Since I can’t attend the full conference this year, I’ve been taking advantage of the live channel on the IATEFL YouTube website. This was the coverage from 17th April, day 2 of the conference. Today I enjoyed the insight into poster presentations that was about an hour into the live feed.
Here are some points that stood out to me from the coverage:
- Julie Moore talked about dictionary research done as part of the Hornby Trust ASHDRA Dictionary Research Awards. It sounds like there are some fascinating projects conducted with funding from the Hornby Trust, including brand new dictionaries being made from scratch, investigating dictionary usage, and more.
- Matt Ellman and Rachel Jeffries mentioned how much the IATEFL conference is about being able to take time and take a step back and reflect on what we’re doing. (I agree!) Matt also mentioned the Cambridge sustainability framework and the activity cards which you might find useful in your classroom.
- Two Hornby scholars (I missed their names unfortunately) reminded us of the importance of context, and how the issues that are important are so context dependent. They also reminded us about the privileges we each have and how important it is to remind ourselves about them.
- Carol Lethaby reminds us that we need to make sure we’re treating female and male students equally in our classrooms. We might think we are, but when we record ourselves we might realise that we’re being unbalanced in our treatment. There is also increasing misogyny and harassment in schools – it’s on the rise again. We need to call it out when we see it.
- Shaun Wilden is stepping down as Digital Chair and as an IATEFL trustee (we’ll miss you Shaun!) He talked about how much of the work of IATEFL is founded on volunteering, as well as how much he’s got out of being a volunteer, both professionally and in terms of his learning (I have too and I would definitely recommend it – if you’re interested and you’re a member of IATEFL, here are the current calls for volunteers) ‘IATEFL is made up of ordinary people. It doesn’t matter how famous you are, you’re still an ordinary person. You’ve got a skill you can bring to IATEFL and to SIGs.’ [I agree!]
- It was really interesting to hear the story of Laurent Ahishakiyet’s journey from an English literature degree to being a professional English language teacher, one who’s currently doing a PhD. He’s a Hornby Scholar. He also talked about the shift from invited experts presenting to teachers in his country to teachers speaking to and supporting each other, and how much they enjoyed this shift.
There was another hour or so of the livestream after this, but I had other commitments which meant I couldn’t watch it. I’m sure there was interesting stuff there though!
Sandy Millin 