My first UK trip
“Journey
is a book. If you won’t travel, you read only one page of life.”
It’s
really true. We travel a lot in our country, state, district or countryside
area. We meet new people, new traditions, taste new food, see lot of things. We
get new ideas. We can even come across the variety of languages, birds, plants,
trees, food, nature, clothes and weather. We come to know about how people
talk, greet and express their opinions. I had the same curiosity about foreign
land. I had a chance to visit UK for the purpose of attending conference. I wanted to know how people of England talk,
what they wear, how they behave with their guests, how they respect us, what they eat, what kind of traffic and travel system they possess.
How effectively they manage their system . I also wanted to know about the
international conference-IATEFL. Means how these people organize such huge
conferences annually. How they manage and run such conferences. I wanted to
learn new pedagogical concepts, wanted to meet new people across the world, talk with
them, exchange new ideas, share our ideas. I also wanted to visit new places to
know their cultural events and places. It was my goal to travel abroad with and
without support. I could succeed to fulfill my ambitions by visiting London and
Brighton, two best and beautiful cities of United Kingdom during 7th
April to 17th April 2018.
I was
privileged to attend 52nd IATEFL conference which was held in
Brighton (UK). It was my long cherished dream to attend IATEFL conference. And
when I was selected and sponsored by British Council, my dream was fulfilled.
In Marathi there is one famous quotation:
“केल्याने देशाटन
पंडित मैत्री
सà¤ेत संचार
मनुजा चातुर्य
येतसे फार...”
(
If you travel, make friendship with
scholars, attend conferences, your mind becomes sharp )
The United Kingdom is , made up of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland
and Wales. The total area of the Uk is 243,610 Km2 while the area of
Maharashtra is 307,713 Km2 The population of the UK is 6.56 crores
(2016), while the population of Maharashtra is 11.42 crores (2012). The biggest
country is England. The people of England are called English and their language
is called English. Most of the people speak English in UK. English is also
global language which is widely spoken in the world by native and non-native
speakers. So it is called lingua-franca.
Native speaker of English means whose mother tongue is English and
Non-native speaker of English means whose mother tongue is not English.
However, non-native speakers speak English for communicative purpose. Nowadays
in many countries English is spoken and taught as a second language. There are
3 widely accepted and well known concepts which are discussed thoroughly in the
conference.
1.
EFL- English as a
foreign language.
2.
ESL- English as a
second language
3.
ELF- English as a
lingua-franca
Set out to
London-
6th
April 2018 (Friday)
The
conference was at Brighton (UK) during 9th April to 14th
April 2018. But our flight was on 7th April at 1:10 pm from
Chhatrapati Shivaji maharaj international Airport. I began my journey to Mumbai
on 6th April. First I went to Nasik road railway station and took a
janshatabdi train. My family members were came to say goodbye. I reached at Dadar at 1.00 pm. Nisar was also in the same train. He started his journey from
Aurangabad while Nagesh had already reached to Dadar station in the morning. We
3 SARPs ( State Academic Resource persons) working in Tejas project, gathered
on 6th April at Dadar. We booked a room at Dadar and spent night
there. We checked in online in the afternoon. It was British airways’ plane.
Both my friends got success to check in online, but I could not succeed. My name was miss spelt on the ticket. It
should be Mr Ashok Chandrabhan Chavan. But it was Chandrabhanchavan /Ashokmr. I was very confused and frightened whether I
could board in or not. I tried many times to check in online, but every time it
was showing error and access denied for me. One can imagine how terrible it
was. Fortunately, the problem was sorted out next day at the airport.
In the evening we all moved around the seaside
of Dadar chowpaty. We visited Dadar
Chaitya bhoomi, the memorial of Dr B R Ambedkar. We also walked along side of
the sea. It made us tireless. After that we went to Shivaji park and Savarkar
smarak too. It was great experience to visit such monuments of Savarkar and Balasaheb Thackray at Shivaji park.
At night we walked through the busy lanes of
Dadar and had dinner. Finally went to Maher the lodge where we had
stayed.
7th
April 2018 (Saturday)
We all woke up early in the morning. After
getting refreshed, we walked to Siddhivinayak Ganesha temple the famous temple
of the lord Ganesha. It was just 10 mins walk. We took darshana and had breakfast
nearby on the way to our room. When we came back to room, we booked a cab. The
driver was very friendly. He took us to the airport, terminal 2. Mumbai has 2 terminals. One is domestic and
the other one is Domestic and international.
