JALT Conference 2012

So, let me tell you about the conference I went to Oct. 12-14 in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka:

JALT is the Japanese Association of Language Teachers, so the conference was all about teaching English as a second language. Many teachers were there from all over the country, even some from other countries. There were talks and workshops, a dealer room for publishers, big presentations, and some parties, too.

The conference was right across from Hamamatsu City's train station at a place called ACT City. It's a huge area that has a building with two concert halls, a hotel, a big shopping center, a music museum, and 3 big exhibition halls!

 I was a volunteer along with about 50 other students. I did many jobs (some more fun than others haha) including giving directions around the conference, taking registration, moving and setting up projectors, and stuffing bags with materials. I was working most of the time, from about 8am to at least 6pm, so I didn't get to attend many talks, but I did hear a few tidbits here and there. At the parties, I got to meet some teachers from other universities and speak with them.

Everyone in the "intern room" on the first day for a welcome party with games and pizza-

The best part by far, though, was meeting all the other volunteers. Right from the very beginning we became a team so I felt like I could talk to anyone even though we had just met. And so many of them were so great! We had tons of fun working together, or talking during lunch, or staying together at the hostel. The last night, even though we were dead tired, about 10 of us stayed up to tell ghost stories. Unfortunately, most of them live about 3 hours away in Nagoya, but now if I go visit I will have people to meet up with!

I took the night bus there and back with Holly on Thursday and Sunday nights, and also got up super early to work all day, so basically I was a zombie for the whole weekend, but I took Monday and Tuesday off work so I had time to recover. All in all, it was a great weekend!

The JALT intern team