Conferences from the perspective of student helpers, reflections on Hungarian and Macedonian teacher conferences

Macedonian student helpers and pechka kucha presenters in Skopje at the ELTAM conference last weekend

Macedonian student helpers, Pechka Kucha presenters and Vladimir in Skopje at the ELTAM conference last weekend

Autumnal travels to Lake Balaton, Moldavia and Macedonia

October has been a month of participating in conferences for me. I have attended the Hungarian, Romanian and Macedonian teacher conferences and spending more than 70 hours on trains getting to these events seeing the Eastern European countryside flash by gives you plenty of time to digest and reflect on the experiences collected en route. Am always energised by the levels of commitment and involvement that people put into these events, long may it continue.

Discussing conference issues

I had never seen so many pumpkins either! Train time

Never had I seen so  many pumpkins from the window of a train!

Never had I seen so many pumpkins from the window of a train!

was spent with teachers who went to the conferences too and many hours were whiled away discussing the methodologies of conferences, the relationship of plenaries to workshops, the appropriacy of the venues, how much invited native speaker guests engage with the local ELT community, both socially and by going to their workshops, and how much time there is for discussion and reflection.  Some of these issues are being discussed at the moment on Melania Paduraru’s Romanian blog.  The rest of the time was devoted to sleeping, reading or just wondering at the autumnal colours outside the train compartment. I even managed to get a brief swim in at Lake Balaton, even colder than the Atlantic in August!

One area of conferences that has always occupied my mind is how to give support and encouragement to young teachers and part of  being at a conference for me is to spend time and make some space for this.

The focus of  this blogpost  is student helpers, who are often potential teachers,  and what they get out of going to a conference and what we can give to them.

Last year before our 19th IATEFL conference in Hungary I sent out this message to the methodology students who I had taught and who I thought might be interested in participating in our conference. The title of the email was “the best teachers’ conference in Hungary”

Encouraging potential future teachers to take part in IATEFL conferences

Hiya everybody,

Just spent the weekend preparing our IATEFL annual conference which is coming up the first weekend in October. We were on Lupa Sziget, a fabulous little island in the Danube just north of Budapest.  I’m sending you the provisional programme and a question about whether anybody would be interested in helping with it and having the opportunity to see some of the sessions. It’s the best methodology conference in Hungary and this year we’ve got some great people attending.

Normally you  have to pay 7,000 HUF (about 28 Euros)  as a student to attend the conference but if you helped out with the registration on the Friday between 1 and 5  you would be able to attend the whole of Saturday and Sunday free. If you have a look at the programme you would be able to attend one of our special interest groups after 5 and we’d also get you a pizza to keep the wolf from the door:)  Basically we need 5 people for that and if you get back to me we’ll put you down for that on a first come first served basis.

We also need 8 pairs to help out with each of the rooms on the Saturday. All this involves is being on the door, making sure that the presenters are OK and that that the room doesn’t get over full. If you went for that option you would be able to see all the sessions in that room and go to the two plenary sessions by Kiss Tamas and Herbert Puchta, the President of IATEFL and a guy who  has done some great work on teaching teenagers. You’d also be able to come to the cheese and wine party and come to the fun social night where I and a few other people will be doing very fast 6 minute 40 second sessions with 20 slides. It’s called a Pecha Kucha night. And of course you would be able to come to Sunday free if you wanted to. If you and a friend would like to do this then have a look at the programme and see which room you’d like to be responsible for and again we will allot you the rooms on a first come first served basis. And of course you could come on Sunday free if you wanted!

Basically it’s great to contribute to the best methodology conference in Hungary and it would be wonderful to see any of you there. Some of you will remember following Cardiff IATEFL on line, well this is an opportunity to experience the same kind of thing live. I’m the Culture and Literature Special Interest Group co-ordinator in IATEFL and ever since I arrived in Hungary in 1996 I’ve been to every single IATEFL conference there has been! Anyway, I think it’s a really good thing to attend. Each year we have student helpers and I told the committee at the weekend that I thought I might be able to help with this. It’s very easy work but good to feel part of a team and a kind of initiation into an important part of being a teacher, always being interested in updating your knowledge and skills.

Apart from anything else it’s a lot of fun and at the cheese and wine party on the Saturday night I’d introduce you to some of my friends and people who’ve been involved in this a lot.

