IATEFL 2012 - Thursday - Twitter Symposium

After 3 hectic days, I felt I needed a lie in.  So I took one at the expense of missing Steven L Thorne rattle off on Awareness, appropriacy and living language use at a cracking pace.  When I did surface I went into Glasgow city centre rather than the SECC.  I bought a new shirt as I was running out of clean ones.  My head was also a little sore after last night's drinking. I subsequently lost the shir, same day.

Still, I got the SECC around midday and wandered around, again bumping into and chatting with people I had previously met.  I made more of an effort around the exhibition stands, too.  My first session of the day was Tessa Woodward's Thinking in the EFL class in Forth, the other main room in the 'armadillo' (Clyde Auditorium).  Having recently contributed to a Loop Input Micro-Teaching session at Warwick, it was good to see and hear the author of such teacher training ideas, where you demonstrate activities to use with students by first training the teachers in the same method.  There, I finally bumped into Sandy Millin, from International House, somewhere in the vacinity of Newcastle - and not from Guildford after all.

Sandy Millin Tweets at 100 words per minute

She had been tweeting constantly since the start of the week, although she would claim she tweeted long before that.  I think only Shaun Wilden, of ELTchat fame, could give her a run for her money in the tweeting stakes.   It's a good way of taking notes, but the way that I've seen Twitter used this week in terms of developing and maintaining a PLN (professional learning network) has convinced me of it's worth.  I also want an iPad now after the seeing the way that can be used on the go... and especially when I've been unable to access to SECC wi-fi using my laptop.

Talking of Twitter and Shaun Wilden.... the 'Continuous professional development through social networking symposium' (to give it its full title) was a packed session including 6 talks, where people could come and go.    Marisa Constantinides, from CELT Athens, opened up with a run through of #ELTchat, lots of stats and an introduction to hashtags.  Shaun, also from International House, asked the question, in a 'Life of Brian' style, 'What has #hashtagging ever done for us?'.  I must admit that I didn't stay for the rest, I had got the gist and I found that I didn't have the patience, all week, to sit down for over an hour at a time.


I wanted  a break before I met up with Jim Scrivener again and with opening plenary speaker, Adrian Underhill to discuss their concept of 'demand high teaching'.  It is not a paarticularly revelating theory and would probably ruffle some feathers of many language teachers.  The idea that you just can't get away with being in the same room as the learners and expecting them to learn using the communicative language approach.  He explains this more in this interview on glasgow online.

In the evening I went to the Glasgow School of Art to meet two of my former students, Chen YeeYang (Leo) and Zheng Li (Jenny), from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.  It was two years since they graduated and I left the programme, at the end of my 10 month contract there.  We went for a Chinese meal, but not hotpot (that came the next day).  Fellow Warwick MA students, Li Jing (Lindsay) and Hornby Scholar, Getachew Yitbarek, joined us.

IATEFL 2012 - Tuesday - Reflective Practice Blues

Tuesday at the conference.  It has been really difficult to get online with my laptop.  I thought that the SECC (Scottish Exhibition Conference Centre) signal was just overloaded with requests, but then I realised that my laptop was having a problem.  Fortunately I managed to get online briefly at the Etap hotel, where I am staying, and the much more luxurious Crowne Plaza, adjoined to the SECC, where I was been able to log on for free for 30 minutes .

Tuesday was a semi-structured trip around the conference. I started by watching  opening speaker Adrian Underhill's brilliant session (CLICK HERE OR SCROLL DOWN FOR FULL PLENARY SESSION), on 'difficulties and mess', bookended by the two 'songs'.  'Difficulties' are problems which are essentially solvable while messes are more complex, ambiguous and uncertain (see slide on right). They are subsequently harder to resolve.  He interconnected three areas: systems thinking, post-historic leadership and learning at the organistion and individual level.  He noted at the beginning that the conference was going from 'Sting to Fish with us inbetween', so it was appropriate that he bookended his speech with two 'songs' - one was a poem by Portia Nelson - Autobiography in 5 short chapters and the other was the brilliant 'Reflective Practice Blues' (see below). This was an amusing and timely contribution to my current thinking considering my upcoming essay on that very topic.
 

