I love my local chapter of KOTESOL (KoreaTESOL). Check them out online at the main website or on facebook.
In April I became a lifetime KOTESOL member. Excellent commitment and bargain too boot!
This year I attended the Spring Conference for Gwangju-Jeonnam. Enjoyed keynote speakers and workshops by Jake Kimball, Cambridge, and Phil Owen. The dinner afterward was wonderful. Some of my new colleagues from Gwangjudae joined as well as the newly elected president of KOTESOL, Mijae Lee.
I also got to go to a couple of workshops. In April I saw a bit of Jookyung Park's presentation and joined the summer lesson exchange. YeonSeong Park kindly posted a video of some of the December workshop (which I didn't attend).
I presented at the Suncheon Outreach Workshop.
It was also great to see Gwangju-Jeonnam KOTESOL out at GIC Day. They were giving away annual memberships!
Facebook has a group for the local chapter, but also has a national facebook page and Linkedin account. KOTESOL needs leaders. Get involved; don't be put off by the contentious complaining. KOTESOL is what you make it. The national website seems to go through annual gyrations of dumping the members and then asking them to re-join again. See the latest at their video tutorial. But they have uploaded the newest TEC in a timely manner - TEC Winter 2011. And the annual pinnacle of prof dev is the International Conference in Fall. Get involved! Call for Papers for 2012 international conference open until January 15th. Present, volunteer, attend. It's always a great event.
