Tijana Manigoda presented at the annual conference of the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Feb. 21 at Leeward Community College. More than 100 attended.

Three presenters, several volunteers, and numerous attendees had HPU affiliation. Assistant Professor of English Catherine Sajna facilitated an open discussion about the position of ESL professionals on issues of concern in local public schools.

Manigoda's talk was entitled Mind the Gap: the Role of a Native Speaker's Model in a Non-native Speaker's Language Acquisition. She reported on an action research project that challenged the conventional wisdom about how best to order tasks in language classes.

Current and former MATESL students served as volunteers on committees helping to make the conference run smoothly. They included Mary Dugar, Linda Cholas, and Angell Siu on hospitality; Alan Short, Tomoe Sato, and Randi Perlman on registration; and Marsha Wood on publicity.

Adjunct instructor Julie Mowrer spoke as part of a panel of instructors from Kapiolani Community College (where she also teaches). Many members of the Center for English Language Programs (CELP) faculty, TESL faculty, and students in both the BATESL and MATESL programs also attended.

Jean  Kirschenmann is PEP coordinator for the Center for English Language Programs. Reach her at: jkirschenmann@hpu.edu.