IATEFL 2011 - a report from our Cactus to Conference scholarship winner
Tuesday, 21st June 2011
Winner of the 2011 Cactus to Conference IATEFL Scholarship, Camila Heath, reports back on her experience at the event.
I applied for the Cactus IATEFL scholarship for two reasons: I am a newly-qualified teacher looking to develop the skills I already have and to prevent myself becoming an island in a big teaching world.
In the introductory speech, IATEFL president Herbert Puchta proclaimed that “this is going to be a fantastic conference!” His words were heart-warming – he not only seemed to be talking about the programme but also about the amount and range of people who had come to the IATEFL conference. I looked around me – in front of me I could hear Dutch, French and Italian being spoken, to my right Japanese and to my left: Russian. These were all teachers of English! This was my second day at IATEFL as I had already attended a SIG (Special Interest Group) event the day before and it was just beginning to dawn on me how much there was to do and to see: the choice is overwhelming particularly if you are a first-time conference visitor.
I met up with colleagues later to discuss our choices of sessions and workshops. A useful lesson is to ‘keep it relevant’ I found out. I made decisions about what I wanted to do and see that I felt would be useful to my development now or in the next year.But relevant to what exactly? My own school – a Dutch Montessori secondary school with a creative profile – is there another school like it in the whole world?), my professional development, the development of young people generally? I needn’t have worried – I was in the right place and easily filled the four day conference with plenaries, discussions, talks and workshops not to mention conversations with other teachers and student teachers that I met at IATEFL.
The Conference I planned for myself spanned, amongst other things; Child and teenage development (Sue Palmer), learning to learn (Bonnie Tsai) and Hyperlink Heroin (Jim Scrivener). I learnt how to present, how to analyse and talk about literature, how to teach thinking, how to approach my Master’s course, how to use Moodle for a range of different practices and to use and embed sound files.
The mood of the Conference was a positive, creative and happy one. Everyone who was there, wanted to be there – it was no small under-taking for some who had travelled a very long way. This became evident at the Scholar’s Tea on Saturday when we had the chance to meet other prize-winners and their sponsors. More than twenty countries were represented: it was a proud and happy moment and I was glad that Cactus had given me the opportunity to be a part of it.
Find out more on the Cactus to Conference IATEFL Scholarship
Tags: iatefl, england, brighton, course, cactus, italian, tefl, learning, english
Posted by Laura Lippert 2011-06 under Attitudes to Language Learning,
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