102-8. My conference presentation :)

Well, I did it. I presented at my first international conference. This was the 44th Annual IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) Conference and Exhibition in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, UK.

You know how I've asked you all to write an I-Search paper at the end of this semester? Well, last year in ENG 102 I asked my students to do that for the first time. My presentation is based on 52 responses: what worked, what I felt needed improving for this time - in other words, you're all benefitting from their feedback. :) This is why, for example, I decided to give detailed individual feedback to the annotated bibliographies this time rather than whole class feedback.

You can view my abstract and even download my Powerpoint slides and my handout here. It would be great to hear your feedback. :)

You cannot imagine how much I sweated over the preparation of this presentation. At one point it was getting out of hand, but fortunately my boss stepped in at that point and invited me to her office to talk through it. I had ridiculously overcomplicated it (my speciality). Once I was given 'permission' to just relax and not feel I had to include everything, it was much easier.

Strangely, I wasn't nervous at all on the day of the presentation, and in the end a mere 8 people turned up (out of 1900), two of whom were my colleagues! But there were questions from the audience throughout and two teachers stayed behind to chat. Best of all, my boss had loaned me her geeky laser pointer remote thingie and that was great fun to use..I got so close to my audience I was practically standing on top of them!

There were quite a few presenters there from Turkish universities: Bilkent, Marmara, Istanbul University, Fatih...but SU had the most - 8! :D

I'm not a huge fan of conferences to be honest, but when I believe in something, I go for it.
My next several presentations will all be based on your marvellous blogs...more to come on that! ;)