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Moderators-Welcome-Messages

Page history last edited by Aiden Yeh 15 years, 2 months ago

Welcome to the NNEST EVO - Introductions


Dear NNEST EVO Participants,

Hi, everyone and a *big* welcome to the NNEST EVO Networking Solutions for

Professional Development!

 

My name is Ana Wu, and I will be one of the moderators. I was born and raised in

Brazil, and in 2008, I celebrated my 10th year in the USA. Currently, I teach

ESL at City College of San Francisco, and have been an enthusiastic member at

TESOL.

 

It is still Sunday, January 11th in California, but I am very excited in

facilitating the NNEST EVO workshop because it is the first ever to be offered.

Also, as you may know, the Non-native English Speakers in TESOl Caucus became an

Interest Section in July 2008. So this is a good start to understand more about

being perceived as a non-native speaker, understand the history, what kind of

research has been done, and what tools/strategies to apply in order to attain

equal opportunities, be competitive, employable, and marketable.

I am also very thrilled to work with our guest speakers. We are very honored to

have gathered a group of experts here, and I have not doubt that at the end, we

will be very inspired!

 

Welcome again and thank you for your participation!

 

 

Ana Wu

http://nnest.asu.edu/

Message #36


Dear NNEST-EVO 2009 Session Participants,

 

Welcome to NNEST-EVO's Networking Solutions for Professional Development Session. Like Ana, I'm also excited and I'm looking forward to sharing and learning with all of you. My name is Aiden Yeh and I am currently based in Taiwan. I say 'currently' because I don't know where I'll be in the next 5-10 years :-) I go wherever my family goes ;-) I teach at Wenzao Ursuline College in Taiwan, and I'm also pursuing my PhD studies at the University of Birmingham. My diss. topic focuses on Taiwanese teachers in supplementary schools and their attitudes and practices toward professional development (see http://nnest- evo2009.pbwiki. com/Moderators)

 

I've been a TESOL member for about 10 years now, and i've always been interested in NNEST issues, and of course, CALL issues as well. Professional development for teachers, regardless of ethnicity, highly depends on one's motivation and determination to learn. For many teachers, professional development doesn't come cheap. The price for paid courses sometimes exceeds the amount of salary received; hence, it becomes a detrimental factor in pursuing professional growth. This is why I believe that the TESOL's CALL-IS's project, Electronic village Online  or EVO, provides teachers from all over the globe access to professional development courses that are totally FREE of charge. All of us in the EVO coordination team work as volunteers and offer our time and efforts also at no cost.

 

If you will look at our weekly syllabus, http://nnest- evo2009.pbwiki. com/, you will see that the activities are outlined in a way that would introduce what the NNEST in TESOL as an Interest Section (IS) is about and how it can help EFL/ESL teachers in understanding the issues that concern us, from personal perspectives to academic achievements and goals.

It's true, that some of the issues are personal, and therefore, sensitive in nature. However, we should look beyond our ethnic backgrounds and comfort zones, and start becoming aware of the realities that exist in the industry that we are all involved in.

 

Ana has already mentioned that we have an impeccable list of guest speakers, who are also sharing with us their knowledge, skills, and their invaluable time. So brace yourselves and enjoy 6-weeks of fruitful learning :-)

 

We have about 55 participants (and still growing), and if you're going to look at the Participants' page, http://nnest- evo2009.pbwiki. com/Participants , you'll see that we practically cover the globe (well, sort of ;-) )

 

Introductions are archived in the Yahoogroup, http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/nnest_ evo2009/ and the thread can also be found here, http://nnest- evo-network. pbwiki.com/ Week1-Introducti ons

 

If you still have not done your introductions, please do so; this is a good way to become part of this diverse community of professionals.

 

Don't forget to add your photo to our session world map at

http://nnest- evo2009.pbwiki. com/map or you can upload it to the Yahoo! group Photos area.

 

I will stop here for the moment ;-) and we'll wait until most of you have done your intros, and then we will proceed with our discussions with Katya Nemchinova (first half of Week 1) and second half of the discussions will be with Brock Brady.

 

Thanks again for joining us, and I wish you all an exciting NNEST-EVO Session!

 

Aiden Yeh

message # 38

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