Back from Edmonton!

I’m back from Edmonton. Above you can see a picture of the hotel I stayed at. I was only there for two days, but I feel like I was there for a week! I was in Edmonton for the Alberta Teachers of English as a Second Language (ATESL) conference. I always love going to conferences, and this conference was great. On the Friday of the conference there was a speaker from Australia, Lynda Yates, who made a presentation on pragmatics. Pragmatics has to do with how language is used and how culture influences how language is used. One example that Dr. Yates gave was that in Canada we might say “how’s it going” when we greet someone, but someone from Chinese might say “have you eaten yet?” or “where are you going”. If those are translated directly into English, they won’t work very well on an English speaking Canadian. The other keynote speaker was Dr. Tom Cobb. He presented on the Saturday of the conference. It was really great to hear Dr. Cobb speak again. He first presented at an ATESL conference in 2002, and that was the first conference that I ever went to. Seven years later, I based my PhD research on his work! I finally got to meet Dr. Cobb at the conference in person, and I was pretty nervous. Especially when he came to my presentation!

However, conferences are more than just presentations. It’s also a great chance to meet up with friends from all over the province. I was really happy to meet colleagues from Edmonton and Lethbridge that I hadn’t seen in a while. It’s always great to catch up!

All in all, it was a great conference, and I can’t wait to go again next year!