Gwangju-Jeonnam KOTESOL November Chapter Meeting

Our November Chapter Meeting is on the 2nd Saturday of the month -- November 10th. We again have two great presentations scheduled (below).  The November issue of the Chapter newsletter, The Communicator, is attached at the bottom of the page.

Gwangju-Jeonnam KOTESOL November Meeting

Time:  Saturday, November 10, 2012, 1:30 p.m.
Place:  Chosun University (Gwangju), Main Building (본관), Room 5210.

Schedule
1:30 pm: Registration and Welcome

2:00 pm: PRESENTATION  1
Do They Get It? Six Techniques for Monitoring Student Comprehension in Class
Heidi Vande Voort Nam (Chongsin University)

2:45 pm: Refreshment Break
3:00 pm: Chapter Elections

3:15 pm: PRESENTATION  2
Warmers and Coolers
Matthew McLaughlin (Chosun University)

4:00 pm: Swap-Shop Session
Share your Teaching Ideas, Classroom Activities, and Language Games.
(Open to All Attendees. Handouts welcomed.)

4:30 pm: Announcements / Drawing for Prizes / Closing    
 (Admission is free.   We hope it leads to Membership.)
 

►► Presenters and Presentations

► Presentation 1: Do They Get It? Six Techniques for Monitoring Student Comprehension in Class
 
No lesson is successful unless the students “get it.” To find out whether students are "getting" the material, teachers need to monitor their students’ comprehension. Unfortunately, questions like "Do you understand?" rarely reveal how much students have understood. A comprehension check is unsuccessful when students do not respond or pretend to understand. Likewise, the comprehension check fails when the teacher overestimates the ability of the class because of a few responsive students or does not follow up by helping the students who do not understand.
     This workshop will demonstrate six comprehension checking techniques: eliciting L1 translation, requiring a physical response, grading the difficulty of comprehension questions, monitoring written work, using pairwork, and cold call. Teachers can effectively check comprehension of even the lowest level students by eliciting either L1 translation or a physical response because these techniques do not require the students to respond in English. The teacher can support English responses to comprehension check questions by using yes/no and either/or questions effectively. Since questions addressed to the class as a whole do not help teachers find out which students are struggling, teachers may gauge individual students’ progress by monitoring written work or pairwork or by using cold call, which is directing oral questions to specific students. Workshop participants will practice generating and evaluating comprehension checks.

► The Presenter: Heidi Vande Voort Nam

Heidi Vande Voort Nam holds an MA TESL/TEFL from the University of Birmingham. She currently teaches in the Department of English Education at Chongshin University, where she prepares English education majors for student teaching and for the national English teachers’ exam. Heidi also teaches beginner-level general English courses, including special courses for North Korean and Chinese students. Within KOTESOL, Heidi serves as a presenter for Korea Teacher Trainers (KTT) and facilitates KOTESOL’s Christian Teachers Special Interest Group (CT SIG), a group that hosts meetings and online discussions for Christian English teachers. Heidi lives in Seoul with her husband TaekHyeon Nam, who is a public high school English teacher, and their children, Joseph and Miriam.
 

► Presentation 2: Warmers and Coolers

Teaching classes with a solid focus using clear aims and objectives is always an integral part of the job for any EFL teacher. Sometimes, however, the best-laid plans for a lesson can fall short due to any number of reasons. Time management, student disinterest, a lack of interactive activities, and even over-planning  are just some of the reasons why lessons result in being unsuccessful. Therefore, every teacher should have their own little “box of tricks” up their sleeve in case the perfect class fails.
     The aim of this presentation is to demonstrate exciting and interactive activities that are short, fun, educational, and above all, easy to prepare. In fact, all of these activities require just two ingredients: a whiteboard and a board marker. Some of the activities are variations of well-known classic EFL activities, some are of my own creation. The activities can be applied to all age groups. From a theoretical viewpoint, the aim of the activities is to encourage a communicative classroom atmosphere, although this is by no means exclusive. Some of the activities are simply to help break the ice or to establish understanding. Workshop attendees will have the opportunity to practice the activities in pairs and small groups. A handout summarising the details of the activities will be available.

►The Presenter: Matthew McLaughlin-Stonham

Matt is currently studying for the MA TESOL at the University of Nottingham, UK, and teaches freshman classes at Chosun University. He previously taught at Wonkwang University in Iksan and at several private academies in the Cheonan area. Matt comes from the United Kingdom, where he taught intensive summer camps for students from various parts of Europe, including Italy, Spain, France, and Russia. After completing his CELTA in London, he taught in the Andalucia area of Spain. He holds a strong interest in communicative teaching methodology, which will be the focus of his thesis for the following year. He lives in Gwangju with his wife Hilary, who also teaches at Chosun, and his one-year-old daughter, Matilda.