Conference -Day 2

I’m afraid I wasn’t as gung-ho as I was yesterday. I was awake early, but I overdid it in the gym and I think the Exercycle used different leg/butt muscles. I’m hoping the stairs will be enough exercise for today.

The day started with checking out of the hotel and checking my suitcase at the front desk. I wasn’t about to wheel it around the conference today. Besides, the bus will pick us up at the hotel at 5-ish. There were no keynote speakers so it was a breakfast of egg McMuffins or burritos and fruit and straight off to the sessions.

The first session was called: First and Second Language Acquisition and Learning-American Sign Language and English. It was something completely different. I don’t have and deaf students, but I’ve always wondered about sign language and ESL. It was very interesting, especially the approach to L2 acquisition and the link between L1 and L2 when it comes to language learning.

The second session was Multi-level, Minimal Fuss. This session showed creative ways to alter activities and tests for multi-level classes without having to research for hours to have separate things for each level.

Then it was lunch. It was butter chicken with salads, buns, and beets. There were also 3 kinds of pizza. The dessert was key lime cheesecakes with mango cooliss.

The third session was Anything but routine, routine. This was a workshop in using daily agendas to both inform the class of the day’s agenda and give them real workplace skills.

The final session was Never Underestimate the Power of a Good Module. This had to be the best of both days. There was instruction on how to make modules as well as numerous resources to use in the process and for lesson planning. It’s the PBLA Training we all should have had and it was just a home grown workshop from the Edmonton Catholic School Board.

Most sessions ended early and the closing speech was only 10 minutes long. By Monday everyone will be emailed a link to access all handouts, slides, and videos from all the sessions. I can’t wait.

Now we’re en route home. It’s a smaller bus with no bathroom. We’ll be stopping in Red Deer for supps and bathroom break. W should be home around 9.30/10.00.