The 2007 Alberta Teachers of English as a Second Language Conference is over! Wow, I never knew volunteer work could be so much like . . . well, work! You see, I was the Publishers’ and Exhibitors’ Committee Co-Chair, which basically means that I was in charge of getting the publishers to the conference, helping them while they were at the conference, and then sending them away happy at the end. That meant that I had to be at the conference at 6 am on the Friday of the conference to help the publishers set up, and I didn’t leave the conference until 7 pm that night. That was a 13 hour day. I was totally exhausted by the time I got home. On top of that, I also ran a workshop on blogging on the Saturday of the conference. It’s hard to believe that I have been blogging for almost 4 years already. I first started blogging with my students in April 2004, and I haven’t stopped since then . . . I think I have also done about 10 presentations and workshops on blogging since I started as well.

Anyway, the conference was actually kind of fun because it was great catching up with teachers from all around the province. The only problem was that the timing of the conference wasn’t so great. It fell this year right in the middle of mid-terms for the EAP program at the University of Calgary. This meant that I had to abandon my students on Friday so that I could be at the conference. I hope they did okay. I’ll be seeing their exams on Monday . . . fingers crossed.

Actually, I’m really glad that it’s mid-term time. This is a great time for us all to take a moment and reflect on how the courses have been going so far, and there is still time to make a change in direction if necessary. I think I’m going to focus on getting some feedback from the students after mid-terms about what we can do to maximize their language learning in the last six weeks of the program. In fact, if any students have any great ideas, don’t be shy to comment on this blog!

As for the teachers who came to my workshop last Saturday, thanks very much for coming. It was a pleasure sharing my experience and blogs with you! Please keep in touch!