Just arrived from San Antonio at the beach in Wilmington, NC where my family and I will spend Thanksgiving week. I want to say a few things about ACTFL.
Getting myself to large conferences is always something I struggle with. I find the crowd, the travel and the non-stop meetings exhausting. That was all true this time, but that’s always going to be true for me.
San Antonio was a delightful surprise, affording many opportunities to get into good places to eat and drink and share quality time with colleagues from EVERYWHERE.
Here’s the heart of what I take away from ACTFL this year. I was really pleased at how often CI teachers were showing up and speaking up in sessions, and then finding each other after and between sessions to share more. I have come to expect to see Teri Wiechart, and did! I was not expecting to get to meet and visit with Robert Harrel! How wonderful! If I only had more hours. MIra Canion, Krista Applegate and Pica (whose last name I forget) and so many others whose names I am right now forgetting. That time between sessions and speaking up in sessions is SO important. The presence of CI teachers was strongly felt. I did not feel any combative atmosphere going on.
Rachel Ash, Miriam Patrick and I presented a session called Untextbooking. It was at 4:00 on Saturday afternoon (right before all the big parties start). We had a room full with more than 120 attendees and lots of engaging energy during and after the session. We made a lot of contacts, offered much encouragement and received much as well.
Lots of folks use the term “comprehensible input” and a lot of folks don’t know what that means even when they use it. We have to be prepared to speak more clearly about what we mean and how we do that (Mira and I had a long conversation about that). I almost never use the term unless I am going to talk about it as “delivering understandable messages” which I did at both of the presentations I was involved in.
I also presented as one of the SCOLT Teachers of the Year. Eight of us who are former Teachers of the Year from SCOLT did a PechaKucha presentation (which, btw, has some real possibility for adaptation in a CI classroom–more on that another time). I used my 20 slides and about 7 minutes to folks on the building blocks of a CI classroom where every student is successful.
ACTFL is a big organization, and as such comes with all the burdens of those critters. At any given hour, there are 50-100 sessions going on. You can never get to everything you want to. At one point, I was expected to be at a reception because I am a former Teacher of the Year, but at the same hour, Latin teachers were gathering at a restaurant for a Cena Latina (Latin dinner at which all the conversation is in Latin). Had to do the Cena Latina. It just was so much more important than my presence at a reception.
All in all, I am convinced, again, that the presence, work, examples, and INPUT of CI teachers into this mammoth organization are essential. We need to be there, enriching the direction and the content of what FL teachers are hearing and doing.
On that note, I end by saying that proposals for ACTFL 2015 are due in January. Will be in San Diego. Start writing those proposals now. And when you do, create titles that CI teachers will recognize as CI work.
Bob Patrick