[English] Invitation to VATE professional writing workshops

[Scott Bulfin]

Dear colleagues,

In a series of workshops in 1999, VATE and a number of partners brought English teachers and teacher educators together to talk and write about their work in what became known as the STELLA project.

Fourteen years later in 2013, some things about English teaching remain the same, but much as changed. And VATE is once again holding a series of professional writing workshops for English teachers, pre-service English students, teacher educators, and retired educators. The workshops, to be held over August, October and November, are part of a larger research and capacity building project being conducted by VATE in association with universities including Monash University and Deakin University.

The project is examining how English teachers’ work has changed over the last 10 years or so due to the influence of standards-based reforms (like NAPLAN, AITSL professional standards, the Australian Curriculum, increased standardisation and accountability etc). We aim to explore how narrative writing, dialogue and collaboration in professional networks (such as VATE) might enable English teachers to negotiate the difficult policy and professional environments they currently work in.

The workshops are currently being advertised on VATE’s webpage – www.vate.org.au – but we wanted to get the word out via this list as well.

Workshop places are reasonably limited, but we’d love those who are interested to join us for the full series of three workshops, if possible. They have been designed to provide a rare space and ‘time-out’ from the intensity of school or university life to talk about and write about the challenges and pleasures of our work in English teaching and English education. It will be interesting to explore, for instance, the effect of recent standards-based reforms on the ways we engage with and make sense of the Australian Curriculum: English. There are, of course, many others issues which might be explored.

We hope that the workshops will also be an opportunity to meet up with old colleagues you might not have seen for ages, and also to meet new colleagues and extend your professional networks.

See the attached flyer for workshop dates and details.

If you have any questions/queries or you wish to register for the workshops, please email Narelle Wood at narelle.wood at monash.edu

For catering purposes, please RSVP before COB on Friday 23 August. 

We hope you can join us at the first workshop on Wednesday 28 August, at VATE in Collingwood.


Scott Bulfin (scott.bulfin at monash.edu) and Graham Parr (graham.parr at monash.edu)

Project leaders, Monash University



 
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