Conference Review

10th Asia TEFL International
Conference Review

David Campbell
Obihiro University of Agricultureand Veterinary Medicine
The 10th Asia TEFL International Conference was held from October 4 to 6,
2012 at the Hotel Leela Kempinski in Gurgaon, Delhi, India. The theme of theconference was “Expanding Horizons of Language and Communication: ELT
Issues, Challenges, and Implications.” In this three-day conference there were 600presentations (a combination of plenary, keynote, featured and special speakers,workshops, demonstrations, colloquia, papers, and posters) scheduled. WorldEnglishes were on display with attendees from every part of the world, from as far
north as Finland to as far south as Australia and New Zealand and every cornerof Asia and the Middle East in between. It was this diverse group of people thatmade this conference so interesting and worthwhile. It wasn’t just the number ofnationalities and types of English represented, but the wide variety of teachingsituations and conditions that the attendees came from that made break times
between presentations so informative and entertaining.
There were many interesting people to talk with, and most of the presentationsand keynotes that I attended were very informative. For example, a plenary titled“Should we be planning to teach grammar? If so how?” given by Catherine Walker,
a lecturer in applied linguistics at the University of Oxford, was very thoughtprovoking. She posed many questions related to the teaching of grammar andthen tried to answer them. Her presentation got me to think about my approachto the teaching of grammar and the changes I need to make in the future.
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One of the interesting aspects of the conference was the wide range ofteaching situations that people came from, and the presentations reflected this.
They ranged from those introducing how to use the latest technology, such astablets and smartphones, to others showing how students create and use theirown dictionaries because they don’t have the money for paper ones, let alone
electronic ones.
As good as these points were, numerous organizational issues almost
overshadowed them for me. I believe the major source of the problems at theconference stemmed from the desire to have the 10th Asia TEFL Conference
be the largest yet in a facility that really wasn’t designed for a conference of thissize. To accommodate 16 concurrent sessions, every possible space was pressed
into service. This meant two restaurants that were only open in the evenings wereused, but there was the distraction of kitchen and serving staff working in thebackground preparing for opening later in the day. This also meant that sessions
were held in huge ballrooms better suited for plenaries or in conference rooms in
far-flung corners of the hotel (one down by the hotel spa and pool) that attendees
and presenters were hard-pressed to find.
Besides the room size and location issues, there was the problem of signage.
In the conference schedule the rooms were all numbered one through sixteen, butthe signs outside of the rooms used the hotel assigned names (“Ebony”, “Maple”,
or “Rosewood”). On the first day, there was no way to know if the workshop
you wanted to attend, that the schedule said was in Room 1, was in the Ebony,Maple or Rosewood room. The organizers discovered the mistake and wrote thecorresponding number on each of the signs outside of the rooms, but it was toolate for the first day. In an attempt to alleviate the problem, the second day theyalso made copies of the schedules and put them next to the doors of each room,
but in several places the pages were incorrect, so attendees and presenters ended
up in the wrong room.
Other issues as well go back to the desire to have so many sessions. One was
the 8:10 starting time on the second and third days. This early starting time
combined with the difficulties people had in getting to and into the venue meantlate starts and missed presentations. On both days, I showed up at rooms for the75Campbell

8:10 sessions and the presenters never came because they were stuck in traffic orthe security line to enter the hotel. These issues and the room numbering problem
led to a number people I spoke with giving up and just staying in the common area
talking with other attendees. They attended the plenaries and keynotes because
they knew a speaker would show up and the rooms were easy to find.
Another problem that wasn’t only the organizers’ fault goes back to the desire
to have a conference with 600 presentations. The majority of the presentations
were “20-minutes” so there could be as many as possible in the time available.
The drawback was that many presenters did not scale down the number of slides
to match the shorter time. There were several presentations that I went to where
the presenter was unable to get the main part of their topic before they ran out oftime. As a presenter, I almost made the same mistake, but presenting on the third
day gave me the chance see the mistake other people had made. It did mean thatI was redoing my presentation at 10 o’clock the night before I was to present, butafterwards I was glad I had done the editing because I was able to get in all my key
points. My advice to any conference organizing committee is that “bigger isn’t
always better.”
I hope that the problems and issues I pointed out in this review will notdiscourage people from attending this conference. I feel that it is an important
conference and one that English instructors in Asia, and especially Japan, should
put on their schedules. At this conference you will learn how English is beingtaught and used throughout Asia, and you will see that we face similar challenges
in preparing our students to use English in this ever-increasing interconnectedworld. The 12th International Asia TEFL Conference will be August 28-30, 2014
in Kuching, Sarawak, Malayasia. This conference is an excellent way to experience
the types of Englishes that our students will encounter in the real world.

Author’s bio

David Campbell is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Sciences at
Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine in Obihiro, Hokkaido,
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Japan. He has over 25 years of experience teaching English to all ages of students. Hiscurrent research interests are Moodle, a learning management system, and the use of
ICT in tertiary education in Japan. campbell@obihiro.ac.jp

Received: November 1, 2012
Accepted: May 14, 201377