The Chhatrpati Shivaji maharaj
international airport is really beautiful and lavish place. We clicked many photos here at the entrance
and inside the airport. We had to show tickets while entering the airport main
building. Then we went to the immigration counter where we received board in
pass. It included our seat no., group no. and gate no. I was very happy when I
got my board in pass. Mrs Urvi Shah ma’am (Head, schools, English and skills,
west india, British Council, South India) also joined us. We had to go through security check in.
Before our luggage was collected at the immigration counter. One hand bag
was allowed to keep with each person. After rigorous process of checking, we
had to wait for the next announcement. Meanwhile we watched beautiful paintings
showing the culture of Maharashtra on the walls of airport. I enjoyed the
moment. There were many planes on the airport. Some planes were taking off and
some were landing. First time I saw planes so closely. Some were very large
while some were small in size. It was indeed beautiful sight. it’s like a mall inside
the airport. There were many shops having expensive things. All the area was
decorated and designed in a lovely manner. There were luxurious cushions for
the travelers who can sit and enjoy sightseeing. Standing on a escalator and
watching colourful wall painting was quite rich experience.
It was time
to board in the plane. We were waiting at gate no.66. On my boarding pass plane
no., gate no., seat no., boarding time and departing time were given. It was
British Airway’s plane- BA 198. My seat no. was 30E. We boarded in the plane at
12.30 pm. It was quite large Boing plane
in which near about 300-400 passengers can travel. We were welcomed at the gate
of the plane. As it was my first journey by plane, I was quite embarrassed, but
I enjoyed the journey and atmosphere inside the plane. Everything went well.
Two british persons were sitting beside me. One occupied seat to my left and the
other sat to my right. It was very easy to tie seat belt and use screen TV. I
could not get window seat, but I could see my journey on my screen. When the
plane took off, I felt like sitting in a big merry-go-round. As it goes up, we
feel the same. The distance between Mumbai and London is 4591 ml (7380 kms). The departure time was 13.10, but it
took off half an hour late. It was 9 hour journey. During the travel I enjoyed
one time meal, coffee, breakfast and watched one Marathi movie-Faster
Fenne. The plane landed at Heathrow
terminal 5 at 6.15 pm as per London time. In my watch it was 10.45 pm. Indian time is 4.30 hours ahead of
UK time. I set my watch according to it.
We had gone through security and immigration
counter again. To reach at these counters which were at C gate, we had to go by
metro train. We were just following the other co-passengers. However, we
managed it. It was very cold in London. When we set off from Mumbai, it was
very hot but here it was too cool. I wore
warm sweater.
After the process we all went outside the airport and got
the national express bus going to Brighton. The driver himself put our luggage
inside the bus. The bus was luxurious and had
wi-fi and toilet facilities. I was delighted to see the smooth roads. It
was raining. Brighton was 50 ml away from London. It took 2 hours to reach at
Brighton. The bus went to Gatwick airport first and then to Brighton. When we
reached at Brighton the temperature was very less. So we took a cab and reached
the hotel- Brighton Mercure Hotel. It was 4 star hotel. Each one was
given special rooms from 8th April, But on 7th night we 3
had to sleep in one room. I slept at midnight, dreaming the whole journey.
8th
April 2018 (Sunday)
I woke up early in the morning. I got
ready soon. The conference was from 9th April. On 8th we
had nothing to do. So we had already planned to visit London. We had also
booked our rail tickets using Loco2 app. It cost 16.30 pounds for return
journey. Our train to Victoria London was sharply at 7.09 am from Brighton
railway station. Although we were new in that city, google map made our journey
safe and easy. We all gathered in the hotel reception at 6.15. We kept our luggage
in the luggage store room. The Mercure hotel was very warm inside. It had many
luxurious rooms. It was located in front of the sea- English channel. One could
see the beautiful atmosphere of seafront, wide roads and the tallest british
airways i360 from this hotel. We walked to the station early in the morning. It
was 1 ml away. It was raining, but not
so hard. We had umbrellas with us. The roads were very clean. The sea gulls
were flying over the tall houses and hoping on the ground. We reached on time.
We could not collect our tickets from machines. So we went to the inquiry
counter. We stood in a line. A personnel was helping to each passenger. When
the man was hearing the problem of a passenger who was standing next to me, I
asked for ticket. I was making haste. But the man on service told me not to
interrupt. Firstly he sorted out the first passenger’s problem and then he gave
me ticket. All over my journey I noticed this behavior of government servants.
