I am just returning from my first IATEFL conference which this year was held at Harrogate. Why was this my first time even though I have been teaching English for over 10 years? I guess that I have been attending events which are geared to e-learning rather than teaching English. I get the impression that this is a conference which people attend on a regular basis so maybe this is the start of an annual ritual for me. The conference is certainly friendly and caters for many different interests including teachers looking for tips on how to teach specific items, teacher trainers, school managers, publishers, authors and elearning specialists.
I was able to meet a couple of my former online course participants, colleagues who are spread all over the world as well as TEFL celebrities. I was also able to catch up on the materials which are commonly used in the classroom through the commercial exhibitors. This was quite timely as I released the contents of the new week in the Certificate in ICT online course I am moderating for The Consultants-E which happened to be a critical look at what publishers have to offer.
Wandering through the exhibition I realised that the self-access centre which I helped to set up in 2000 would probably look very different today. Back in 2000 we were purchasing mostly stand alone programs such as Rosetta Stone and Issues in English. We did purchase the Reward CD-Roms which accompanied a series of books but that was the exception rather than the rule. If I were starting again today I think that I might be totally reliant on the print publishers’ electronic materials because these have now become so comprehensive
and varied where ten years ago they seemed to be like a grudging add-on to the main business of the book.
Finally having been steeped in the Dogme approach eschewing the slavish adherence to following a course book almost since its inception it was interesting to listen to the rationale behind the new MacMillan series Global whose main author is Lindsay Clandfield. Amongst other things it was great to hear that they have a policy of not referring to celebrities and that there is the opportunity to use many Englishes, not just American English or British English.
The main themes for this conference seemed to be learning technologies and cultural communication. Twitter was especially popular, so much so that I wasn’t able to get into a couple of sessions about it because it was full to capacity.
Since the conference also served as a sort of staff meeting I guess that it’s very likely that I may attend a few more in the series. A colleague has even suggested what the topic of my talk should be!