I stayed in the Clyde Auditorium, a.k.a. The Armadillo, for the chronically undersupported Hornby Scholars presentation, faciltated by Martin Wedell (Leeds University).  It was a shame that the venue 's size made it seem like no-one was interested to hear the experiences of ELT work in very different contexts across the globe.  My fellow Warwick MA students, Mala Palani Palanichamy (India - see video below), Yohana Gratiana (Indonesia) and Getachew Melaku Yitbarek (Ethiopia) all spoke very eloquently and I recorded the whole presentation.  Scott Thornbury attended the session, however, and here is Scott being interviewed in the SECC, by Seth Dickens, in which he says the best thing he had seen to that point was the Hornby Scholar presentation:

 

Mala speaks!

Here is Mala Palani Palanichamy, the first of the Hornby Scholars to speak in the Clyde Auditorium.  In the presentation she makes reference to 'servant leadership', comparing this with something that Adrian Underhill talked about in his plenary session:

Getachew Speaks!

Getachew and Awgichew Arega Adebe, also from Ethiopia also presented. Click below for this video:

 
They were later interviewed by Andi White for the British Council Online Sessions. Link below:
Interview with Hornby scholars: Awgichew Arega and Getachew Melaku Yitbarek (Ethiopia) | Glasgow Online 

After leaving 'The Armadillo', I grabbed a coffee in the exhibition hall, now fully set up with publishers and employers.  I ventured into the Jobs Market stall to see what was on offer and made some notes about potential employers, such as Zayed University, with a view to return with my CV.   

I bumped into some familiar faces at NILE and, directly opposite, Bell International.  At the former a promotional video for a new building purchase in Upper St Giles, Norwich, was being shown.  I met up with Maria Heron and Carole Robinson, who was one of my Celta trainers.   At the latter, Sarah Blackburn was busy dishing out sweets as an incentive to sign up for young learner summer placement of closed courses in the winter.   I also met Chris Warren of online teaching resource company Teachitworld and brother of my Warwick tutor, Tilly Harrison.

Over in Lomond, I went to see Jim Scrivener, milking sympathy for an arm injury which didn't seem to affect his performance much.  He gave a very coherent argument for active intervention and 'demand-high teaching' - a concept he is working on with Adrian Underhill. Jim feels that teachers have misunderstood or lost their way with the humanistic message which he explains in the British Council Glasgow Online interview with Nik Peachey and Kirsteen Donaghy.  He went over some techniques, such as being a 'devil's advocate' in the class, a technique I, for one, already employ.  I agreed a lot with what he had to say and promised myself to get to his post-session chat in the Crowne Plaza hotel with Adrian Underhill about the topic - which I did on Thursday evening albeit for 20 minutes only.  As a very experienced writer and observer of the ELT classroom teacher, he has unquestionable knowledge.  I would later catch up with him in person for a follow-up and to declare an interest - he works with Bell - I have seen him at Bedgebury, Kent.  Nik Peachey also works for Bell on a freelance trainer basis. Nik was employed predominantly to be an interviewer on the fabulous British Council Glasgow Online website. 

Jim Scrivener on 'Demand High Teaching'

I was already riding high on the rush of meeting some famous names - authors whose books I read and been inspired  by in the last few years - and feeling very stimulated at this conference.  This feeling continued when I met another NILE employee, Jamie Keddie, of Lessonstream.org,  for the first time.  I ended up filming his session on the story of Debbie and Cara, using his video camera.  


I spent the evening at the Hunterian Museum, the oldest public museum in Scotland, courtesy of Collins publishing.  Although a full page advert at the back of the conference had advertised a 'shindig' it was more of a gathering.  Still, can't knock free wine or 14 year old boys playing with their pipes.  There I met up with Maria Heron and Carole Robinson from NILE, where I completed my Celta qualification three years ago this week.

with Maria Heron and Carole 'Anne' Robinson



  ADRIAN UNDERHILL'S PLENARY  SESSION IN FULL*
(*MINUS THE LAST SONG WHICH WAS CUT):