This year I was lucky enough to be the IATEFL LT SIG representative at the annual TESOL convention, held in Portland, Oregon.

The Venue

The conference venue in Portland is very “West Coast,” which I gather means a little idiosyncratic or quirky. Doing a quick bit of research on the web prior to going, I discovered two key facts: Portland has more strip clubs per capita than any other U.S. city, and it holds the annual Naked Bike Ride (strap line: As bare as you dare). So I was relieved to find the audiences were fully clothed during my talks. In fact, grunge is the city dress code, and Portland has a very eco-conscious vibe with an excellent electric public transport system and plenty of rain (the locals eschew umbrellas in favor of quirkily oversized hoodies). Happily, grunge was not the dress code for conference delegates, and even more felicitously, we were given free passes to use the electric trams and the city buses for the duration of the conference. This made getting around what is in fact a fairly compact (and attractive) city fantastically easy.

For the past several years, the British Council has generously been funding an exchange between the IATEFL LT SIG and our U.S. cousins in the TESOL CALL-IS. My exchange trip followed those of previous years by past LT SIG coordinators Gary Motteram, Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou, and Paul Sweeney. And in turn, we've had CALL-IS members attending the annual IATEFL conference for the past few years: Phil Hubbard, Greg Kessler, Deborah Healey, and this year Elizabeth Hanson-Smith have all crossed the pond (see Elizabeth's article about her experiences in Harrogate, England, in this issue). Meeting our CALL-IS colleagues this year resulted in renewed ties with the LT SIG, and building on the solid groundwork laid by previous exchanges, a number of joint ventures and projects are being carried forward (Elizabeth outlines these in her article).

The Conference

For first-time TESOL attendees such as myself, the first impression of the conference is size. The venue is always huge, the number of delegates massive (6,000–8,000 depending on the city), and the number of surrounding coffee and muffin venues plentiful. And of course the number of parallel talks, and exhibitors in the Exhibition Hall, is suitably large. All compared to the much smaller IATEFL conferences of 2,000+ delegates.

There is also a suitably large and varied array of full- and half-day pre- and postconvention institutes (PCIs) or events to choose from—35 in total this year. Of particular interest to me were the Educational Site Visits one could take part in on the day before the official conference started. This year's site visits included trips to an immigrant and refugee EFL centre, an intensive English language program at a local university, as well as local elementary and middle schools.

I chose to do a visit to Portland State University (PSU), which showcased a mobile augmented reality game they have developed called ChronoOps, based on the free ARIS app. During the visit we learned about the background to the game and then spent a while playing it on our mobile devices around the PSU campus. The game uses geofencing to teach students about the (impressive and prize-winning) green credentials of the university campus while practising their English. An iOS version of the game is ready, and an Android version of the game is in development. You can find out more about the game at PSU here.

More interesting than the sheer numbers at TESOL were the range of talk types and topics. For individual presenters these tended to be 30–45 minutes long. There were also 60- to 90-minute panel sessions, with a series of speakers discussing a single topic. Each speaker typically had 20 minutes, with time for questions from the audience at the end. These panel sessions were my favourite, as a single topic could be covered from a variety of angles and in some depth.

Technology Talks

I attended mainly the technology strand talks put together by the excellent CALL-IS team. The CALL-IS schedule of talks and Electronic Village (EV) sessions is in fact so comprehensive, it even had its own paper programme, entirely separate from the main conference book (or rather, tome). Technology has always been very much present in TESOL, with the inspiring EV forming its centrepiece for a least the past decade. Tables equipped with laptops and screens form a series of stations in the EV, where short, hands-on or demo sessions are offered by volunteers. Delegates can wander in and sign up for these sessions as they like, and there is a pleasant and constant buzz of people and activity in the EV room throughout the conference.

In an adjacent room, more formal panel sessions were held on a series of Hot Topics. I was invited to take part in two panels—one on the flipped classroom and the other on mobile learning. Here's a quick summary:

• Flipping the classroom in multiple contexts: This panel was presented by Justin Shewell and kicked off with Carol Kubota, Cynthia Murray, and Catherine Warner (all from ASU) on flipping the classroom in EAP contexts. They were followed by Christine Bauer-Ramazani (St. Michael's College) on flipping in online teacher training courses. And finally, I looked at how mobile devices can support the notion of the flipped classroom. You can find the recording of this event here (audio and slides), with further information about the presenters here.
• Teacher education in CALL: The second panel event, presented by Aaron Schwartz, examined teacher education in CALL. It included presentations from Phil Hubbard (Stanford University) on interpreting and integrating the TESOL Technology Standards in a CALL mini-course; Joy Egbert (Washington State University) on guidelines that teachers need to understand when thinking about and looking for effective technologies; Greg Kessler (Ohio University) on preparing language teachers for the future by rethinking pedagogy in a world of social media, hyper-collaboration, and data mashups; and my own presentation on the implications of digital literacies for teacher education courses. You can find the recording of this event here (audio and slides; note that sound starts around 14 minutes in), with further information about the presenters here.
• Other TESOL tech events included talks on mobile, social networking, using technology to avoid plagiarism, and a number of webcasts from the Electronic Village. You'll find a complete list plus links to the audio and slide recordings here. Plenty here to get you right up to speed with technology in teaching!

Other Talks

And what of the conference overall? When I managed to drag myself away from the CALL-IS track, I saw mainly the plenaries. These were wide-ranging talks by Surin Pitsuwan, David Graddol, Deena Borraie, and Diane Larsen-Freeman. Here are details of the plenary topics.

Overall there is more of an emphasis on academic talks at TESOL, with fewer practice-based sessions than one typically finds at IATEFL. There are also talks focused on K12 (primary and secondary school-age learners) and especially on those in mainstream schooling who need English language support. There are also plenty of EFL-based talks at TESOL, reflecting the fact that there are significant numbers of international delegates as well. Apart from meeting many North Americans from the United States and Canada, I got to talk to people from Cameroon, the Philippines, Japan, Thailand, and several countries in Europe and Latin America.

After Hours

And the conference nightlife? Unlike IATEFL's publisher-sponsored parties and get-togethers, TESOL attendees do their own thing at night. I got to hang out with some of my friendly CALL-IS colleagues. There were a number of microbreweries for us to visit, another famous facet of Portland, along with the largest family-run bookstore in the United States (Powell's Books), and a doughnut joint called Voodoo Doughnuts whose specialities include jalapeño or maple syrup and bacon doughnuts.

I thoroughly enjoyed the TESOL conference, getting to meet our CALL-IS colleagues, the great variety of talks and sessions—and, in case you haven't guessed, Portland itself! A huge thank you to the British Council for enabling this exchange to continue.

The Electronic Village

A public thanks to the Electronic Village volunteers

Hot Topic sessions webcast team: Larry Udry (L) and Jack Watson (R)

Portland's green credentials: electric car and charging station