English Conference

Last week I went to a national conference for English teachers in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Most of the teachers there worked for bilingual schools in the capital, but several worked for language centers and schools outside Tegucigalpa. This made me the exception.

Many of the sessions were on topics that I am very familiar with from my education classes at the University of Virginia, such as differentiation, foreign language teaching methods, multiple intelligences, etc. Others were more focused on teaching English globally and how teaching culture is related to that. Many of the presenters were

I tried to do a mix of attending sessions with familiar and unfamiliar topics. My favorite session was called "Teaching English Plus Cultural Differences." The presenter discussed a few major ways in which Honduran culture is different from US culture, and how elements of that can and should be explored in the English language classroom. A few of the cultural differences she described were things that it took me a while to understand. For example, language in the US tends to be low-context. In the US, people typically mean exactly what they say. For instance, if I were invited to a party and couldn't go, I would tell the host that I couldn't go. In Honduras, the person invited would explain that she would do "everything possible to make it to the party." Hondurans would understand this to mean that she wouldn't show up, while an outsider from the US (like me) might be surprised to not see her at the party. This would have been great to know in training!

This presentation in particular sticks out in my mind because not only did the speaker discuss very interesting and relevant themes, she then prompted the audience to come up with ways to incorporate this concept in the classroom. For example, each Honduran letter (including business letters) begins with a paragraph of greetings, stating how the writer hopes that the reader is doing well and in good health, etc. Therefore, in an English classroom, students should learn to write a letter in the US style rather than just translate Spanish to English.

Overall the conference was a good experience. It felt great to be hearing all the education buzz-words again. In addition, I got a lot of ideas about some topics that might be helpful to share with the next Youth Development training group, who will come in July.

In other news, the TEAM (Teaching English and Methodology) manual I have been working on has finally been printed. It is beautiful! I am, however, planning to spend time working on it already for next year so that changes can be ready well in advance of the due date.