I did not see Livia looking stressed at any stage; sign of a good actor? Perhaps, but also a sign of good leadership and delegation. The student helpers were indeed that; very helpful, and there was always someone friendly and charming at the reception desk. The Canadian Conference Crier – as I dubbed him – is in the wrong profession. Give him an oscar or the equivalent for Conference Chairing. IATEFL could do with him at every conference.

In terms of trying to pick a nit….. well, only ONE glass of red wine at the reception!HINT HINT to Livia or should that be addressed to David Hill?

THose of you wondering what happened to all those photos that I took…. well they are with LIvia and some will be uploaded onto this website soon whatever soon means. THose who requested photos from me please be patient.

Andrew’s remark about the lack of numbers… Well, I have heard of chap from Nazareth who started with only 12 and the rest is history…
Spread the word.

Thank you to all (organisers and delegates) who made my first experience of Hungary IATEFL very pleasant. I hope to be able to attend again. Lindsay and I discussed the possibility of a PECHA KUCHA based on EFL and the Kama Sutra (hmmm) Watch this space. That should pull in a few more punters , Andrew.

Finally, on leaving the conference, I bumped into Gordon Lewis in the ‘watering-hole’ of his hotel where we did our best to enhance the profits of some brewery called Bitburger Pils. Thanks Gordon.

Best wishes from a cloudy London
Cheers

Rakesh

I’m not sure we actually met at the conference, but let me comment on your post, too.

I attended the conference as a student helper, and I also made a small presentation with Mark Andrews at one of the Friday evening sessions. This was the first ever teaching conference I’ve been to, and I had the time of my life!
When Mark first asked me whether I’d agree to make a short presentation at the conference, I was considering saying no, because I found the idea extremely scary… presenting in front of top methodologists… you know, with not even a degree in my pocket. Well, am I happy to have changed my mind!

The moment I arrived at the conference, I noticed the leisure atmosphere, and soon, after finding some familiar faces, started to calm down. Then the session in our room, the Library, started, and we were soon asked to do some group work, which I joined, and after just a few minutes made 3 acquaintances from 3 different countries (Lindsey, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the surprised expression on your face when Mark pointed at me saying it’ll be me continuing the session after the break:) ). Those few minutes of discussion opened me up, and helped me relax, and by the time I went out front to hold the presentation, I was facing many familiar faces among the audience, and felt totally at ease. I LOVED every moment of our session, and probably experienced some of the most thrilling moments of my life, standing out there, talking to and with the teachers in the room.
Saturday was no less fun, and the Pecha Kucha evening was an absolute blast! I don’t remember ever having laughed this much in such a short time! I was actually crying of laughter by the end.

I feel extremely lucky for being a student of Mark’s and having been given the opportunity to attend (and present at!) the conference. Were it not for Mark, I probably wouldn’t have heard of the conference or IATEFL. You know, even when you’re a student at ELTE, doing Methodology courses, it’s not something you necessarily come across…

And here’s my point: looking back now, I know how much I would have missed, had I not been given this opportunity! It meant a lot to me. Meeting a lot of teachers from all around the world and taking a glimpse at their ideas inspired me, and I found it reassuring and motivating to realize that there’s a well-organized, ambitious and enthusiastic organization supporting the English teachers of Hungary.

So please, don’t stop recruiting people and take this opportunity from them! Sure, there will always be uninterested ones, and I know how disheartening that can be, but I’m sure there are also many out there who would gladly take part, if only they knew about IATEFL and what it means. I would suggest making a PechaKucha on IATEFL, recording it, and sending it to any target group. I’m quite sure no one could resist that:)

Thanks to all the organizers, and I hope to meet many of you again soon!

would like to respond to this part of your post:

maybe it’s time to accept the fact that the vast majority of English teachers in Hungary is simply not interested in cooperation and building a community, so maybe we should rearrange our priorities and stop using the scarce resources to try and increase membership – there will be more left for catering to the needs of the existing members.

When we had our pre-conference planning meeting at Luppa Sziget I said I would recruit students helpers from the methodology groups I have taught over the last few years. In the end 19 people came and I will paste in bits of some of the feedback from one student below. We should never give up on co-operation and building community and IATEFL is an organisation with a history, infrastructure, hooked up internationally and with enormous standing within our profession worldwide. Thanks for the great post and taking the time to put it together. And to echo Herbert and Margit, there is and importance of creating an IATEFL that future teachers want to belong to.
Mark

For me this conference was the greatest experience for years in spite of the fact that I have participated in other conferences too (but those were organised by ELTE). I was responsible for room 327 where the topic was teacher training. I had thought that it would be the less interesting topic for me as I’m a secondary school teacher and I have nothing to do with teacher trainees. But I soon realised I had been wrong. The topic actually turned out to be very interesting. There was a woman from the Czech Rep. telling us that they have few trained teachers especiallly in the field of language teaching. Another woman came from Essex, who was talking about their programme about training non-native English teachers during 1 schoolyear. And there were two people from the Netherlands, who have a 7-year training for teachers, including the requirement of being able to evaluate themselves as teachers. It was all very interesting and it gave me a lot of ideas The greatest thing during the conference was when I saw the people in my room being inspired by each other. I felt sorry for not having the chance to participate in the chat but I still could feel the energy they gained from the others. They changed namecards (is that the word???) and I’m sure that they will keep in touch. Before the conference I had thought that you are an exceptional man who has a lot of friends from a lot of countries and I had been sure that this is because of your personality and that I am just not a person like this. I admired your ability for being so open. But now I think that I could do the same and today I’m not afraid of the idea of going to another country and teach there – actually I’m thinking about going to GB and teach English for immigrants just like Éva Illés did it. After all: why not? I have the qualification, I love teaching, I like England, I’m interested in other cultures and I’d like to have a try.
Otherwise, I liked the whole atmosphere. Everybody was cheerful and full of energy. They were open to everything and my ex-teachers from the university greeted me as we were old friends (actually, I met my secondary school teacher who still didn’t forgive me to become an English teacher – she thought I was a disaster in English – and she was the only one who was an exception). I think this is generated by you and your colleagues there and you have a really good effect on the participants as well. So I think that IATEFL is a very useful orgainsation and I think more teachers should have membership. If I were you, I would have several smaller conferences which are only for primary or secondary school teachers. In these events I would make it possible to join. In my school there are 9 English teachers (plus me) and I think 4 or 5 of them would join if they knew more about IATEFL.

Ági

I agree with you, the Conference was very well organised with very high quality workshops and talks. I think all four plenaries were excellent, and they complemented each other nicely.
It would be interesting to create some links among the four. For example, Herbert Puchta talked about the transformational power of the teacher, and the importance of creating a climate and culture that students want to belong to. It would be interesting to explore how this relates to on-line teaching. … And the iceberg metaphor that Tamás talked about. How do the values and beliefs at the bottom of the iceberg relate to teachers’ attitudes about using technology?

After the Sunday morning plenary on ‘Technology in search of Pedagogy’ ( I really love that title, by the way), I attended an excellent session on Emotional Intelligence. So I felt like my Sunday morning was nicely rounded, well balanced. After Gordon Lewis’s thought provoking, ideas-packed talk, I needed to activate a different part of my mind (soul? .. heart?)and give my attention to questions like …. how can we help our students be better at impulse control. … I find it useful to have questions about the use of technology run parallel on my mind to questions about something seemingly very different …

So many exciting things to think about thanks to the Conference!!!!

Margit