I hardly found this in my country. Our people either neglect or give more
importance to few people.
After getting tickets we sat in the
train. Very few people were travelling.
Our coach was quite empty. The seats in the train were luxurious. On the floor
there was mattress. Toilets were excellent. I never found class 1 and general
compartments. Every compartment was same. Anybody can seat in any bogie. This
was real equality that we always discuss. To get in and get off the station we
had to touch the tickets at entry gates. When we touched the tickets or card on
the proper area, the handles opened automatically. This was innovative one.
Security persons were standing at the gate all the time to help and check.
I saw countryside area from the train. Most of
the trees didn’t have leaves. Probably it was very cold and rainy. Soon summer
would begin and it would bear leaves and flowers. We could see only few people
at each station. They were not as busy as we have in our country. The houses
were old enough and had the same structure and colour. Almost every house had
the same type of roof. It was very cool
outside but it was warm inside the train. Because the trains had no open doors
or windows. They had glass windows and doors. We reached at Victoria station at
9.15 am.
According to our plan we went to Buckingham
palace which was close to the station. It comes under zone 1. London has 6
zones. Many attractions are based in zone 1 and 2. One can visit these places
on foot or by bus. You can also use underground trains. They are called tubes.
Oyster card is the easiest and the cheapest way to travel by the tubes. You can
also use this card in local buses and other means of travelling within London.
Buckingham
palace is one of the best attraction where we saw hundreds of visitors from
different countries. We waited here for
an hour. Actually we wanted to see the parade, but after seeing few glimpses of
parade, we started towards St. James park. Here we noticed different kinds of
water land birds in a pond. Some trees had white flowers. We came across many
Grey leg geese on the grass as well as in the pond. One magnificent swan
attracted many of us by his elegant movements in water. It was quite bigger
than other ducks. There were different kinds of ducks. They were floating in
water alone or in pairs.
We clicked few photos here. We saw some
squirrels on the trees. They were coming down and eating groundnuts from
visitors. These squirrels were larger than our Indian squirrels. When we were
going to National Gallery, we were observing roads, tall buildings, vehicles ,
sign posts and many new things that were on the way.
When I approached at the National gallery, I
saw beautiful fountain, some statues, many people and huge building of national
gallery. It had tall pillars. Inside the gallery there were many halls. In
every hall there were lots of paintings. We explored hundreds of famous and
beautiful paintings of the world. It gave us pleasure immensely. One could
observe and experience the glory of the art here.
We had coffee at the restaurant of gallery.
But it wasn’t so good. We didn’t have any option except having some Indian food
that we had with us.
After that our steps moved towards London eye.
We came to Thames river. We could see the huge merry-go-round from the bank of
the river. It was splendid sight of the river. There were historical buildings on the both
the sides of the river. We enjoyed coca cola London eye and river cruise
safari. Going on the top of the city and looking at the river, boats,
buildings, buses, trains, people , it was just marvelous. In the capsule we
were 12-15 persons. I really appreciated the aesthetic view of tourism which
has based in Uk. These people care for each and everything. They care for their
heritage, nature, river, bridges, castles, flora and fauna etc. They not only
respect tourists but help them everywhere. Every Englishman is engaged to
respect his or her national heritage. For them all these things are their wealth. Bridges are very famous in
London. Actually the city is known for London bridge, tower-bridge, waterloo
bridge. We were introduced the glorious beauty of the Thames river and the
historical buildings located on both the sides of the river when I was
travelling by river cruise.
Finally our
legs said “No” to walk more. It was evening. We returned to Victoria station
and took southern line train to Brighton. We had to change the train at one
station and took bus to Brighton. We reached in time. The whole day was
memorable for me as I experienced some glimpses of London city.
9th
April 2018 (Monday)
It was very
cold outside and warm inside the hotel today. Today it was pre-conference day.
There are two types of events in IATEFL. One pre-conference for one day and the
other is 4 days conference. Main conference will start from tomorrow. We had breakfast in the Mercure hotel. It was
a little bit different. I could not find any Indian food there.
We all went
to Brighton centre where the pre-conference was being held. I got my i-card, conference kit having a bottle, pen, dairy and brochure. We sat in materials development special
interest group which was already allocated to us.