So…………whatdyathink?

Hope you all had a great summer and  if you are free that weekend and think you’d like to help. I’d appreciate it a lot.

c u soon

ciao

Mark

Lindner Zsuzsa, our student helper co-ordinator in a student helper team meeting in Zánka at our IATEFL conference this year

Lindner Zsuzsa, our student helper co-ordinator in a student helper team meeting in Zánka at our IATEFL conference this year

We ended up with 18 helpers and I wrote to one of them this week  came to our conference both this year and last year and asked her to write about what it meant for her.

Hungarian student helper Lenner Noémi’s feedback

Student Helper Lenner Noémi

Student Helper Lenner Noémi

Actually both conferences were really enjoyable and useful for me- and of course fun at the same time. I met some really good (and famous) presenters and I think that as a potential future language teacher their presentations were extremely useful for me. I was really happy to meet Herbert Puchta and Rose Senior last year! Apart from them, I could mention a lot of ELTE teachers as well, and my personal favorites were Beatrice Pries and  Geoff Tranter. Some of them have already sent me the ppt of their presentations and I’ve already used those during my private lessons. For example, my students loved those activities that I took from Geoff’s ppt (his presentation was: using humour to support vocab learning). Apart from the presentations, I loved the ’informal’ parts of this events, eg. during meals and games I could know a lot of people, some of them are foreigners, others are hungarian high-school teachers and they talked a lot about their experiences, methods, which coursebook is good, why, etc.  I really think that being a student helper is a good opportunity, being at these conferences is fun and extremely useful for changing methods and ideas!

Hungarian student helper, Katona Daniel’s feedback

Another of our student helpers was Katona Daniel and this is what he had to say about our conference in an email to our student co-ordinator Lindner Zsuzsa.

It was indeed a pleasure for me to be there, to meet you and other fantastic and really enthusiastic teachers. I think

Student helper Katona Daniel

Student helper Katona Daniel

that’s the main point of conferences like this, to strengthen the belief that you are not alone, but a member of a community that fills you with energy, etc. Professional development as well, of course, but for me, the emotional part is more important. That’s why I will most probably join IATEFL-H.

I would particularly like to thank you for your kindness, and great work as a coordinator of the student helpers. You were really great in that role.

About the whole conference, I would like to make some remarks, but please keep in mind that it was my first conference in the field of TEFL.

1. Lectures / workshops (seminars): interactivity is so important for me that I think more workshops are needed. I think 1 room (like the theater hall this year) for brilliant lectures is enough, and in all the other rooms there should only be workshops.
2. The Pecha-kucha evening is great, it could be a standard program.
I think it would be great if you gave topics, titles, …let’s say 2-3 topics, and the presentations would be organized according to topics, 3 or more PK presentations one after each other, so the audience can compare them, like a competition.
Finally I would like express that it’s a great honour that you mentioned the opportunity to maybe possibly join you in helping and organizing IATEFL events  and that I would be really keen on doing this.

all the best,
Daniel

Post Conference encouragement

Lindner Zsuzsa, our student helper co-ordinator

Lindner Zsuzsa, our student helper co-ordinator

Lindner Zsuzsa then wrote to our student helpers after the conference and thanked them for their contributions and encouraged them to be involved in other ways in the future.

Dear Everyone,

Let me thank you all for your work at the 19th IATEFL-Hungary Conference. Without your help and hard work, this conference could not have been run effectively. Your kindness, helpfulness and patience made the organisers’ job a lot easier and made it possible to help the presenters as much as possible.  Thanks for taking care of the presenters and doing your job so well.

I was also really happy to see that all of you seemed to be having a good time and enjoying the conference. I know that there were some people who came to help for a day, but also came on the other two days, just to enjoy the conferece. Eva even won the main prize at the raffle :-)))

If you would like to keep in touch with us, find us on Facebook, or visit our website www.iatefl.hu, where you can find out more about the association.

If some of you would like to join IATEFL-Hungary, please go to http://iatefl.hu/content.php?id=0338 and become a member. Only 2500HUF/year for students and 4900HUF ‘normal’ members, which is still only the price of 3-4 cinema tickets :-))))

Also, if you feel like giving us feedback on the conference, or if you have any ideas for the future, we are really open and happy about hearing from you.

