 IATEFLS’s 44th Annual International Conference (IATEFL - International Association of Teachers of English as Foreign Language)at the International Centre in Harrogate, New Yorkshire, UK from Wednesday 7th April to Sunday 11th April. Harrogate is the elegant Victorian Spa town with its characteristic architecture and immaculately maintained green spaces.
The Harrogate conference brought together ELT professionals from more than 150 countries to discuss, reflect on and develop their ideas. The conference programme offered many opportunities for professional contact and development. It involved a four day programme of over 300 talks, poster presentations, workshops, panel discussions and symposiums. It also gave delegates a chance to meet leading theorists and writers and exchange ideas with fellow professionals from all sectors of ELT.
There were four plenary speakers at the conference: Jan Blake “What Is a Storyteller?”, Kieran Egan “Students’ minds and Imaginations”, Ema Ushioda “Socialising students’ motivation and autonomy in the English language classroom”, Tessa Woodward “The Professional Life Cycles of Teachers”.
I presented at Grammaring Symposium on the topic “Using Games for Teaching Games”. There were four presenters at the Symposium: Sevim Inal “To What Extent are Turkish ELT Students Capable of Using”, Ken Peterson “Teaching Spoken Grammar”, Birsen Tutunis “To Be or Not to Be:Explicit or Implicit Grammar”. The convenor of the symposium was Birsen Tutunis from Aydin University, Stambul. The symposium was bery fruitful, as new ideas on teaching grammar have been discussed and different view points observed.
In the evenings there were special events organized for the participants, such as Language Playtime by David, Hillary and Ben Crystal, A World of Tales by David Heathfield, The IATEFL 3rd PechaKuchaEvening, he IATEFL International Quiz evening, etc.
I was interviewed by the IATEFL online and my interview was included in Live Sessions. During the interview I gave some information about our school.(www.iatefl.org- Harrogate 2010 online – interview with Gulshan Samadova) .
In conclusion I want to admit that IATEFL conferences help ELT professionals to share experience with their colleagues from different countries and are a good resource to update their knowledge. It’s crusial for our school teachers to update their professional knowledge and keep up to date, as we are one of the leading schools of Baku – XXI Century Educational Centre!
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