What makes an idea JALT Conference workshop-worthy?

4 comments

1. I’ve only ever done research-oriented presentations but,

   I always feel that if you have something you want to present throw together an abstract and try. If it gets accepted that’s great. If it doesn’t but you think it could be useful, you can ask your local chapter to present at the next meeting.

2. I’ve done a few workshops, have attended many and have reviewed for JALT conferences. The only criterion for deciding if you should do it is if you want to do it.

   Don’t be intimidated by JALT. You’re not entering some elite circle and you don’t have to worry about whether your humble idea is worthy. It’s a Mickey Mouse conference for language teachers. All the lamest stuff I’ve reviewed came from JALT. Attend even once and it’s likely you’ll quickly realize you could do a better presentation than a lot of the people presenting.

   That said, Workshops are a bit tougher anywhere because they are longer and there is more time to fill and they usually involve more audience participation. I can’t tell you if your idea is good enough, but I can tell you how how to checklist it:

   * Is the topic an established niche skill that lots of teachers would want to acquire, but many don’t already have? (e.g., how to use Moodle for hybrid classes, how to use excel or some new free piece of software to analyze tests)

   * Is the topic an established “thing” in teaching circles (preferably a current buzzword), or is it something entirely of your own creation? If the latter there will be less interest because nobody will know what it is.

   * Do you feel you have enough activities and knowledge to share to fill the entire time period? (Subtract time for audience discussion. You can have them do pairwork where they brainstorm answers before you give them and shit like that).

   But whatever you do, don’t imagine you’re playing to a room of chinstroking academics that will scoff at your tawdry layman’s understanding of the topic. Anyone who fits that description wouldn’t be at JALT in the first place. It’s 90% perky, non-judgmental language teachers with masters degrees working at high school or contract university work with little to no research background and they’re no smarter than you are. Or at least, they’re no more likely to be smarter than you than any random person on the street is. Just work hard to plan a good workshop and if it’s good enough that *you* think it would have been good enough for *you* when you were starting out, you will very likely be fine.

3. I never did it but I think the bar’s pretty low so long as you are passionate and have researched your topic properly.

   My view of EFL teaching is that we need practical solutions rather than academic fluff. Thus, my preference would be towards topics that provide tools for teachers that you think they’ll be able to use within the current framework.

4. I’m not gonna be as condescending as the other dude – there are some legitimately smart people with real research experience who attend JALT conferences and I’ve seen one or two presenters get absolutely wrecked by someone in the audience who was an expert in the field and the presenter had misrepresented some data or something. But those are rare occasions and most people who attend the conference and show up to your session just wanna see what you have to say. Hell, I’ve attended a few sessions just because I didn’t have anywhere else to be at that time slot.

   You might even have the opposite problem. Instead of having your presentation picked apart, you might get a passive audience that won’t ask you any questions. So if you want to present at JALT, just go for it.