Warning: This post is EFL related and many may find it excessively boring.
While I was in the taxi on the way to work this week, I happened upon a banner in front of the State University of Makassar, or UNM. It was advertising an International Conference on Bilingual Education. Wow, I thought, an international conference here in Makassar. I thought I would check it out with my counterpart and he had on his desk the flyer for the conference. This was either the 13th or 14th; the conference was slated for the 17th and 18th.
After arriving at the conference, they apologized for any undue comfort (as is the custom here) and relate to the audience that they tossed together this international conference in three weeks. As it turned out, a lecturer from my university jumped right on and rushed over an abstract and was awarded with a spot in the parallel sessions. Another parallel session presenter announced that she had been told on Tuesday that she would be presenting. Her PowerPoint was unfinished.
The keynote speaker was from Australia (the international part of the conference) and gave a solid primer on bilingual education. I have read little about the subject and, since there is a push for bilingualism in schools here, I was happy to know more. Perhaps the more important things she noted was that for benefits from bilingual education, the students must have at least four years, if not six, of bilingual education. Less than that may have no effect or a negative effect. Anyhow, the Q & A was lively and I also learned there is a bilingual middle school in Makassar. This school teaches math and science in English. The questioner/commenter also stated that perhaps some of his colleagues did not feel confident in speaking and teaching in English. Of course, one would surmise that fluency in the language one is being asked to teach in would be a requirment. Not just yet. It was unclear from this small exchange whether the instructors were content teachers of math and science being asked to teach in English, or whether the teachers were the better English speakers in the school being asked to deliver math and science content.
Interesting takes on presentation skills included: not enabling slide mode in PowerPoint for the duration of the presentation which showed the ‘insert title here’ box at the top of successive slides, preparing PowerPoint slides completely of text, reading straight from previously published papers, and reading straight from PowerPoint slides.
I did think a few of the presentations were interesting and good. However, many of the attendees from middle and high school level schools were dismayed as the parallel sessions had little to do with the overall theme of bilingual education. Again, this looks to be due to the quick planning of the conference. The keynote speaker finished up the conference with a workshop that facilitated reflection of the necessities of bilingual education (trained staff in both languages and in content areas, materials in both languages, etc).