THANKS AGAIN,
All the best

Zsuzsa

Macedonian conference in Skopje

Macedonian ELTAM teachers' conference, the 10th one, usually held bi-annually but maybe every year now.

Macedonian ELTAM teachers' conference, the 10th one, usually held bi-annually but maybe every year now.

Voices from Macedonian student helpers

I was similarly interested in the reactions of the student helpers in Macedonia who, like ours in Hungary, had been asked to participate and help out by their teacher Aneta Naumoska, who also did a Pecha Kucha. They are students at the English faculty at the local state university in Skopje. I talked to them during the conference and on the last day asked them to send me their impressions. These are some of them:

Angjelko, one of the Macedonian student helpers

Angjelko, one of the Macedonian student helpers

In my opinion the whole conference was a big success, and I really liked the way the audience perceived the presentations. All of them were fun, dynamic, and full of interesting facts and helpful information about the different ways the material can be transmitted to the students and the implementation of new teaching methods and technologies. Having the feel of how teachers are able to make all that material, which can sometimes be boring and dull, in a way come to life, gets the students attention (as it did mine) and i believe it is the real reason why teachers do what they do. Also it is a big motivation which attracts future students, like me, to become teachers. A great addition to the conference was also “The pecha kucha” event. According to me, the presentations that were held there, are the future of power point presentations. Those will in a way shorten the time wasted in senseless talking and clicking, which sometimes seems endless. In the end I just like to add that the whole conference was a delightful experience, and it was an honor listening to your presentation. I hope I’m not too late with my feedback and this will prove helpful.

Angjelko

Hi! 🙂

I personally loved the conference. It was my first time at an event like that, so I wanted to see and hear everything and

Student helper Ana Boeva

Macedonian student helper Ana Boeva

meet everyone! Almost all of the presentations were interesting, the presenters-fun, silly ( in a good way ), fresh and all in all it came to be a great experience for little old me 🙂  I especially was keen on the ‘LONGMAN’ folders because of all the yellowness and the little blue ship…

I think the ‘Pecha Kucha’ dinner was an absolute success. Events like that should be organized every week and I promise to attend each and every one 🙂  Furthermore, everyone’s presentation was fun, the topics were very entertaining and sponteneous.

The second day went pretty fast. I attended a workshop and got a prize ( book: ‘Lorna Doone’ ). Words can’t explain my pride in that moment.  🙂

Finally, it was great and let’s does it again SOON!

‎*** AwEsOmE & BeNeFiCiaL WeeKenD *** 😀 😀 😀

I am a third-year undergraduate at the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Department of English Language and Literature. Recently, I became a member of ELTAM and decided to attend at its sixth conference.

Sofi  Macedonian student helper

Sofi Stumenikovska Macedonian student helper

First of all, I must say that it was a new experience for me and it was my pleasure to be a part of this conference. Just like the other students who participated in the conference, I was  kind of involved in the organisation by preparing folders with promotional materials and giving them to the conference participants. When it comes to the conference itself, I must admit that it was marvelous. Everything ranging from organisation, presentations and workshops to presenters was superb. What is really interesting, but at the same time a little bit weird, is the fact that the teachers played the role of a student. Furthermore, they were enthusiastic to learn new techniques in order to improve the classroom atmosphere.

The climax of the Conference was the popular Pecha Kucha Event which, as far as I know, was introduced in Macedonia for the very first time. The eight presenters tried both to entertain and share some interesting facts. It was ingenious. On the other hand, ‘ingenious’ is a small word to describe that event. The ELTAM organisation is one to applaud.

All in all, it was well worth  being a part of this Conference. If you really want to become a good English teacher (just like me!), it will certainly broaden your horizons. If you ever have the chance to attend such conference, be sure that you won’t miss it!

Ivana Srdikj

Ivana Srdikj, Macedonian student helper

It was my first time to attend ELTAM conference and a conference in general, so it was a big event for me.

Firstly, there was plenty to enjoy at the biannual ELTAM conference at the FON University in Skopje, Macedonia. Starting from the impeccable organization to the interesting presentations and useful, wise speeches in the plenary room, and finishing with the outstanding Pecha Kucha event and the thrilling presentations there, all in all it was a unique experience.

