Reflections from TESOL 14

The Sprout English team is back from TESOL (TESOL 2014 International Convention and English Language Expo) feeling refreshed and inspired! It was Sprout’s first time at TESOL, and we had a great experience there. CEO Ben Buckwold, writer Tara Benwell, and editor Tanya Trusler met teachers and publishers from all over the world, attended sessions, and gave two presentations.

Sprout had a booth in the Exhibit Hall, and we exhibited alongside our sister site, ESL Library, who has been exhibiting for the past nine years. It was great talking to teachers and subscribers and getting their feedback. People liked our colorful, engaging lessons, and they especially liked the design of our newer lessons by our talented designer, Robyn Shesterniak. Teachers were also happy that our Library section had some digital, interactive tasks, but they requested more of those. We plan to add to our digital tasks in the future. Teachers also wanted to be able to choose lessons by level, not just by grammar target. We hope to add that feature soon. It was really invaluable for us to get direct feedback at the conference!

We really liked the host city, Portland, located in Oregon in the US. Even though it rained a lot, it was fun exploring this city! We tried many different restaurants, with Andina (Peruvian), Pok Pok (Thai), and Saucebox (Asian fusion) being the standouts. We got a chance to visit Powell’s Books, one of the biggest bookstores in the world! We wish we had had more time to shop. Next time!

On the last day of the conference, Tara interviewed me about Sprout’s TESOL experience. We’re getting better at not giggling so much during our videos!

Stay tuned for a summary on the session that I attended called “Digital Tools for ELs”. There were some great suggestions that could benefit teachers who want to try using tech in their classrooms!