iatefl - Liverpool 2019

The 53 International IATEFL Conference 

 IATEFL conference is one of the main events in the English language teaching worldwide. Attending it once is enough to make this event an addiction.. This year it was attended by around 3000 professionals in the English language teaching and included about 500 talks, workshops and forums.  

Conference Venue - ACC

I had the opportunity to present this year in one of the conference's special interest groups: Leadership and Management SIG. My presentation, titled "Transforming a School into a Learning Community through Distributing Leadership" was placed in the SIG's showcased papers. 

Abstract

This presentation outlines the journey taken by an educational consultant in a school to distribute leadership among teachers so that each has a leadership role. This model can inspire similar professional development plans that can be tailored to the needs of different schools where everyone is empowered and the school culture is transformed into a culture of co-learning.

Summary:

This presentation shows how one small private school implemented a professional development program that involved its teachers in school leadership tasks, each based on his/her strengths, skills, certification and/or desire. This has been going on for the third consecutive academic year.

Implementation started with meetings with the administration and the subject coordinators to make an inventory of the professional needs of the teachers. This was coupled with eliciting teachers’ opinions on what they believed they needed assistance with through a Google Form questionnaire. Then the school launched a professional development center to cater for the logistics of training and professional development events. Themes to be worked on were

decided on and teachers from the school and experts from outside the school were contacted to carry out facilitation sessions for the different themes.

Themes included: basic theories and concepts in teaching, technology literacy, interactive technology, methods of teaching, classroom management, engaging activities, lesson planning, school publications, … For each theme, the teachers were grouped and each group had a coach. Groups met periodically to review the new concepts they learned and to discuss the challenges and merits of

their newly acquired skills. They also reflected on their practices and how they changed.

Tools used to ensure the sustainability of the new learnings: meetings, facilitating training

sessions, classroom observations, peer visits, checklists, reflection, on-going assessment, mentoring …

Finally, the presentation will show sample of outcome of the professional development program

as shown by observations, reflections and testimonies of teachers and coaches.

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It was a great opportunity to meet with writers, theorists, exhibitors and professionals in ELT.

With author of books on methodology and coursebooks, Lindsay Clandfield

With Scott Thornbury, an internationally recognized linguist, academic and author

With the internationally recognized linguist, author and academic David Crystal

Although attending the conference is enriching and allows for keeping up-to-date on what's new in ELT worldwide, it is great friends who make this event special and enjoyable.  

Great friends who also presented important papers: Rasha (learner autonomy) and Maysaa (integrating technology into writing)