The first in the series of planned posts on this rejuvenated blog is an overview of the last couple of months in ELT from my perspective, what’s being going on (and therefore, what’s been keeping me from posting!).
Bilbao
It feels like ‘Bridging the North’ has been a staple of the Spanish ELT event calendar for years, but this was only the second time that this joint TESOL Spain-British Council training day has taken place. For the second year running, I thought I’d have travelled the furthest (Madrid), but was put into more than third place as this event attracts speakers and attendees from beyond the northern comunidades and even beyond the Spanish borders. There were a variety of talks and a wonderful warm atmosphere welcoming all.
ELINET
Sadly, I was in the online portion of this event rather than at the University of Bragança, at the beach in Brazil! This was the second opportunity I’ve had to present my findings from the interviews I did last summer with gay male teachers about their career histories and work experiences. It is such a privilege to have heard these men’s stories and to have been trusted with their memories and I’m delighted that little-by-little, I’m able to share them with a wider audience.
TESOL France
I was honoured to be asked to participate in a panel at this year’s TESOL France Colloquium in Paris. I had submitted a talk about motivation and the organisers decided that three proposals on similar topics belonged together and suggested trying out a panel format at the event this year. I joined Gabriella Kovacs and Tremonisha Putros, chaired by Vicki Plant to talk about ‘Conventional and Innovative Approaches Supporting Teacher and Learner Wellbeing’. Teacher and student wellbeing is something that is tremendously important and it was an amazing experience to share my thoughts and hear from these other knowledgeable speakers.
It was my first time attending TESOL France and, overall, it was a lovely and productive weekend (plus, we had the chance to slip away and see some of Paris and pay a visit to the legendary Shakespeare & Company). I heard a great talk on bilingualism given by Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert and a thought-provoking one given by Thom Jones (with whom I also had my first Welsh language conversation at an English Language Teaching event!). I also learned a lot about Reverso that I didn’t know (including its educator discount, which is worth looking into) at the exhibitor stands and enjoyed seeing the poster presentations.
Madrid Regional Event
This is another event which only started a couple of years ago, but seems to be part of the annual calendar now. Lauren Hamilton Saenz put together a wonderful evening event and, although I was very full of cold, I was delighted to share some thoughts about teaching listening (look out for an upcoming blog post on this topic early next year) and hear Hamish Binns talk about teaching pronunciation and Marina Tornero talk about bilingualism.
ACEIA 2024
It’s always such a treat to arrive at Santa Justa on the early train from Atocha and stroll through the morning light to the ACEIA venue: Madrid at 6am in November is a dark, chilly place; Sevilla at 9.30am in November is a bright, warm place! This year’s plenary was given by Mike Mayor from Pearson which gave us plenty of food for thought on technology and AI in language education, but also about the future of the market. It was great to hear from Claire Potter and Elspeth Pollock who both shared enough ideas to fill multiple notebook pages. My own talk was received well and I was given the most gratifying feedback from two attendees as they left: one calling the talk ‘liberating’ and the other ‘affirming’.
Meanwhile…
And in the background, I’ve continued working on the first paper coming out of the first round of interviews in the Queer in ELT project, making space for some voices of queer ELT practitioners. In that round of interviews, all the participants identified as gay men, and that’s the data which was reported at ELTRIA in Barcelona (May, 2024) and that will feature in the short paper submitted for the conference book (forthcoming) and at ELINET (October, 2024) and the longer paper for their conference book (forthcoming). I’ve begun hearing from teachers who identify within the LGBTQ+ community, but who are not cisgendered gay men, and I’m keen to hear from anyone else who would like to receive further information and consider giving an anonymous interview. Hit the contact button above and fill out the form so that I can get in touch with you.
My recent review for TESOL Spain of DELTA’s Build up to IELTS (Riccardo Chiappini) was published in late November and I’m about to to start work on a review of Activities for Social-Emotional Learning (also from DELTA). Review writing is a great way to get started in getting published and for anyone reading who might be interested, I’d recommend getting in touch with Elisabeth Bekes via MenTRnet as she might be able to offer some good first steps. For those who are active doing classroom research, we’re putting the finishing touches to the next IATEFL ReSIG’s ELT Research due out in early 2025 and so I’m already starting to look for contributions for the following edition, for early 2026.
My next blog post will arrive early in the new year and will be my thoughts on using mini whiteboards to maximise participation. In the meantime, I wish you a successful end to 2024 and a positive start in 2025.
Chris Richards ELT 