My Portland TESOL/AAAL schedule, March 21-28

Here is what I'll be doing at AAAL / TESOL in Portland.

Sat 3/22 [AAAL] -
Sun 3/23 [AAAL] -
Mon 3/24 [AAAL] -
Tues 3/25 [AAAL]  - my AAAL presentation 8 AM / AAAL awards 1:30 pm
Wed 3/26 - [CELT / TESOL]  CELT presentation - 10am, TESOL PhD forum poster PM.
Thu 3/27 - [TESOL] AM - TESOL volunteering PM - (non-conference) Reading from my book!
Fri 3/28 - [TESOL] AM TESOL volunteering
Sat 3/28 - [TESOL]
10 AM: Perspectives on Teaching in Different Contexts Book Series- Andy Curtis (I will talk about the book on teaching English in China that am co-writing with my friend and colleague Jiang Dong)
leave PDX 1/2 pm or so
11:30 AM: Co-presenting with Jim Hu on ESL writing accuracy (see below)

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Joel's handy guide to what I am doing at these events

AAAL: Acceptability in Context: Interviews with English Language Teachers

This paper proposes that acceptability judgments need to be re-theorized as socially constructed, and presents data from a study involving interviews with Chinese English teachers about unacceptable English usage in writing. Using discourse analysis, I show how the (un)acceptability of particular usages is not fixed, but depends on contextual influences.

TESOL: ESL writing inaccuracy: Voices of employers (2nd author with Jim Hu)

Given little interest of many university ESL students in improving English writing accuracy, this session explores employers' perspectives on ESL employees' writing inaccuracy. The study discussed found a disconnect between academic and professional worlds and recommends ESL students and universities endeavor together to create the next generation of competent employees.

CELT: Language Difference and Love: the Ethics of World Englishes

This presentation, drawing on the literary scholar Alan Jacobs' theory of "charitable interpretation,” develops an approach to language difference—recognizing the diversity of English in various cultural, social, and political contexts around the world—rooted in the primary Christian virtue of charity.

TESOL Doctoral Forum (poster): Between error and variation: A sociolinguistic approach to globalized academic writing

My study adopts a non-error-based approach to teachers’ reactions to nonstandard language use in Chinese students’ English writing, using the construct of “acceptability” (Greenbaum, 1977) and situating the project in a world Englishes framework. This poster session describes the application of non-error based theoretical approaches to studies of lexical and grammatical variation in L2 writing, presents data from the study, and describes theoretical and methodological challenges and innovations of this approach.

READING @ First Christian Church in downtown Portland:

Do you love/hate Christian rock? Were you, at one time, "down with the DC Talk?" Do you think the 1990s maybe have been rock and roll's greatest decade? Have you owned at least one Amy Grant album? Does the thought of Christian rock elicit at least two of the following emotions for you: revulsion, nostalgia, embarrassment, love, sheepishness? Join Joel Heng Hartse (Paste, Geez, Christianity Today, the Mercury, etc) as he reads from Sects, Love, and Rock & Roll (Cascade Books), an essay collection about being an Evangelical teenager in the 1990s and what it means to fall into and out of love with Christian rock. Musical guests for this reading include: