Dr. J's Blog of ELT Praxis

A few weeks ago, I attended my first American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Conference.  I first heard about it during my first year at the University of Iowa as some of my colleagues went there.  They described it as a more intimate and research-oriented conference compared to the International TESOL Convention, which is now held immediately after AAAL in the same city.  As a new PhD student, I still preferred the practitioner-oriented TESOL Convention as many of my ideas were in the mindset of a teacher.  I went to a couple TESOL Conventions until my graduate studies and dissertation crowded out any opportunities for professional conferences.  Now as my dissertation is near completion, I got my first opportunity to attend AAAL and it was really worth it. I came to AAAL wearing two hats.  The first hat was my PhD candidate hat.  With it, I attended presentations and roundtables about language & culture and language planning & policies.  My second hat was my in