The 19th Annual CamTESOL Conference was hosted by IDP Education (Cambodia) on 17th to 19th February 2023 at Institute of Technology of Cambodia (ITC), under the theme of, ‘Our next normal: Resilience Building and Future-Ready ELT’. The Conference opened in Phnom Penh on 17 February 2023 and was presided over by Cambodia’s Minister of Education, Youth and Sport, HE Dr Hang Chuon Naron, Australian Ambassador to Cambodia HE Justin Whyatt, British Ambassador to Cambodia HE Dominic Williams, Deputy Chief of Mission Mr Michael DeTar, and Mr MAO Sreng, CamTESOL Convenor and IDP Education and the Australian Centre for Education Country Director. The English Language Teaching (ELT) conference was hosted in-person for the first time in three years following the pandemic, under the theme of, ‘Our Next Normal: Resilience Building and Future-Ready ELT’. Over 1,600 delegates were in attendance including local and international language experts, researchers, teachers, language school administrators, authors and ELT-related individuals and institutions from 39 countries around the world.
Established in 2005 by IDP Education (Cambodia), the annual CamTESOL Conference Series is a premier platform for professional development, capacity-building and upskilling in English teaching in the Asia-Pacific region, and continues to deliver an unrivalled experience for delegates in terms of insights, value, experiences and networking opportunities. There were over 350 plenary, featured and main conference sessions, panel discussions, and talks, maximizing the sharing and exchange of best practices across 21 streams ranging from EdTech and publishing to curriculum development and Quality Assurance.
CamTESOL is supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, the US, Australian and British Embassies, and a broad range of education institutions and individuals involved in ELT in Cambodia, Southeast Asia, and internationally. CamTESOL is acknowledged for its role and contribution to the growth and popularity as well as the improving standard of English language teaching and learning.
HE Dr Hang Chuon Naron, Minister of Education, commended IDP Education (Cambodia) for having done a remarkable job hosting one of the foremost TESOL conferences in Asia.
“By exchanging best teaching practices among regional and international ELT experts at the conference, our Cambodian teachers will be able to further develop English language teaching and learning, preparing our students for the global job market by equipping them with higher English proficiency, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills,” the minister said.
“CamTESOL has strengthened links between ELT communities across Southeast Asia and around the world, and has gained support from globally renowned institutions and organizations,” said Mr Mao Sreng, IDP Country Director and CamTESOL Convenor.
He thanked delegates, the CamTESOL team and the more than 250 volunteers who pulled together a successful conference adding that, “The presence of every delegate is helping to further develop this meaningful and sustainable forum that contributes to the growth and quality of English language education in Cambodia and Southeast Asia.”
Over the course of three days, registration for the conference totalled over 1,600, including 500 international delegates from more than 39 countries. More than 350 presentation sessions across 21 streams were successfully delivered, and there were featured sessions by international conference partners and national speakers.
The CamTESOL Mobile App made it easy for conference delegates to access up-to-date information about the conference and connect with other ELT researchers and practitioners.
The full details of featured and plenary speakers at the 19th Annual CamTESOL includes:
Plenary Speakers
Sponsored by 
Prof. Rod Ellis
Research Professor
School of Education
Curtin University
Australia
"What is the value of research? The case for pre-task planning in the teaching of writing"
What is the value of research? In this talk I will point out different ways in which teachers can make use of research. I will argue that research can only provide teachers with provisional specifications which they can then try out in their own classrooms. I will illustrate this approach to using research using research that has investigated the effect of pre-task planning on writing.
An important issue in the teaching of writing is whether students should prepare a plan before they start writing. Teacher guides (e.g. Ur, 1996; Hedge, 1990) generally recommend pre- task planning (PTP) but with provisos. Research that has investigated PTP, however, does not lend unconditional support to PTP. I will suggest that the value of the research is helping to identify a number of options that teachers of L2 writing can consider when deciding whether and how to undertake pre-task planning in their own teaching context.
In this way, teachers’ own experimenting with different strategies for writing can both enhance their own teaching and also make a contribution to research.
Key words: pre-task planning; online planning; L2 writing; implementing pre-task planning.
Rod Ellis is currently a Research Professor in the School of Education, Curtin University in Perth Australia. He is also a visiting professor at Shanghai International Studies University as part of China’s Chang Jiang Scholars Program and an Emeritus Professor of the University of Auckland. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. His published work includes articles and books on second language acquisition, language teaching and teacher education. His two latest books are Reflections on Task-based Language Teaching (Multilingual Matters, 2018) and the co-authored Task-based Language Teaching: Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2020) Other major publications include Language Teaching Research and Language Pedagogy in 2012, (Wiley-Blackwell), (with Natsuko Shintani) Exploring Language Pedagogy and Second Language Acquisition Research in 2014 (Routledge) and Understanding Second Language Acquisition 2nd Edition in 2015 (Oxford University Press). He has also published several English language textbooks, including Impact Grammar (Pearson: Longman). He is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards – The British Association of Applied Linguistics best book award (1986), the Duke of Edinburgh best book award (1995), the Modern Language Association of the United States best book award (1988) and the International Association for Task-based Language Teaching annual prize (2021). He has held university positions in six different countries and has also conducted numerous consultancies and seminars throughout the world.
