ETAQ E-pistle 3-11
Renewal of membership
By now you should have received in the mail an invoice for renewal of your ETAQ membership. If you have not, please contact Jim Buckley at jimb.etaq@bigpond.com It would be greatly appreciated if payment could be made promptly as issuing reminders stretches our limited administrative resources. Our Rules state that those who have not paid by 31 March cease to be members and we’d hate to lose anyone through an administrative oversight. Read more
ETAQ E-pistle 23-10
Seeking workshop presenters for March 11 seminar
ETAQ’s first PD activity in the Brisbane area for next year will be conducted at StuartholmeSchool at Toowong on the morning of Saturday 19 March 2011. The theme is the power of persuasion and our guest speaker is to be Alison Robertson, President of SAETA (the South Australian English Teacher Association) and a teacher at the prestigious Wilderness School in Adelaide.
Members will be aware that the NAPLAN writing task for next year requires a piece of persuasive writing. The intention is that the various offerings at the March seminar will encompass NAPLAN but also go beyond it to be relevant to all year levels and all areas of the English curriculum. Perhaps someone will offer a session on the teaching of Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion. Sessions on advertising and various other sorts of persuasive texts would also be relevant.
We are currently seeking volunteers to conduct workshop sessions in the segment after morning tea. Members prepared to share their practice related to the theme are requested to contact the co-convenors for the activity: Dr Donna McGrath dmcgrath@stuartholme.comor Sophie Johnson sjohnson@stuartholme.com
What they need by the end of November is an indication of the intention to offer a session. This would include your contact details, a working title, a general indication of the content and the proposed duration. This will be sufficient to allow initial program planning.
By the end of the summer vacation we would need full details for the flyer to be mailed to members and posted to the website: a session title, an abstract (synopsis of the proposed session) and your biographical details. Perhaps you could do a joint presentation with a colleague.
Timings for the activity allow for shorter sessions of 35 minutes or longer ones of 75 minutes. We hope that members offering shorter sessions would be prepared to repeat their presentations to allow maximum choice for attendees.
Members prepared to share their work via workshop presentations will be able to register for half price. Offering to present a workshop session is a tangible way that members can maker a contribution to the association and English teacher colleagues throughout the state.
Teaching resources to be available on ABC Radio National
What follows is a message from Georgia Symons, Production Assistant, ABC Radio National Arts Department. This looks like an excellent initiative although for Queensland it would have to be a case of commonly used texts rather than ones cited in syllabus documents. Members are strongly encouraged to respond to the email addresses below. Copying any such response to me (gazco48@bigpond.net.au) would enable ETAQ to gauge member response.
“I am writing to you from the Radio Arts department within ABC Radio National. At the moment, our department is looking closely at ways in which we can better service the needs of educational institutions throughout Australia through our program output. We would like to inform you of one idea in particular, and hear any thoughts your members have on the proposal.
Currently, ABC Radio National has a daily book reading and a weekly play. The book readings are 13 minutes long and topped and tailed with music. They are a straight reading of a pre-existing book, without any sound effects or other auditory additions. Due to the nature of the format, we often have to abridge the books, but we always do this with the utmost care, ensuring that the main plot and essence of the book are preserved. The plays are of 50 minutes duration and repeated once during the week – so two broadcasts.
Recently, we have been thinking about making the book readings and plays that are syllabus texts available online, and we are placing the focus on books and plays that are on one or more senior English syllabus in states around Australia. The episodes would be made available free of charge and with no special access requirements, other than access to the internet.
We would love to hear whether or not you would find this helpful. If so, how would you use it in your teaching? And if not, then why? And do you have any requests or ideas for similar resources? Please direct all responses to this letter to symons.georgia@abc.net.auor messariti.anna@abc.net.au. Many thanks for your time.”
ETAQ E-pistle 22-10
Literary Spring Breakfast
If you live in the Brisbane area and weren’t at the Literary Spring Breakfast conducted at the Botanical Café in the Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens last Saturday morning (30 October), you missed a really pleasant function that contributed to teachers’ CPD tallies without requiring them to commit an excessive amount of valuable weekend time.
Addressing the topic “how readers become writers”, academic and novelist Dr Kim Wilkins gave an excellent talk that was both entertaining and affirming of the work of English teachers.
The equivalent function in next year’s PD calendar is scheduled for Saturday 29 October 2011. Members are urged to enter the date in their diaries/planners for next year.
First Saturday Seminar for Next Year
With the current school year rapidly drawing to a close we now need to focus on activities for the next. ETAQ’s first PD activity in the Brisbane area for next year will be conducted at Stuartholme School at Toowong on the morning of Saturday 19 March 2011.
The theme is the power of persuasion and our guest speaker is to be Alison Robertson, President of SAETA (the South Australian English Teacher Association) and a teacher at the prestigious Wilderness School in Adelaide.
Members will be aware that the NAPLAN writing task for next year requires a piece of persuasive writing. The intention is that the various offerings at the March seminar will encompass that current reality of school life but also go beyond it to be relevant to all year levels and all areas of the English curriculum. Perhaps someone will offer a session on the teaching of Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion.
We are currently seeking volunteers to conduct workshop sessions in the segment after morning tea. Members prepared to share their practice related to the theme are requested to contact the co-convenors for the activity:
- Dr Donna McGrath dmcgrath@stuartholme.com
- Sophie Johnson sjohnson@stuartholme.com
What we need by the end of November is an indication of the intention to offer a session. This would include your contact details, a working title, a general indication of the content and the proposed duration. This will be sufficient to allow initial program planning.
By the end of the summer vacation we would need full details for the flyer to be mailed to members and posted to the website: a session title, an abstract (synopsis of the proposed session) and your biographical details. Perhaps you could do a joint presentation with a colleague.
Timings for the activity allow for shorter sessions of 35 minutes or longer ones of 75 minutes. We hope that members offering shorter sessions would be prepared to repeat their presentations to allow maximum choice for attendees.
I hope that we can look forward to a flood of volunteers.
ETAQ E-pistle 21-10
Reminder re Literary Spring Breakfast
Members in the greater Brisbane area are reminded that ETAQ’s final PD activity in the city for the year is the Literary Spring Breakfast which will be held this coming weekend on Saturday 30 October. Members are strongly encouraged to attend.
The venue is the Botanical Cafe in the Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens which is accessed from Mt Coot-tha Road just west of the Toowong Cemetery.
Our guest speaker is UQ academic and author Dr Kim Wilkins. As well as being a literary scholar, Kim is also a prolific author with 21 books to her credit across a range of genres. According to a recent story in the Brisbane News, this range includes supernatural and fantasy fiction, young adult novels, children’s fiction and romance. The topic of her talk will be “How readers become writers” which should have significant implications for practice in schools.
The cost is the very reasonable $35 for ETAQ members and $40 for non members. This includes a buffet breakfast.
The activity is timed to run from 8:15 to 10:30 am. A CPD certificate will be available for 1.5 hours.
The registration form was included in the most recent mailing. It was also uploaded to the ETAQ website but, unfortunately, the site is temporarily down. In response to this inconvenience, the registration form is reproduced below.
The reply date is Wednesday 27 October. We need to confirm numbers with the restaurant so please advise Admin Officer Jim Buckley jimb.etaq@bigpond.com of your intention to come by COB Wednesday.
I look forward to seeing a good roll-up of members on Saturday.
ETAQ E-pistle 20-10
Literary Spring Breakfast
ETAQ’s final PD activity in Brisbane for the year is Literary Spring Breakfast which will be held at the Botanical Cafe in the Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens on Saturday 30 October. Our guest speaker is UQ academic and author Dr Kim Wilkins. The flyer and registration form are included in the mailing about to go out and can also be downloaded from the ETAQ website at www.etaq.org.au The reply date is Wednesday 27 October.
Copy for Words’Worth
The editors of our journal are in need of some more copy for the next issue of Words’Worth. Indeed, this is always the case! Sharing professional practice is ETAQ’s raison d’etre and, along with face-to-face PD activities, the journal is one of the main mechanisms for effecting this sharing.
All members are urged to give serious thought to submitting a contribution for publication in the journal. Your topic might be your favourite unit of work (surely, everyone has one), an effective assessment task, a useful classroom activity or a review of a resource that has worked well with students. Alternatively, members could express their views on some aspect of English teaching via a letter-to-the-editor or a longer opinion piece. Members doing post graduate study could well find that university assignments could be readily adapted to be suitable for the journal.
Material can be sent to either of our co-editors: Sue Grotherr sue.grotherr@calvarycc.qld.edu.au or Lynda Wall lyndawall@hotmail.com
Bell Shakespeare Regional Teacher Scholarships
If you teach English and/or drama at a rural or remote secondary school and have a maximum of eight years teaching experience you might be interested in applying for one of Bell Shakespeare’s Regional Teacher Scholarships for next year. Full information can be found at www.bellshakespeare.com.au/learning and a pdf of the application form is available for downloading from the Competitions page of the ETAQ website www.etaq.org.au Scholarship winners will attend a 4-day workshop in Sydney during the period 12-17 May 2011. This is in Queensland term time so you’d need to be able to arrange a few days release from school. Applications close on 26 November.
Poetry – Opportunities and Resources
The following information from Fiona Curran, Education Officer of The Red Room Company, deals with poetry learning opportunities that some members have found extremely useful for their schools. Fiona presented a workshop at this year’s ETAQ State Conference.
“We are currently seeking expressions of interest for our 2011 Papercuts program. The Red Room Company is a non-profits arts organisation offering free creative poetry workshops to students in Australian high schools. We have worked with schools in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, and Tasmania in the past.
These poetry workshops usually involve 3 visits to the school by a practising Australian poet, who works through one of our education kits (The Cabinet of Lost and Found, or Toilet Doors), which have different core activities for the students to focus their creative expression on.
The Cabinet of Lost and Foundtakes the students through a linguistic and creative contemplation of an object that has some special significance to them. Toilet Doors is based around the concept of guerrilla poetry; unexpected poetry in unexpected places, or presented in strange new (and often public) ways. Both kits culminate in a school-supported installation, reading night, anthology, or similar. The Red Room Company hosts the student poems, photos of the event, and the original poem commissioned by the workshop leading poet on our website. To see examples of the exciting work that we have been able to help students and poets accomplish, please take a look at our website: http://redroomcompany.org/education and blog: http://redroomcompany.org/wordpress/
We provide another educational resource for teachers a small boxed set of poetry and exercise cards to be used as stimulus for creative writing activities. These are called Poems to Share, and each poem is an original work commissioned by us for this purpose. The activities on the back are only a beginning; we have had students and teachers create mini anthologies, swap exercises based on the colour of the cards, rewrite poems in order to see the way in which the meaning changes, and more! The cards are available for purchase on our website for $22 (http://redroomcompany.org/goodies/); they have proved very popular at recent ETA conferences in QLD and NSW.”
National Professional Standards for Teachers
AITSL (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership), the replacement for Teaching Australia, is developing National Professional Standards for Teachers. As part of the validation process, any interested stakeholders (we’re all stakeholders) can complete a survey online at www.une.edu.au/simerr/standards where all to contribute to the discussion before the final changes are made. The survey is open from now until October 29th. The survey takes about 30 minutes and needs to be completed in one sitting. The current draft of the standards is available on the Discussions page of the ETAQ website.
ETAQ E-pistle 19-10
Free Conference at UQ – 24 & 25 September
Members in the Brisbane area are reminded about the free research conference being conducted by the School of Education at the University of Queensland.
The event is comprised of two sections. On Friday 24 September from 5pm to 7.30pm, Professor Barbara Comber will give the annual Carolyn D Baker Memorial Lecture with the title: Mandated literacy assessment and the reorganisation of teachers’ work: What kind of revolution is this?
The postgraduate research conference follows on Saturday 25 September from 8.45am to 4pm and also features Prof. Barbara Comber as keynote speaker.
Registrations are required by Friday 17 September. To register, please follow this link: http://www.uq.edu.au/education/index.html?page=135494&pid=133111
QUT research project on the literacy skills and needs of secondary pre-service teachers
The assistance of ETAQ members is sought for a research project being conducted by QUT. Please note the message below from Dr Radha Iyer from the university’s School of Cultural and Language Studies in Education.
“We, at the Faculty of Education, QUT, would like your help in a research project titled: “Determining the general and curricular literacy skills and needs of secondary pre-service teachers.” To conduct this study, we seek your assistance by filling in an anonymous survey to help us gauge the importance of general and curricular literacy skills for pre-service teachers.
If you have supervised student teachers on practicum, we request you to complete the (anonymous) survey which can be accessed by clicking on the link provided.
We anticipate that the data gained from teachers will greatly enhance our understanding of the literacy needs of student teachers, thereby, providing guidance toward teacher training and developing standards that could inform teacher training courses.
Participation in the survey is voluntary and does not compromise your membership or relationship with your association. The maximum time taken to fill out the survey is 10 minutes.
QUT Key Survey Link: http://survey.qut.edu.au/survey/168818/96b6/
Thank you very much for your help. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. Our contact:
Dr. Radha Iyer, CLSE, Faculty of Education, QUT. Phone: 07 31383418, Email: radha.iyer@qut.edu.au “
Offer by State Conference keynote speaker
Dr Alison Scott from the University of Queensland’s School of English, Media Studies and Art History was the keynote speaker for the Saturday afternoon session of the recent State Conference. She advises that some members spoke to her at the end of the session about the possibility of her visiting schools to give guest lectures. She has generously invited members interested in such a possibility to contact her directly at UQ. Her email address is a.scott3@uq.edu.au
2011 IFTE Conference in Auckland
Members are encouraged to consider attending the 10th IFTE (The International Federation for the Teaching of English) Conference to be held at the Universityof Auckland, New Zealand, April 18-21, 2011. This is during the autumn vacation for EQ schools and provides a great opportunity for ETAQ members to participate in an international conference on English teaching. ETAQ members are automatically members of AATE (The Australian Association for the Teaching of English) and AATE is affiliated with the international body, IFTE.
