ETAQ E-pistle 15-12
Posted by Garry Collins on May 13, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Australian Curriculum senior courses
New drafts of senior English courses for the Australian Curriculum are now available on the ACARA website at http://consultation.australiancurriculum.edu.au/. You do need to be logged in to access the material.
A session for discussion and feedback is one of the options for the seminar in Brisbane on 26 May and further meetings are planned for the week beginning 4 June. Details of dates and venues will be advised soon. The consultation period is planned to continue till 20 July.
Brisbane May seminar
A seminar with the theme, “Storytelling and the Power of the Word”, will be conducted at Brisbane Grammar School on Saturday 26 May. It constitutes 3 hours 15 minutes of CPD.
Our two keynote speakers are Professor Pat Buckridge, a literary studies academic from Griffith University, and John Danalis, author and illustrator. Following the morning tea break there will be the usual suite of supporting workshop sessions.
Hard copies of the program and registration form have been mailed to members and are also available for download from the website at http://www.etaq.org.au/?page_id=768. If you have not yet registered, you should have it on your “to do” list for the coming week.
State conference call for presenters
Proposals are now sought for workshops or papers to be presented at annual ETAQ State Conference to be conducted on Saturday 18 August at Lourdes Hill College at Hawthorne in Brisbane. The theme is “Making connections”.
The Call for Presenters document will be included in the next mailing and can also be downloaded from the website at http://www.etaq.org.au/?page_id=308. Members are encouraged to contribute to the conference by sharing some aspect of their practice via a workshop session. I hope to present the workshop that I have had accepted for the AATE National Conference in Sydney in October.
Assistance to attend AATE national conference
Financial assistance is available to assist selected members to attend this year’s AATE national conference which will be conducted at Sydney Grammar School on 3-4 October.
The conference theme is Five Bells, a reference to Kenneth Slessor’s poem about Sydney dealing with time and change. Further information is available at http://www.englishteacher.com.au/FiveBells/Home.aspx
ETAQ will cover the cost of earlybird registration for three members. In return for this assistance, awardees will be required to:
- submit an article for publication in Words’Worth on some aspect of their conference experience and
- participate in a “Future Leaders” Forum at the conference
One of the three “scholarships” is specially earmarked for early career English teachers (1st 5 years). If you would like to be considered for one of these awards, send me an email to gazco48@bigpond.net.au outlining your teaching experience and current work situation and explaining why you would be a worthy recipient.
Botsman Award nominations
Nominations for this year’s Peter Botsman Memorial Awards are required by 1 June. If you have a colleague you consider is making an outstanding contribution to English teaching, you are encouraged to take the first step towards lodging a nomination by emailing me at gazco48@bigpond.net.au.
Digital Story Competition
Materials relating to ETAQ’s new digital story competition, generously sponsored by Jacaranda (John Wiley and Sons), are available for download from the ETAQ website at http://www.etaq.org.au/?page_id=824.
Garry Collins
President, English Teachers Association of Queensland (ETAQ)
Sunday, May 13, 2012