Sponsored by 
Prof. Thomas S.C. Farrell
Professor
Applied Linguistics
Brock University
Canada
"Building Resilience Through Reflective Practice"
Gaining teaching experience is not enough to provide automatic professional development, for we do not learn from experience itself as much as we learn from reflecting on that experience. This is especially true in the time of COVID where language teachers are/were forced to move from face-to-face teaching to face-to-screen teaching, and now many have returned to mask-to-mask teaching that further complicates the teaching/learning process. Is it any wonder that some teachers may lose the motivation and excitement of teaching during all this upheaval. Thus, I suggest that engaging in reflective practice has become even more important for all teachers in these turbulent times. In this plenary I outline what reflective practice is and how teachers can engage in reflection throughout their careers so that they will be able to develop resourcefulness and resilience required to face any and all future challenges and changes in their lives.
Thomas S.C. Farrell is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Brock University, Canada. His professional interests include Reflective Practice, Language Teacher Education & Development. He has published widely in these areas. Some of his most recent work includes: TESOL Teacher Education: A Reflective Approach. 2021: Edinburgh University Press. Reflective Language Teaching. 2022: Cambridge University Press. Insights Into Professional Development in Language Teaching. 2022: London, UK. Doing Reflective Practice in English Language Teaching. 2022: Routledge. His webpage is: www.reflectiveinquiry.ca
Sponsored by 
Prof. Randi Reppen
Professor Emerita of Applied
Linguistics
Northern Arizona University
USA
"Future-Ready ELT: Using corpora and corpus resources for teaching and learning"
As teachers we want to provide our learners with the most effective and efficient language instruction. In my presentation, I will introduce corpus resources (i.e., using collections of natural language) as an approach for more effective teaching and learning. The use of corpus-informed or corpus-based materials for language instruction has increased over the last several decades, however, there remains much to be resolved before widespread use is practical. This presentation will explore three practical ways for using corpora and corpus information to inform language instruction. The three ways range from using existing corpus-based research and corpus-informed materials, to carrying out classroom-based research. The three parts of my presentation move from: 1. a focus on teachers and existing corpus research and materials; 2. a focus on teachers and learners using of online resources; 3. back to a focus on teachers, but with teachers as researchers of their students’ language. The three approaches can be used individually, or in combination depending on the instructional goals and student level. Each approach is described through detailed examples and practical classroom-based applications using teaching resources and freely available tools and websites.
Randi Reppen is Professor Emerita of Applied Linguistics and TESL at Northern Arizona University. She has a keen interest in using corpus research (analysis of databases of natural language) to inform language teaching and to develop better language teaching materials. Randi is the lead author of three Cambridge University Press corpus-informed, multi-level ELT textbook series, including the new Grammar and Beyond with Academic Writing (2020) and her recent publications have appeared in the Journal of English for Academic Purposes, International Journal of Learner Corpus Linguistics, Language Learning Journal and DELTA. Randi enjoys many outdoor activities, especially, biking, rock climbing, and Nordic skiing.
Sponsored by 
Mr. Jeremy Bowell
ELT Author
The United Kingdom
"Engage your brains! Developing and encouraging creativity in the English language classroom"
When it comes to giving a definition of creativity, I would be inclined to paraphrase Louis Armstrong’s answer to the question ‘What is jazz?’ If you have to ask, you’ll never know.
Certainly, creativity in the classroom can take many forms and come from many sources. While not all learners (or teachers!) can become an Agatha Christie, a Paul McCartney or a Leonardo Da Vinci, we can all engage with the creative process and become more creative as we learn.
In this talk, I’ll look at what we can do to foster a more creative learning environment in the classroom, some general principles for developing creativity, and how encouraging our students to engage their creative brains can be a great classroom motivator. Finally, we’ll try out some practical ideas and activities for the classroom that aim to get our students thinking and acting creatively.
Jeremy Bowell has been working in the English language teaching field for over 20 years. He has taught English in Poland, Germany, at International House in Brno, Czech Republic, and at the British Council in Bucharest, Romania. In 2004, he joined the ELT division of Oxford University Press (OUP). He spent nine years at the Press working as an editor on international secondary course books, as well as taking on a number of presenting and teacher training assignments across Europe. He left OUP in 2013 to pursue a career as an author, and since then he has written for a number of OUP courses including Solutions, English Plus, Synchronize, and Life Vision. He has also written graded readers, children’s and young adult fiction. He lives in a village outside Oxford and in his free time, enjoys cinema, gardening, running, paddle boarding and baking. But not always at the same time.
The upcoming 20th CamTESOL Conference will take place in February 2024 with the theme “Preparing Successful Learners: Bringing Real Language Into the ELT classroom”.
For more information, please stay connected to the CamTESOL website, Facebook page and app.
The CamTESOL Secretariat gratefully acknowledges the support of the following sponsors and exhibitors to the 19th Annual CamTESOL Conference:
For sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities at the 20th Annual CamTESOL Conference in 2024, please contact secretariat@camtesol.org or visit the 'Partnership Options' section of the CamTESOL website.