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A TESOL Conference on Building a Culture of Peace

Integrating Language Teaching and Learning with Social Responsibility—
Sharing Practical Strategies for Understanding and Resolving Conflicts

Saturday, February 7, 2009

George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia

Important updates:

Registration: Pre-registration for this conference is now closed.  If you have not already registered with TESOL, you will need to pay the $45 on-site registration fee at GMU.

Location for check-in on February 7: As noted in the schedule below, registrants can pick up their name badge and folder starting at 8:00 a.m.  When you arrive on site, go to the registration/networking area in the Dewberry Hall Lobby of the Johnson Center (No. 23 on the GMU’s Fairfax Campus map).  All plenary sessions will take place in Dewberry Hall South, in the Johnson Center.

Parking: Parking is free on the weekend in the general parking lots. The closest parking lots to the Johnson Center are General Lot A and J. Please do not park in the faculty spaces.  Participants can also park at the Mason Pond Parking Deck (No. 32 on the campus map).  Parking fee at the Mason Pond Parking Deck is $2 per hour or $10 per day.

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Overview
Conference Schedule
Registration Information

Overview

Building a Culture of Peace: Integrating Language Teaching and Learning with Social Responsibility—Sharing Practical Strategies for Understanding and Resolving Conflicts is a professional development conference for K–12, adult, and higher education ESL teachers, teacher trainers, administrators, and other educators who work extensively with English language learners.

Critical to this conference are self-awareness and intercultural understanding, in an atmosphere of respectful peer-to-peer learning. Participants will learn about educational initiatives, curricular resources, teaching methods, and language learning processes that build, enhance, and sustain understanding between persons, groups, cultures, and nations.

Location

A TESOL Conference on Building a Culture of Peace will be at

George Mason University
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, Virginia 22030 USA
http://www.gmu.edu/fairfax/

Conference Schedule

8:00 am—9:00 am	Registration, Networking, Resource Tables
9:00 am—9:15 am	Plenary Session Welcome—Opening Remarks       Peter N. Stearns, Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia Shelley Wong, President, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), Alexandria, Virginia
9:15 am—10:20 am	Featured Speaker Emma Violand-Sanchez, School Board Member, Arlington Public Schools, Arlington, Virginia Yes We Can! Coming to Voice in Our Schools and Communities As educators we have an important role to play in promoting a sense of belonging and supporting our students’ advocacy skills. The presenter will share her experiences on how to involve linguistically and culturally diverse students and their families to participate and become leaders in their schools and communities.
10:30 am—12:00 pm	Concurrent Workshop Sessions Creating Cultures of Peace in the K–12 Classroom (Rachel Grant, Associate Professor of Education and Director of the Center for Language and Culture, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia and Ilham Nasser, Assistant Professor, Early Childhood Education Program, College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia) Teaching Conflict Management and Peacemaking in the ESL Classroom (Alison Milofsky, Special Advisor, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C.) Stop. Reflect. Listen. Repeat. How to Teach the Language of Resolution (Judith Brussell, Registered Drama Therapist, Arlington County, Virginia; Ruth Takushi, Northern Virginia Community College – Alexandria Campus, Alexandria, Virginia; and Sarah Young, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, D.C.) Using Movies to Build a Culture of Peace and Multicultural Understanding (Mary Romney, Assistant Professor, Institute for Teaching and Learning, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut)
12:00 pm—1:00 pm	Lunch On Your Own, Networking
1:00 pm—2:15 pm	Plenary Session Featured Speaker Charlie D. Haddad, Director of Education, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), Jerusalem Building a Culture of Peace Through Education and Dialogue This presentation will focus on Haddad’s efforts at the ELCJHL Educational Ministry to integrate peace education, conflict resolution and problem solving, interfaith dialogue, and other relevant topics into curricular and complementary programs, projects, and activities, and the challenges they face under the prevailing socioeconomic and political conditions.
2:30 pm—4:00 pm	Concurrent Workshop Sessions Developing a Culture of Peace: Globalization, Immigration, and the Ethics of Choice (Jorge Osterling, Associate Professor of Multilingual/ Multicultural Education, College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia; and Elavie Ndura-Ouédraogo, Associate Professor,Initiatives in Educational Transformation, College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia) Teaching Conflict Management and Peacemaking in the ESL Classroom and in TESOL (Rebecca Oxford, Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland) Responding to Military Recruitment on Campus: Praxis and Materials for Peace Educators (Sarah Benesch, Professor of English, College of Staten Island, City University of New York, New York) - Update:  Session canceled.  Sarah Benesch will not be able to be at the conference. A Culture of Peace: Developing the Fundamentals in the PK–12 Classroom (Sandra Duval, Staff Development Content Specialist – ESOL, Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, Maryland; Anne Marie Foerster Luu, ESOL Teacher, Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, Maryland; and Stefanie Kain, Teacher, Center for Young Children at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland) Building Understanding about Arabs and Arab Americans (Zeina Azzam Seikaly, Director of Educational Outreach, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. and Richard Seikaly, President, EnVisions Consulting, LLC, Falls Church, Virginia)
4:15 pm—5:00 pm	In the News: Immigration Issues in Prince Williams County Discussion moderator, Sylvia Sanchez, Associate Professor, Early Childhood Education Program, College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Film clips will be shown, with discussion, of 9500 Liberty, an independent video soon to be a feature-length film by Eric Byler, Annabel Park, Jeff Man, Luke Hillman, and Jonathan Liang Stafstrom

Registration Information

Participants will also be invited to join a pre- and postconference global online discussion on TESOL’s Web site on building a culture of peace.  To sign up for that discussion e-mail TESOL at edprograms@tesol.org.

Registration Fee

	Pre-registration (Registered before January 30)	On-site Registration (Registered after January 30)
TESOL Member and Nonmember	$35	$45

Registration Terms

Payment for all purchase orders must be received in full before the start date of the course. Participants registering with a purchase order should follow up with their employer to ensure timely payment.

Refund Policy

Requests for refunds of registration fees must be received in writing by January 30, 2009. No refund will be granted afterward.

For more information about the program, please email edprograms@tesol.org.