging and motivating students and dealing with many aspects of the problems adult learners face to learn a language. This book can positively contribute to the results of your language courses.

The best practices are summarized on the project website with some examples. The 138 page Don't Give Up! Book is available through the website in English, Czech or Spanish.

Collegiality & Collaboration: The Story behind WATESOL’s New Website

In 2009 the Web editors of ATESOL ACT and WATESOL collaborated to revamp the WATESOL website. Read the story about the collegiality and collaboration between two TESOL associations across the country! - Collegiality & Collaboration: The Story behind WATESOL’s New Website

Cardiff Online: Online coverage of the 43rd Annual International IATEFL Conference

I've just checked out Cardiff On-line. This is a website set up for the IATEFL Conference in 2009 - http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009/

It will be active for a year, apparently, and I just caught a 45 minute lecture from Penny Ur (video + powerpoint+ handout) about making boring exercises interesting -
http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009/sessions/63/creating-interesting-language-exercises-and-making-language-exercises-interesting

Other things include a Scott Thornbury session, and one about testing.

There are discussions, recordings with David Crystal ( of "How does English Work?" fame); Marc Prensky, and a range of interviews.

It's almost like going to a conference...

Jakki Cashman, ATESOL ACT Secretary

Papers from 'Pedagogies of Connection' 2008 ACTA Conference in Alice Springs now available online

TESOL in Context Special Edition S2 (May 2009) Pedagogies of Connection Edited by Kate Cadman, Jenny Barnett & Cally Guerin Released 2009 http://www.tesol.org.au/Publications/Pedagogies-of-Connection

Non-refereed conference papers 2008 Pedagogies of Connection - Alice Springs 2008.
http://www.tesol.org.au/Conferences/Non-refereed-conference-papers-2008

Contents: