Symposium of Second Language Writing

During 5- 7 June, I attended the Symposium of Second Language Writing and the event was held in West Lafayette, Indiana in the States. On 4 June, I had to take a direct flight from Hong Kong to O'Hare Airport where is in Chicago. It took me 13.5 hours and then I had to make a transit from O'Hare to Indianapolis which took another 1.5 hours. By the time I arrived at Indianapolis, it was 6:40 pm, not Hong Kong time, but US time. Since one Hong Kong scholar and I met another Taiwanese scholar, we decided to hire a limo which cost us 30 US bucks each. Not too bad, it took me about another 1 hour. Eventually, I checked in at 9:30 pm on 4 June, 9:30 am on 5 June. At that time, I felt extremely exhausted and needed to prepare my presentation in the following day at 9:45 am (US time). But I was so excited about my talk and waiting for the next day to come.

On 6 and 7 June, all the parallel sessions were held by the invited speakers who are either renowned scholars in the second language writing or experts in EFL contexts of writing instructions. There were scholars from Brazil, Ukraine, Canada, US, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, Japan, Spain, Israel and Netherlands. All these scholars highlighted the EFL writing instructions in their own teaching contexts. A lot of inspirations and stimuations have created during various keynote presentations. It is also interesting to note that what EFL writing instructions are happening in the other parts of the world! What a nice trip!