The School of Professional Studies’ American Language Program (ALP) hosted its annual Winter Conference on Saturday, February 24, 2018, from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Columbia University’s Faculty House. The conference, the fourth English-language learning conference held by the ALP, provides an opportunity for New York City area TESOL professionals to share their knowledge and experience of academic English instruction. The theme for this year's conference, co-chaired by ALP lecturers Christopher Collins and Brittany Ober, was "Vocabulary Learning / Vocabulary Teaching.” The event began with the plenary session “Vocabulary 2.0” by ALP Senior Lecturer Dr. Frances Boyd. Dr. Boyd is a frequent presenter at academic conferences both in the U.S. and internationally, and the author of many ESL textbooks, including the popular NorthStar series, of which she is co-editor.
The presentations that followed were:
- “Using the Semantic Feature Analysis in ESL Courses” - Dr. Carol Numrich, Columbia University ALP
- “Developing Students' Confidence in Application of New Vocabulary” - Elizabeth Kotseas and Rouya Hashemi, Stony Brook University
- “Vocabulary in Context for Advanced Academic Writing: Reporting Verbs” - Judy Miller, Columbia University ALP
- “Lexical Focus-on-FormS for Better Vocabulary Gain” - Yuan-Yuan Meng, Senior Lecturer in Chinese, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures, Columbia University
- “Teaching Vocabulary in Academic Writing Contexts” - Elizabeth Böttcher & Babi Kruchin, Columbia University ALP
- “Advantages of the Probable Passage Technique for Frontloading Vocabulary for Comprehension, Repetition and Retention” - Mary Carpenter, NYU Steinhardt & CUNY/CCNY
- “Teaching Legal English Vocabulary Through ‘Content Bundles’” - John Terry Dundon, Teachers College Columbia University & Legal English Institute, Fordham School of Law
- “Visualizing Vocabulary: Communication in Context” - Amy Sloane & Suzanne Kaplan-Fonseca, New York University
- “Tech-based, Engaging Vocabulary Activities” - Patrick Russell & Alison Wofford, Pace University
- “Using Vocabulary Logs to Increase Student Ownership” - Rachel S. Wang, Teachers College Columbia University
- “Up Your Game(s)” - Sarah Custen, LIU Brooklyn / The New School
- “Using Journal Article Abstracts to Teach Academic Vocabulary” - Christopher W. Collins, Columbia University
The conference, attended by approximately 150 educators, concluded with a social event where attendees had the chance to interact with presenters, as well as other attendees, to discuss pedagogical issues.