MaWSIG (
Materials writing special interest group)
Writing for
the world is the main theme of this MaWSIG. These sessions were conducted in
syndicate hall no.3. There were 5 speakers who shared their views on particular
topics.
1. ELF
and materials writing by Marek Kickzkowiak –
Highlights of
the session-
· English
is global language of communication primarily used by Non-native speakers, who
outnumber native speakers of English.
· Lingua
franca nature of English- “The communicative use of linguistic resources, by
native as well as non-native speakers of English, when no other shared means of
communication is available or appropriate.” (widdowson,2013 p.190)
· Aspects
of ELF (English as a lingua franca)-communicative strategies, intercultural
communicative skills, pronunciation and lexico grammar
· Differ
ELF with ESL and EFL
· Discussion
over preparing students to use English in lingua franca contexts
· Few
questions were given to ponder over. These are as follow :
1. What
is the ratio of native to non-native speaker characters in your materials?
2. What
is it based on ?
3. How
are non-native speakers depicted? ( think about language they use , context,
who they interact with,etc)
4. Are
non-native speakers ever treated valid models of the language? why (not)
5. What
would realistic representation of English users look like?
6. Which
types of interactions should probably dominate?
·
Various purposes of Speaking English-
For business,
Education, tourism, global fraternity
·
Wide variety of Englishes used
worldwide by non-native speakers
·
Lack of standard native accents,
·
Multilingual English and not
monolingual English
·
Raising students awareness
It was very
rich session which depicted the global role of English as a lingua franca.
Sometimes I felt it very overloaded, but I got most of the things which were
shared.
We had a
break and had coffee in a hall where everyone could see the seafront of
Brighton.
2.
Creating effective pronunciation
materials by Laura Patsko
·
Laura explored the challenges of
writing pronunciation materials for international markets
Why include
pronunciation in ELT courses ?
·
Research shows the controlled
practice of pronunciation introduction
leads to improvement in spontaneous speaking contexts
·
In particular, it greatly impacts
spoken intelligibility and listening
·
Phonological awareness impacts all 4
skills, grammar and vocabulary
·
Teachers worldwide tend to lack
confidence and need training in teaching pronunciation
·
Students want pronunciation training
·
Intelligibility and accents are
entirely different things
·
The vast majority of English users
across the world do not speak with standard or native like accents
·
(Monolingual)- native speakers are
often the most difficult to understand in international setting
Principles for pronunciation
materials:
·
Identify appropriate priorities for
the course
·
Identify key markets
·
Cover the needs of speakers from
those L1groups
·
Distinguish between productive and receptive focus in
activities
·
Start productive tasks by raising
receptive awareness
·
Include a variety of authentic
accents
·
Pronunciation should be integrated
with other skills
·
Repeat key features across multiple
course level
·
Include pronunciation in
review/revision section- not grammar and vocabulary
Some
pronunciation assessment tasks were given. It was also very productive session.
I learnt that teaching of pronunciation is very crucial for teachers as well as
learners. Authentic pronunciation and well appropriate accents are very
important on global platform.
3.
Are you writing for all learners? By
Romulo Neves
·
Learners are very diverse in the
classroom, so materials should be
designed for all type of learners
·
Students with special educational
needs tend to be neglected in the way information is presented to them
·
While writing materials SEN should be considered
·
Design material in such a way where
all learners will feel motivated, engaged and part of the class.
·
Have some twist in writing techniques
so that everyone in class will have a truly rewarding experience
·
One minute challenge- Write a simple sentence
with the hand that you always use. It’s quite easy to copy. Write the same
sentence using different hand. You will notice how difficult to copy it. Now
one can understand the challenges that all type of learners face. Means every
child is not the same. He/she has not the same potential to learn.
· The
power of 3Es
·
Encourage
·
Engage
·
Empower
I learnt in this session that all
learners are important. We should design materials so that every learner should
be involved in it. I will also focus on to encourage, engage and empower all
learners in the class.
4.
Materials writing for language
education in emergencies and development by Psyche Kennett:
·
Global materials development strategy
for ‘Language for resilience’ by British Council
·
Pressing second language needs of
forcibly displaced people
·
Despite huge differences between
sub-saharan Africa and Middle east-north Africa refuge contexts, cross cutting
themes and approaches for English and other second language materials exist
· Core
skills in critical thinking, gender and human rights, non-violent communication
and good governance for displaced youth and adults.
