KOTESOL Patron: Thomas Farrell
From time to time, Korea TESOL bestows the KOTESOL Patron Award upon a deserving person who has made exceptionally generous contributions to the organization over the years. This year the KOTESOL Patron Award, only the second in its history, was presented during the opening ceremony at the 2019 Korea TESOL International Conference. President David Shaffer presented the award to Dr. Thomas S.C. Farrell of Brock University in Canada.
Dr. Farrell is an internationally renowned authority on reflective practice and inquiry, and was a featured speaker at this year’s international conference. He has been a plenary speaker at several of our past conferences. Dr. Farrell readily makes himself available for our conferences and even makes special stops in Korea when he is in Asia to provide KOTESOL with one of his well-received workshops.
Many KOTESOL members are familiar with Dr. Farrell through his years-long column on reflective practice that he pens for The English Connection. Dr. Farrell spent close to two decades of his early career teaching EFL in Seoul at the tertiary level. This year, he graciously launched the Thomas Farrell Reflective Language Teacher Award for KOTESOL members. KOTESOL is quite grateful to Dr. Farrell.
Special Appreciation: Dr. Curtis Kelly
In addition, a Special Appreciation Award was presented to Dr. Curtis Hart Kelly for his contributions to Korea TESOL. Although he has never been a KOTESOL member or taught in Korea, Dr. Kelly has been gracious in contributing to KOTESOL. He generously made himself available as a featured speaker at this year’s international conference and has contributed to conferences in the past. In particular, Dr. Kelly was highly instrumental in assisting in the organizing of the FAB11 and KOTESOL National Conference 2017. In addition, he continues to write The Brain Connection column for The English Connection. KOTESOL thanks Dr. Kelly.
