Expectations for Presenters

As you are thinking about a topic to present at the TESL Training Conference, please consider the following.

• The presentations are meant to be instructive and the marketing of your own programs should be kept to a minimum. There will be ample time to network and market programs during the networking sessions and at your individual booths in the main meeting hall. The presentations are to provide you with a platform to meet and gain the confidence of the local teachers and administrators.
• Classes in Taiwan tend to be large groups. It would be best to organize a workshop for a large group, so the Taiwanese teachers can see that the activities presented will actually work in large groups. The groups will be anywhere from 20-70 people. These numbers will have an impact on the kinds of activities and the number of handouts needed.
• Make the title of your workshop very clear, so the teachers know exactly what the workshop will cover and for what age group. For example: Interactive Grammar for Middle School Students.
• The purpose of the workshops is to demonstrate the process of teaching integrated skills in an interactive way.

A possible format for a 50 minute workshop:

1. Introduce your idea for interactive, integrative methodology. Offer some background rationale. Give an overview of the entire lesson.
2. Pull one activity out of your lesson plan. Demonstrate this activity with the teachers. Show them how it works. Ask them to be the students. Make it hands-on.
3. Allow time to process the lesson, fielding their questions.

TESL Conference Theme:

The TESL Training Conference will focus on theory and practical applications of English teaching. For your reference, listed below are workshop topics that teachers in Taiwan are interested in learning more about. The organizers retain the right to approve presentation content.

TESL topics that are of interest to teachers in Taiwan:

Based on past participant feedback, topics that are of interest to teachers in Taiwan include:

1. Teaching strategies and tips
2. Techniques of teaching listening, speaking, reading, and writing
3. Tips on teaching grammar
4. How to teach vocabulary
5. Learner-based teaching
6. How to teach composition writing
7. How to teach translation
8. Writing and teaching poetry
9. Teaching writing to adults/college students
10. How to make reading and writing more interesting
11. Classroom management
12. Student motivation, teacher roles & TESL methodology
13. Correcting pronunciation (When should it be done? In what manner?)
14. Activities to use in class
15. Using multimedia in the classroom
16. Curriculum design
17. Games & lesson planning
18. How to do action research
19. How can teachers in Taiwan prepare students to speak clear English (without an accent)?
20. Building public speaking skills and negotiation skills
21. Advice from language program directors in North America to their counterparts in Taiwan about program management (i.e. future developments in the education industry, e-learning, handling teacher student grievances)