09/09/2020

Christie Sosa
Resiliency is a term that we associate with hardship, challenge or even trauma, while simultaneously symbolizing strength, adaptability or possibly a return to our core purpose.  Within the context of our professional lives, resiliency allows us to continue to teach and support our students, adapt our classrooms and pedagogy and seek out opportunities for networking and engagement with publishers, exhibitors, and the content itself. The conference committee has come together under these circumstances and with great single-mindedness in an effort to support you and further deepen the professional resiliency in all of us.

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Due to the rapid transition of content and events to the digital environment, we are not limited nearly as much by the geographical location, time or cost of an event.  Instead, we are presented with overwhelming access to training and presentations, and for this reason, we are left to prioritize the opportunities ourselves.  Therefore, we’d like to share the top three reasons to attend the CATESOL 2020 State Conference.

1. Students: Our students are at the core of what we do, and the conference committee feels strongly about building a program and experience that makes our students’ lives better.
2. Colleagues: Engaging in professional development alongside your colleagues can help you cultivate a community of practice or inspire you to develop a long-term plan to iterate and reflect as you try new things together.
3. The Field: We need and want diverse voices.  Support the field of English language teaching by attending and participating in sessions and conversations.

Many elements will feel familiar to previous conferences with keynotes, concurrent sessions, exhibitor hours, workshops and level sessions or interest group networking. Similar to last year, Thursday, October 8th will open with a half-day Advocacy Pre-Convention Institute (PCI). 
 
We are excited to announce our keynote speakers Mandy Manning, Dr. Justin Shewell, Dr. Willy Renandya and Dr. Stephen Krashen.  As experts in the areas of advocacy, online teaching and learning and English language teaching pedagogy, our keynote speakers anchor a strong and inspiring professional development program. Additionally, we have poster sessions, presentations, panels, and workshops that were submitted by your colleagues and the CATESOL board to focus on current and ongoing concerns in the field, such as the effective implementation of specific EdTech tools, educator self care, equity, pronunciation, reading, and writing pedagogical best practices and sheltered instruction.   We feel strongly that the program addresses the needs and desires of our attendees.
 
Some elements of the conference have been altered to meet the delivery format and changing face of CATESOL professional development offerings.  Instead of Sunday workshops, we will showcase work that was completed by your colleagues through the CATESOL summer institute and we have created space for more concurrent sessions on Sunday.
 
We hope to see you online Oct 8-11, 2020 as we come together for CATESOL’s premier event of the year.  If you are unable to participate in real time, you can still register and access all of the sessions at any time after the conference.  With over 100 sessions, there is plenty to choose from during and after the conference dates.
 
For more information, you can always visit https://www.catesol.org/2020_state_conference.php or email the conference co-chairs, Amy Pascucci and Margi Wald, at catesol2020conf@gmail.com