By Bochra Kouraichi and Veronika Derecskey
Universities of Szeged and Nottingham
Bochra:
This blog builds on the first blog written by Kathryn Sidaway after attending the IATEFL conference last spring. If you haven’t read it yet, scroll down and check it out.
The IATEFL Hungary 32nd annual conference had the theme of new perspectives so I had to look at my research from a teacher’s perspective and think of how it could be interesting to my target audience. This is the first time I had spoken at a teachers’ conference being a teacher myself. The main difference is that there’s a high chance of having more teachers than researchers attending. There’s also a very low chance that someone will ask you why you chose to do exploratory instead of confirmatory factor analysis. That being the case, I was thinking of ways I could make my presentation more teacher oriented. I included (for the first time) a question to ask about attendants’ opinion and I was a bit nervous how it would go. I must admit the results shown on the screen were very insightful and they helped me have a great discussion with participants. The Q&A after my presentation was also rewarding and I was lucky to have an audience of enthusiastic teachers who were eager to learn and willing to share their experience.
The ultimate goal of research into the area of applied linguistics or education is to provide practitioners with ideas, suggestions, or frameworks that they could apply in their classes. This is an opportunity to be in direct contact with teachers when they are less overwhelmed with all their duties, and they are there to learn from you and share their perspective. It is also a great chance to consider the pedagogical implications of your research and discuss its applicability in the language classroom.
I attended many talks, but I will only mention a few to highlight the variety of scope. There were presentations that were research-based; presenters shared findings from a recent or ongoing study. Talks were given by prominent researchers in the areas of language learning and teaching, PhD students, language teachers, language coaches, the admission officer at NYU Abu Dhabi, and a diplomat from Australia. A presentation was given on the use of theatre in EFL classes and how it developed into organizing a theater festival for Hungarian high school students. The speaker did a catchy introduction to his talk as he started with a short play and asked participants to help solve a riddle. The aim was to show how learning a foreign language could provoke anxiety among some learners while others may confront it with confidence and be on stage using (or not) a foreign language.
Keynote talks were very engaging and inspirational. The most interesting to me was delivered in a very motivating and energetic way that sounded rather like a Ted talk. Teachers do need that energy that would drive them to give more and appreciate the skills they have to make a (huge) difference into their students’ lives.
While visiting the publishers’ exhibition I bumped into a speaker I met at an ELT conference back home – Tunisia – few years ago. Many local participants are teachers at secondary or tertiary levels, tutors, researchers, PhD students, MA graduates. I met participants not just from Hungary but also from Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, the UK, the US, and New Zealand. Whether you’re a language teacher or a researcher in language teaching and learning, I would recommend joining a teachers’ association at a local or international level. “Finding your tribe”, as one of the plenary speakers suggested, is a great source of support at any stage of your career path.
There was a short break after each presentation to allow attendants to switch rooms, presenters to get their computers ready, and participants to have a break. During longer breaks, one could enjoy a walk by the lake -Balaton- that is also called “the Hungarian sea”.
I was awarded a scholarship by IATEFL-Hungary and a grant for higher education participants from the U.S. embassy; there were many other awards for first time speakers or attendants, teachers at high school or tertiary levels, etc. Grant winners were not just from Hungary but also from other countries. I also won a gadget in the raffle during the closing ceremony; and prizes also included vouchers for hotel stays and free participation in future events.
Veronika:
Although I was born in Hungary, I obtained my master's degree in England, and because of this I mainly participated in programs and conferences organised in the United Kingdom. Last year, unfortunately, due to the pandemic, I couldn't travel to Hungary to attend the conference (I attended online though), so this year's IATEFL Hungary conference was a special opportunity for me to present my research topic in person in Hungary. It is important to emphasise that my research work also involves teachers living in Hungary. Therefore, I was asked really interesting questions by teachers from Hungary, which also provide extraordinary help for my current research investigating EFL teacher burnout and disengagement.
During the three-day conference, I also listened to many interesting presentations, including, for example, Kata Csizér, presenting about her research work on autonomy, motivation and emotions in the secondary school classroom; Judit Kormos, showing some insights into inclusive language teaching and Rachel Appleby, teaching us how to give even more effective instructions while teaching. In addition to the lectures, however, I had the opportunity to participate in several workshops, all of which provided me with practical knowledge, including Beatrix Price's practical talk on warmers and coolers. Among Sunday's optional programs, Mary Sousa's extremely friendly workshop was the highlight of the day, where, among other things, the differences between American and Hungarian education and literature were revealed, while we also learned a little about what it is like to come to Hungary as an American citizen, teach and settle down.
One of the biggest advantages of multi-day conferences is that you not only gain knowledge, but also make many new acquaintances, for which this conference also provided plenty of opportunities. We had the chance to conduct professional and friendly discussions not only during the breaks of the lectures, during coffee breaks and while walking around the exhibition of textbook publishers, but also in the framework of quite a few socializing programs. The hotel's pleasant wellness department, for example, brought the participants together with a more informal atmosphere, not to mention the next evening's pre-Halloween party…
As an English teacher, the exhibition of textbooks also proved to be useful. For example, in a conversation with a delegate of Express Publishing, it was revealed that her mother was also engaged in similar research work to my study (teacher burnout). In a nutshell, not only the theoretical but also the practical moments made this conference so enjoyable, it helped me break away from the often very exhausting work of research and data collection and gave me energy to continue. In other words, this conference was not only a fantastic program, but also confidence-boosting training!
For more information on the conference program, visit the website: https://iatefl.hu
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