Dr. Stephen Krashen, along with other nationally recognized featured speakers, brought excitement, energy and inspiration to the 450 ESL professionals attending the 2005 NCSU ESL Symposium held June 2-3.  "It is wonderful to have a first-class conference offered in Raleigh.  Every year I come and learn practical ideas that I can take back and use with my faculty and families," one participant wrote.  Another asked for "More of the same next year!"  In his plenary session address Dr. Krashen. Emeritus Professor of Education at The University of Southern California, focused on the importance of free voluntary reading.  Educators must make sure that their students have access to interesting and comprehensible reading material, the first step we need to take to insure adequate literacy development of all students.
        Professor Emeritus of Language Teacher Education at The School for International Training, Dr. Alvino Fantini addressed the necessity for language educators to recognize and surmount the challenges encountered during acquisition of intercultural competence.  He emphasized that those striving to attain such competence are often put in a position of conflict with their own native paradigms and must struggle to transcend and transform their native worldviews for success in a new context.
        The federal No Child Left Behind law, according to Dr. Monty Neill, Co-Executive Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, will not lead to high quality education of bilingual/ELL or other students.  His session focused on a different, more effective, approach that could be taken by the federal government.
        Symposium participants particularly appreciated the opportunity to offer comments and ask questions during the session of featured speaker Kathleen Leos, Associate Assistant Deputy Secretary U.S. Department of Education and Senior Policy Advisor to the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA).  Ms. Leos served as the policy advisor for the No Child Left Behind bill and is charged with developing policy and disseminating regulations throughout the United States for the 5 ½ million non-English speaking students who attend America's public, private, and charter schools.
        ESL teacher Kathy Mellor, 2004 National Teacher of the Year, explained the evolution of the collaborative ESL model whose development she spearheaded and which may hold answers for issues facing instructional implementation today.  The model is based upon shared responsibility of mainstream and ESL teacher for the equitable education of ELLs.
 

A podcast is simply an internet non-music audio file that is downloadable to a digital music player.  The term was coined from Apple's iPod.  However, podcasting does not require an iPod; any digital audio player or computer with the appropriate software can play podcasts.  Podcasting's initial appeal was to allow individuals to distribute their own "radio shows," but the system is increasingly used for other reasons.  Best of all, podcasting software is available as freeware.

Podcasting has huge implications for second language learning, since students are able to listen to targeted-language materials on a small digital player they can carry with them wherever they go.  Teachers can create their own course-specific podcasts or select from the growing number available on the web.  The Internet TESL Journal has a comprehensive site listing podcasts and downloadable MP3 files.

Podcasting just may prove to be the most exciting innovation in instructional technology in decades.