Secondly, it was a wonderful feeling to be among English-language-professionals who made me want to become  one of them. They gave us a great deal of their knowledge and experience; they blessed us sharing their enthusiasm and optimistic spirit with us; they gave fuel to our ambitious desire to become professionals in the field of English language.

Thirdly, the experienced professors/teachers who were doing their best during the years lecturing English and are open to new ideas as well as accepting new styles, methods and including technology in their teaching process, it all made a great impact on me. With their daring spirit for acknowledging more and more they influenced my desire to become better and better. They made me want to become a teacher and what’s more to become as good as they are.

Finally, it was a lifetime experience for me. Both the foreign experts and the professors/teachers from Macedonia had a lot to give and succeeded in passing on their experiences as well as new approaches and topics when talking about teaching English. Attending such a conference, according to me, was opening the door to the world of English language teaching. ELTAM and its participants left me waiting restlessly for another conference to come soon.

Hi Mark,
I just finished reading your e-mail so here goes:

When my lector Aneta approached me and told me of this conference I was hesitant at first, since I signed up for the

Nikola Jamkimovsky

Nikola Jamkimovsky Macedonian student helper

English studies in order to be an interpreter. Although unsure what to do at the beginning, I signed up and never regretted a second for participating. I met wonderful people, teachers, teacher trainers and presenters from all over the world. I attended amusing and informative presentations and although I am just a student, I found the information very useful and the techniques innovative. The presentations at the pecha kucha event were astounding and I’m very glad we students got to socialize and mingle with the rest of the people. The whole experience was unforgettable and it made me think twice about my career choice. I encourage every student to attend an ELT conference such as this one, you get to meet great people you learn a lot and you get free stuff 🙂

Cheers from Macedonia!

Last thoughts on initiating young people into our profession

Reading these comments makes me think how important it is to put more effort into initiating young people into our teaching community and how important conferences might be in doing this.  I would very much like to introduce a young teachers’ Special Interest Group into our IATEFL set-up here in Hungary. We have done this at different moments in our history, I was involved a bit in 2001/2,  but there is scope for more work on this now.

I think too that approaching conferences from the perspective of what we can give to the community which invites us to a conference is also important.  Different people are at different stages in their English teaching career when they attend conferences and seeing the conference not just in terms of what new things can I get out of it , and evaluating its usefulness on that basis, seeing it through the eyes of young people, young teachers and potential young teachers can add a whole new dimension to the conference experience.

This is the message that I wrote to the Macedonian students after talking to them on the last day of the conference. Thanks ever so much for your feedback. I wish you every success in your studies and if you choose to be a teacher, it is a fabulous profession to be a part of and one which can give you enormous satisfaction and fulfilment for the whole of your life.

Hiya Ana, Angjelko, Goran, Ivana, Katerina, Lea, Marija, Nenad, Nikola (G), Nikola (J), Sofija, Tihomir and Vesna,

Back in Budapest again after all the fun and excitement of the conference. Was good to meet you there and thanks for all the support and help. As I said at the end of the conference, I’m going to write an article about the event from the perspective of university students. I’d really like to include your thoughts about the whole thing and what it made you feel about teachers and a teaching community.  Anything about anything would be good.  And send me a nice pic of yourself too. Somebody took pictures of me with you at the end of the Pecha Kucha so that would be good to include in the article too. This is where I will write the article, just so that you know. https://markandrews.edublogs.org/

I will then put it on twitter and with a bit of luck a few people will retweet it and it will go out to a much wider audience. I always enjoy going to ELT conferences and this one was no exception. I liked Aneta and Biljana’s session on texting language very much and I know some of you were in that session too.

Guess that’s all for now. It’d be good to write the article ASAP so the sooner you send stuff the better! By Friday night I’ll have it written and then you can check it out on the blog!

Good luck with your studies and if any of you do decide to become teachers I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. And thanks again for all your work at the conference, it often goes unappreciated but it’s very important for the smooth running of things.

Ciao

Mark.

See you again and thanks!

See you again and thanks! Love the flag, by the way!


