Conference Summary
The 5th International Conference on English Language Teaching (EST)
Beijing, China, May 21-16, 2007

Yingliang Liu
Ph.D. Candidate
Second Language Acquisition & Teaching GIDP

On May16-21, I had the pleasure of attending the 5th International conference on
ELT in Beijing, China. The experience is significant for me as it is the first time I have attended a conference in my home country as a Ph.D student in the University of Arizona. I received most of my education in China and have worked as a teacher of English in China for years before I came to the U.S. My current research interests deal with pedagogy in teaching English as a second language. At the conference, I enjoyed the opportunity to get to know the current research in English Language teaching in China and other countries. The topics of the presentations cover a variety of aspects such as second language acquisition theories, corpus-based research, classroom research, language testing, technology in language teaching, etc. Speeches from keynote speakers Merrill Swain, Rod Ellis, Robert Dekeyser, Douglas Biber were stimulating and inspiring. I was especially interested in Rod Ellis’ talk on “Corrective Feedback in Theory, Research and Practice”. Based on a review of research and arguments, it dispelled a number of myths about corrective feedback and pointed out its significance in language teaching.

More importantly, I presented my own research on corrective feedback in second
language writing. The title of my presentation is “the Effects of Error Feedback in
Second Language Writing”. It is a classroom research I conducted at the University of Arizona and it attracted a number of English teachers in Chinese universities as well as teachers from other countries. They raised critical questions on my work and provided constructive suggestions. Moreover, they helped me realize the difference of teaching writing in ESL (English as a second language) and in EFL (English as a foreign language) contexts. Some practice promoted by the ESL research may not be applicable in EFL contexts. More studies on teaching practice are needed in EFL contexts, especially in China. I will take all these into consideration in my future research agenda.

Attending conferences is important to a graduate student. It can help me broaden
my research framework and connect me to the research community. The 5th
International Conference on ELT in China provided me a great opportunity to involve in research community in China from which I had been away for years. I hereby appreciate the support from Herbert Carter E. travel award provided by GIDP to make this happen.