Gwangju-Jeonnam KOTESOL November Chapter Meeting & Reflective Practice SIG Meeting

Gwangju-Jeonnam Chapter November Meeting

----- Morning Schedule -----

11:00-12:30: Reflective Practice Special Interest Group (RP-SIG) Meeting
Topic: Video Observations: Learning Through Others
Date: November 8, 2014
Place: Starbucks, Chosun University Back Gate Branch
(Map: http://www.istarbucks.co.kr/store/store_view.asp?seq=593)

----- Main Meeting Schedule -----

Time:  Saturday, November 8, 2014, 1:45-5:00 p.m.
Place: Chosun University Main Building (Gwangju), 4th Floor, Rm 4211

1:45 pm: Sign-in and Meet-and-Greet     (Admission is free.   Future membership is welcomed.)

2:00-2:50 pm: PRESENTATION 1
The "I Am Happy" Project: Working with Young Learners
Billie Kang (Taebong Elementary School, Gwangju)

2:50-3:10 pm: Refreshment Break

3:10-4:00 pm: PRESENTATION 2
10 Poetry Activities for the EFL Classroom
Dr. Yeon-seong Park (Chonnam National University)

4:00 pm: Swap-Shop Session
Everyone is invited to Share one of your Teaching Ideas, Classroom Activities, and ELT Games, Books, etc. (Handouts welcomed.)

4:30 pm: Chapter Elections / Announcements / Drawing for Door Prizes / Closing

----- Evening Dinner Schedule -----

5:30 pm: Dinner at The First Alleyway (Downtown)

[ Chapter newsletter for Novemver 2014, Gwangju Communicator, attached at bottom as PDF file.]

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Presentation Abstracts and Presenter Information

Presentation 1

The "I Am Happy" Project: Working with Young Learners

Earlier this year, I presented twice on the “routinized class” model at Gwangju KOTESOL workshops in the belief that having a fixed class routine would help teachers prepare more efficiently for their classes and help students to feel more comfortable knowing what to expect in class. Having taught the same group of students with this same class routine for almost three years now, I got to wondering if this was really the best way or if there were other methods that might be just as suitable or even more suitable for the young learner classroom.    

In this presentation, the "I Am Happy" Project will be introduced, which is a very different approach compared to the "fixed routine" that was introduced in the spring workshops. In addition to the advantages of this approach, the difficulties of managing different classes will be talked about.

The Presenter

Billie Kang has worked with young children since she started her teaching career at the elementary school level in 1997. Her undergraduate major is in elementary pedagogy from Gwangju National University of Education and her M.Ed. in TESOL from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo was completed in 2003. She has given lectures at various workshops and training courses on various topics for both Korean and non-Korean teachers. Billie is currently teaching English at Taebong Elementary School in Gwangju as a master teacher  one of only 22 at the elementary level in all of Gwangju. Outside of the classroom, she has recently taken up bike riding and plans to enjoy it even more in the future.

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Presentation 2

10 Poetry Activities for the EFL Classroom

Traditionally, reading literature was part of the EFL curriculum. It was popular when the grammar-translation method was used in the 1950's; however, this changed after the audio-lingual method was introduced in the late 1960's. In the mid 1980's, the use of literary works in teaching English saw a revival in the spirit of communicative language teaching. A literary work can be a catalyst for meaningful and spontaneous communication. In this light, ten pieces of poetry were designed to promote university-level students' integrative competence in English as a foreign language. The poems that chosen for the CLT activities are Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art," "A. E. Housman's "Loveliest of Trees," Christina Rossetti's "A Birthday," William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper," and Langston Hughes' "Dream Deferred."

The Presenter

Yeon-seong Park is a professor of English at Chonnam National University. She earned her BA in English Literature from Ewha Woman's University, her MA from Seoul National University and her PhD from Chonnam National University. She completed a summer school program in English literature at Cambridge University (1994) and spent a year as a visiting scholar at the University of Hawaii (1998). She has written several books including Enter the Flower Field of English (2000), W. H. Auden (co-authored, 2005), Creative English Practice (2009), and Dances with Anticipating Ants (2010). She is a lifetime member of KOTESOL and served as Gwangju-Jeonnam Chapter President from 2006 to 2007.