7 thoughts on “Conferences from the perspective of student helpers, reflections on Hungarian and Macedonian teacher conferences

  1. Great testimonies on the impact of conferences on student helpers! As participants in these events, we usually notice the students there, but somehow, most of us don’t give much attention to them, unless we’ve got something to ask for or complain about…

    How easily we forget the times when we were students, aspiring to become teachers and in search for models we could follow. I guess we’re a bit jealous of these students who, nowadays, have opportunities we didn’t even dream of and, since we didn’t benefit from such events and didn’t feel the thrill of meeting a coursebook or methodology author in the flesh, we don’t seem to realise the impact of conferences on these future-to-be-teachers. Some of them will follow us in the profession simply because someone, sometime, at a conference, inspired them to do so.

    I wish I had had this chance in my university years…

    Thanks for the post, Mark!

  2. Hi Mark

    Thanks for this lovely conference recap, from a very interesting perspective which often gets overlooked: the conference helpers. I was at this conference and was really happy the way the helpers and students there blended in with the rest of the speakers and participants. I think it was helped because 1) they had great teachers who were also present and 2) it was a nice small conference and not too intimidating. That being said, it isn’t to take away from their merit in joining in!

    I also agree with Melania that through things like this someone, sometime, at a conference, will inspire them to go into ELT. And that’s a great thing, I think.

  3. Hi Mark

    Thanks for bringing this rarely talked about topic to people’s attention. As someone who attends quite a few international conferences per year, I know it is very easy to take these student helpers for granted. It’s great for you to allow them to have their voice here.

    As you know, I didn’t atttend the Hungarian or Macedonian conferences but I did go to the RATE conference in Iasi, Romania. Compared to other conferences I’ve been to, I was conscious there of quite a big gap between me and those attending. I guess, this is one of the problem of giving plenary sessions in auditoriums where it is very difficult to establish any kind of meaningful interaction with your audience (well, at least I find it difficult to do that in a plenary).

    You’re absolutely right to point out that this gap is only made larger by inviting only native speakers to give plenaries, creating a bigger divide between the so-called experts and the rest. I wonder how much this is to do with the publishers pressurizing for a plenary slot and the conference organizers’ own desire to keep these plenaries as native-speaker only zones.

    Great photos of pumpkins (taken in Hungary I take it?) and jealous of your swim in Lake Balaton – however freezing. Forgot to tell you that I also enjoy jumping into water at any time of the year!

  4. Hi Mark,
    It is just wonderful reading all these opinions of young people! They all remind me of the time when I was a young teacher and started attending conferences. The enthusiasm there inspired me to remain a teacher.
    Wishing all of them energy not only to remain teachers but to be happy about it,
    Stefka

  5. MArk,
    great idea to deal with student helpers’ thoughts.
    I agree that student helpers are of great help at conferences, because the organisers cannot possibly be there in all rooms to see if everything is OK at all times. Luckily, student helpers enjoy doing the tasks allocated to them and also have the chance to attend some sessions, too. I think MArk’s idea at last year’s IATEFL Hungary conference was great: we asked all helpers to help us one day and take part in the other 2 days free of charge. Many of them stayed for all 3 days and helped us all through the conference. Amazing!

    BTW I started my IATEFL Hungary “career” as a student helper in 1997 at the conference in Budapest. :-))) Then for the following 10 years I wasn’t involved in anything really. And since 2007….you know the story:-)))

    So who knows, some of the student helpers of today may become conference organisers in 5-10 years!
    🙂 ZSuzsa

  6. Hi everybody!
    I was a volunteer at the ELTA conference in Belgrade, May 2010. It was a benefitting experience on various levels. First of all, I had a priviledge to attend an event of such a quality for free! That’s enough of a reason to apply for volunteering. But that’s just the beginning of it all! You get a chance to be a part of something that is immensely important for your future profession. You are allowed to listen to the lectures the presenter’s are giving if you organize well with your fellow volunteers which is not challanging at all. The lectures are held by professionals from all over the world and they are invariably inventive, entertaining and willing to share it with others. And like it wasn’t enough, to cap it all, i was the lucky winner of the SOL’s prize for volunteers- two weeks in Devon on a course of my choice. I chose The Reflective Teacher and spent the most amazing two weeks in good old England, with wonderful teacher trainers, who enriched my knowledge immensely and broadened my views on teaching in general. I also met around 20 teachers from around the world and learned a lot from them too, plus made some good friends! I still can’t quite believe how much I got out of it all just because i was there to help at the conference. I would recommend it to all students of English, as well as I recommend the SOL courses to my teacher colleagues.
    Big hugs from Belgrade!
    M.

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