Celebrating Linguistic Diversity (2010 conference)

At the end of this month, I plan to attend a conference, held at OISE, to learn more about how teachers differentiate their teaching methods for linguistically diverse communities.

Aside from the strictly linguistic presentations, two seminars that stood out for me are both presented by Vesna Nikolic.

20P Making Questions Count, Thursday afternoon

"Can your questions make or break your class? Can they make you a better teacher? To what extent can effective questions help English language learners develop their communication, cognitive, and critical thinking skills? What does research say about teacher questions? What questions work best at which level? Would you like to find the answers to these questions? Don’t worry. No questions asked during this workshop!"

45A Fascinated by the Brain, Friday morning

"Attend this workshop and explore the implications of brain research on language teaching and learning. Discuss good teaching practices that facilitate learning. Learn about neuroplasticity. Talk about the “gendered brain”. Discuss creativity. Think about where we go from here. Finally, learn how to care for your own most precious software."

I still have some time to pick my optional classes. The classes are classified under elementary, secondary, and all. I plan to attend as many as I can. I hope I can make some contacts in local schools. I was surprised to see that many of the presenters are current board teachers.