MEXTESOL 3rd Annual S.E. Regional Conference Explores the Art of ELT

The Chiapas MEXTESOL chapter held its third annual S.E. Regional Conference "Exploring the Art of ELT" at the Villa Mercedes Hotel in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas on June 6-7, 2008.

The conference was a great success with approximately 112 presenters and participants coming from Greece, Oregon, Texas, Tabasco and Chiapas. The conference was generously sponsored the UNICACH and, as usual, very well organized by the MEXTESOL Chiapas team of Edith Martinez (Chiapas MEXTESOL president), Diego Gamez (UNICACH language center director and Geraldine Montoya (Chiapas MEXTESOL vide-president). It included not only a fabulous location in charming San Cristobal de las Casas, various publishers, a book raffle, numerous opportunities to network with teachers from all over the South-East and enthusiastic participants but knowledgeable and engaging speakers such as Melinda Sayavedra (opening plenary) and Katherine Fouche (closing plenary) amongst others.

The E.L. Fellow, Brigitte Miller gave two new presentations: "Hot Lesson Openers: Icebreakers and Warm-ups" and "Use Your Brain: An Intro to Brain Research and the Language Classroom which were well-received despite issues with time.

Chiapas MEXTESOLers keep up the good work! I'd attend another of your fabulous conferences any chance I got!

Their next event is an Academic Saturday on August 23rd, 2008. To find out more about how to join MEXTESOL click here.

Oaxaca Road Trip: Office of English Language Programs visits UABJO

From May 26th-31st, 2008 the team from the Office of English Language Programs: Regional English Language Officer Dr. Kay Davis, Cultural Affairs Assistant Jose Manuel Villafuerte and Senior English Language Fellow Brigitte Miller went on a road trip to Oaxaca to get in contact with the teachers of the Universidad Autonoma "Benito Juarez" de Oaxaca. On May 27th they went to the UABJO's Centro de Idiomas Tehuantepec Campus where Brigitte gave a workshop to 35 local English teachers, professors and students. What a surprise to find that in this remote outpost at the isthmus in Oaxaca, the English teachers had such a high level of English and such enthusiasm for teaching! The credit for this must be given to veteran English teacher Mauricio Zarate Jarquin and the energetic Facultad de Idiomas director Rufino Vazquez Manuel. The workshop was followed up by a delicious seafood lunch under a palapa in the sweltering isthmus heat. Thanks to Rebecca, Abraham, Ricardo and Omar too for your hospitality!

From Tehuantepec, the OELP team went on to the city of Oaxaca where Kay and Jose Manuel met with the director again and other representatives from the university while Brigitte gave another workshop to the teachers and trainees from the Oaxaca campus. In Oaxaca too, the students and professors were active participants in the workshop. According to the workshop evaluations 100% of the participants found the workshop topics (cooperative and task-based learning) and activities either somewhat or very interesting. Most said they would try to apply these ideas to their teaching especially the strategies, the roles and authentic tasks. In future they would like to learn more classroom activities as well as how to deal with large classes. Some of their comments were:“Very valuable”, “it was amazing”, “I like your way to teach this class – you’re so happy and all could be too” and “I think it was all very useful”.

Thanks Oaxacan teachers. I had a great time too! Hope to visit you again one day! Special thanks to the students for your help around the city!

Aguascalientes' CBTIS English Teachers Get Down to Basics

Twenty-five CBTIS English teachers participated in a 30-hour workshop entitled "The Basics of English Language Teaching" from May 19th-23rd, 2008. They learned how to: structure cooperative lessons, use a variety of tasks which appeal to multiple intelligences, motivate students with authentic tasks, materials, and internet activities and use rubrics for student-centered, formative assessment. According to the participants' evaluations, the favorite parts of the workshop were the "multiple intelligences" activities and the internet activities, particularly the blogs. The participants are most interested in learning more about Rubrics and they said that the parts they will apply to their own teaching are (in order of number of responses): 1 Everything, 2 Multiple Intelligences, 3 Fun web tasks, 4 Authentic Materials, 5 Cooperative tasks and 6 Rubrics. The workshop was very well organized by the ever hospitable and always cheerful Carmen Guardado and facilitated by fellow Brigitte Miller. The course was opened with a ceremony that included a student's speech about Aguascalientes and closed with fabulous performances by CBTIS 195 students and the soulful singing of Jorge and Carlos (two participating teachers). Also present were the gracious principal Mrs. Sara Veronica Serrano Macias , directors of the CETIS and CBTIS, Mr. Juan Antonio Glez Arechiga Ramirez Weilla and Mr. Jose Luis Ortega Juarez. The festivities were topped off by a long chatty lunch in town.

To see more pictures from the workshop, including student performances click here. To see the participants blogs click here. To see what the participants learned about Internet tasks, click here.

Thank you, all of you, for a wonderful experience in Aguascalientes. Keep in touch to let me know how your classes progress. Best of luck!