The conference is entitled “Much Ado About English”.
The deadlines for session proposals have been extended. Proposals for papers now need to be submitted by 1 November and those for workshops and seminars by 1 December. For further details go to the IFTE website www.IFTE.net and click on the conference page.
ETAQ E-pistle 18-10
Feedback on Annual State Conference
ETAQ’s annual State Conference was held at the Anglican Church Grammar School in Brisbane over the weekend just past. The Management Committee is pretty happy with the way that things ran overall but we would appreciate any specific feedback that members who attended would care to provide.
If you can spare a few minutes to provide some comments you could send an email to me at gazco48@bigpond.net.au Brief dot points in a PMI format (Plus, Minus, Interesting) would be great.
Literary Spring Breakfast
The final PD activity in Brisbane for the year is the Literary Breakfast planned for Saturday 30 October. Our guest speaker is UQ academic and author Dr Kim Wilkins. Please note the date in your diaries and stay tuned for further details.
Special Book Offer
AATE General Manager Wendy advises that a new book Geoff Bull and Michele Anstey is available to members at a discounted price. Being a member of ETAQ automatically makes you a member of the national body, the Australian Association for the Teaching of English.
The book is entitled Evolving Pedagogies: teaching reading and writing in a multimodal worldand can be acquired for $35.95 instead of $44.95 (plus $6 postage). Thos offer will last until stocks run out. You can order by freephone 1800 248 379 or email aate@aate.org.au
The blurb for the book reads: “Supports teachers in acquiring knowledge about texts, communication technologies and how they design and redesign text. Each chapter includes ‘theory into practice’ whereby the content of the literacy curriculum may be investigated, explored and developed. This book successfully guides the teacher in assisting the 21st century learner through the complexity of multimodal texts, knowledge and interrelationships.”
Free Conference at UQ – 24 & 25 September
The School of Education at the University of Queensland has extended an invitation to English teachers to attend its annual postgraduate research conference. Registration is free and the conference could be of particular interest to teachers interested in educational research and/or those who have contemplated a higher degree in education (either by research or coursework) themselves.
The event is comprised of two sections. On Friday 24 September from 5pm to 7.30pm, Professor Barbara Comber will give the annual Carolyn D Baker Memorial Lecture with the title: Mandated literacy assessment and the reorganisation of teachers’ work: What kind of revolution is this?
The postgraduate research conference follows on Saturday 25 September from 8.45am to 4pm and also features Prof. Barbara Comber as keynote speaker. For registration, please follow this link: http://www.uq.edu.au/education/index.html?page=135494&pid=133111
2011 IFTE Conference in Auckland
E-pistle 17-10 advised that The 10th IFTE (The International Federation for the Teaching of English) Conference Entitled “Much Ado About English” is to be held at the Universityof Auckland, New Zealand, April 18-21, 2011. This is during the autumn vacation for EQ schools and provides an opportunity for ETAQ members to participate in an international conference on English teaching.
Session proposals are required by 1 October. For further details go to the IFTE website www.IFTE.net and click on the conference page.
Queensland Education Resources Expo – weekend 11 & 12 September
The following information is provided as a service to members. The event is to be held at the Brisbane Convention Centre and admission is free.
“The comprehensive seminar program for the QLD Education Resources Expo has been released! To view the program, click on the seminar program link. Presenters will include academics, invited guests, exhibitors and well known public speakers. Topics will range from “Curriculum change in testing times – NAPLAN tests and MySchool website”, “Globalisation – interactive resources for computers and whiteboards”, “Social skills groups for children with high-functioning Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome”, “Creating a Technology Rich School: Tools & Techniques”and many more.
The QLD Education Resources Expo will showcase over 90 exhibitors and in excess of 30 seminar presentations where education professionals will have a unique opportunity to access the latest resources, services and ideas for education facilities in one location. Educators, facility managers and decision makers can also receive special offers, win great prizes and build on professional development.
Register for your free ticket online now at www.edresourcesexpo.com.auand a ticket will be sent to the nominated email address immediately. Remember to bring your ticket to the Expo and record your attendance at the registration desk when you arrive. For details on transport to the venue and car parking, visit www.bcec.com.au/attending-an-event.aspxor http://www.translink.com.au/and use the journey planner for public transport options.”
State Conference
The Queens birthday weekend June 6-8 saw a successful state conference with a range of presentaitons and activities.