American Language Program faculty and staff have had a busy few weeks presenting at various virtual conferences. At this year's TESOL International Convention, held March 24-27 and attended by over 9000 teachers worldwide, Lecturer Christopher Collins spoke about a systematic approach to vocabulary instruction to support reading skills; Senior Lecturer Shelley Saltzman presented on designing English-for-specific-purposes (ESP) curricula at the professional school level; Senior Lecturers Maria McCormack, Carol Numrich and Frances Boyd and Lecturer Brittany Ober presented on using the Common European Framework of Reference mediation scales for assessment in project-based courses, and the Assistant Director for ALP Student Life, Jana Quigley, together with Frances Boyd, gave a poster session called "Creating Meaningful Final Ceremonies When 'Graduation' Doesn't Apply."
On March 19 at the 2021 National Association of University Teachers of English Conference (ANUPI - Mexico), Brittany Ober presented on using Zoom interviews as teaching materials, and Carol Numrich and Frances Boyd spoke about faculty driven professional development at Columbia University's American Language Program' - a talk they also gave the ALP's own Winter Conference on Professional Development on March 13. At that same ALP conference, Babi Kruchin co-presented with John Beaumont from the Borough of Manhattan Community College, engaging in a conversation about 'ungrading', and Maria McCormack and Lecturer Lydia Fass spoke about learning to reflect on key teaching practices by helping their students in an International Teaching Fellows training course improve their teaching.
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