Dear All

It seems that the conference season’s just starting again! TESOL was just a couple of weeks ago, IATEFL in a few more days, calls for papers out on Twitter, Facebook and landing in our email in-tray -  and we’ve got that nice feeling again… it’s good to be in our vibrant ELT profession.

In this post I’d like to share an idea from a TA in Brazil about getting  people involved in the planning of a conference and to celebrate the anniversary of an online discussion list in Peru.

Project Multipliers

Carnival is an essential part of Brazilian culture. It puts our nation into a happy, carefree mood at the beginning of every year. There are different types of carnival in Brazil, but the one you’ll be probably familiar with is in Rio de Janeiro, the one in which the schools of samba parade. Preparing for the carnival parade is a year-long process for the schools of samba, and involves thousands of people and lots of careful planning and organisation.

In many ways, our TA conferences require similar planning and careful thought as to how to involve people from starting planning to the post-parade arrangements, so that ownership builds up and the invisible bonds between people – which are ultimately what keeps them in the association – are strengthened and the association remains healthy.

How do we get people involved in the planning of a conference?

The 9th Southern Cone TESOL convention in July this year has come up with a nice idea – Project Multipliers – to get more people involved with the association.

Project Multipliers as a concept aims at grass-roots advertising and recruiting for the upcoming 9th Southern Cone Tesol Convention by recruiting volunteers – Multipliers – to help spread the word.

> What does a multiplier do?

The multiplier promotes the conference consistently over a period of time by:

  - giving short talks to university students
  - placing posters in the teachers’ room in schools
  - reaching out to people on Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, email, etc.
  - face to face conversations with teachers of English
  - any other suggestions agreed with the committee

> What are the benefits for the multiplier?

The multiplier receives a certificate, which states the activities carried out and the equivalent number of hours. However, the biggest benefit is being part of the marketing committee of an international event, working with colleagues and relevant key people in the profession. It’s an excellent opportunity to develop conference organisation and networking skills.

You can find out more about Project Multipliers on the BRAZ-TESOL Curitiba website. Some of the materials are in Portuguese but you can copy and paste it onto Google Translate for a quick read.

If you live in South America and are attending the 9th Southern Cone TESOL conference from 18-20 July 2011, please help spread the word!

If you’re not in SA, would you be able to use this idea in your context? What other ideas to get people involved in the planning of your events have you tried? Please share these with us.

ELTeCS Peru

If you’ve been in the profession for the past ten years or so you’re probably an ELTeCS member or must have heard of it. In short, it’s an online newsletter on all things ELT: news, TA updates, online resources, competitions, scholarships, enquires and advice from members, etc set up the by the British Council in the late 90s. There are currently six regional e-mail lists. ELTeCS membership is free – and you can join it now! 

However, in fact there is another list! Peru has its own ELTeCS list and it’s just celebrated its 10th anniversary. Cesar Klauer shares the details…

We started with that small group of about 20 and now we are exactly 1044, according to the statistics on YahooGroups. How have we grown? The only way we could: by word of mouth. Every event I attended, gave a talk at, every teacher I met, I collected emails. … Little by little the numbers grew. More…

Congratulations to Cesar and ELTeCS Peru!

Newsflash!

A new IATEFL/British Council Teacher Association handbook is due for launch at the Associated Day at the upcoming Brighton conference. More on this in mid April. Check this space!

And last but not least – you’re welcome to join IATEFL Brighton!

That’s all folks - thanks for reading!

ana