This session
was very heavy. I could just understood that international organizations should
also write for refuge using their own contexts.and develop materials in
emergencies and development for the displaced youth and adults.
5.
Designing materials that address
learner and teacher spiky profiles by Julie Day
·
Many material writers are daunted to
write bespoke, learner centered resources to meet all the needs of their
learners
·
Learners with varying levels of prior
education can have a skills mismatch- means excellent speaking accompanied with
poor handwriting.
·
Teachers may have spiky profiles to
deal with difference in the classroom.
What is spiky
profile?
·
A learner has different skill level
in speaking, listening, reading and writing; level of literacy in English and
in their first language ; opportunities to use English outside the classroom.
I learnt in
this session that every learner has spiky profile means everyone has different
learning level. Students are good at in some skills while they are poor in some
areas. But teachers are also like pointers and they have enough knowledge
to handle such students.
The
first day of IATEFL for me was like shadowing with experienced people. All the
speakers were knowledgeable and rich in their topics. They presented in a very
well organized manner. They also kept accurate time management. They used very
conducive slides while ppt presentation.
We went to the hotel Mercure and then spent
few hours at seaside. The Brighton seashore was very clean. The sea water was
clean and transparent.
The
day one of the conference was really awesome and a little bit overloaded with
information. I met new people and introduced what’s going in my state about
English. We met one BC person who was already familiar with TAGs. He wanted to
know more about it. We shared about twitter chat. He liked the idea of
conducting monthly tweeter chat for tag coordinators and tag teachers.
10th
April 2018 (Tuesday)
Breakfast was served free by hotel. We all
gathered at breakfast room. It had the same menus on each day. I ate some fruit
slices like pineapple, orange, one or two half fried eggs, and bread with
butter. Today we met John sir, Amy ma’am and Radhika ma’am. Amy ma’am reminded
us in the morning that she was going to offer dinner for all the delegates who
came from India.
After having breakfast we all went to Hilton
hotel where Lourdes Ortega was going to give first plenary speech. All the
members and delegates across the world came to the plenary hall. It was Oxford
hall. It was huge hall having best audio
visual system and it had spacious sitting arrangement. The management was very
good. Many volunteers were helping to the people.
Before attending plenary Nisar, Nagesh and me
attended “How to session” in Ambassador hall. Mr Daniel Xerri was presenting on
“How to reflect on research talks at the conference.”
I
got few points to share with you..
Before you
attend a talk :
1.
Reflect on your priorities and what you want to gain
2.
Consider different types of talks,
plenaries, workshops, presentations, posters etc.
3.
Choose suitable sessions, read
abstracts, consider communicative intent of presenter and reflect on
priorities.
During a talk :
1.
Make notes, perhaps reflect on your
own perspective and priorities-what you want to gain.
2.
Go with an open but critical
mind-esteem your own expertise, but respect the person presenting
3.
Ask polite questions –either in forum
or after talk
4.
Dialogue and network
5.
Seek common ground
Engagement consolidation:
1. Organise your
notes
2.
Reflect on your own
3.
Consider how ideas could be adapted
to your context
4.
Read up more about ideas or issues
raised
5.
Share your reflections via writing or
dialogue
6.
Conduct research on your own context
Gibbs’ reflective cycle (1988)
Description, Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis,
Conclusion, Action plan
Plenary
(9.00-10.00)
What is SLA
research good for, anyway? By Lourdes Ortega
· Research and teaching in the
perspective of SLA researcher
· Research- more about generating
useful information for some community
· Research- like discovering that Earth
is round and not flat. It is just other scientific knowledge that smoking -does
it kill?
· My goal offering tools for thinking
more positively about the research- teaching interface..
· A good example of Learning L2 is
motivation,
· My conclusion For motivation: where SLA
researchers have mostly succeeded to turn empirical evidence into knowledge
that can make lives of language teachers better
· Teaching is complex and teaching a
language is particularly complex and there are no straightforward formulae or
recipes that will effective in every context
She
presented her ideas through many more examples like error correction and other
findings. She insisted that there should be balance between idealism and
pragmatism.
You can watch this plenary here:
Making
learning last by Paul Dummett (National Geographic Learning) at Durham hall
In
this session Paul shared some techniques of memorizing.
Visualizing,
repeating, writing things, drilling,
visual
image is the powerful thing that associate with learning . He showed some
images and shared how he could memorize with the images.
Imagery,
stories and emotions these things help learners to learn better. Due to
attraction they learn and keep it in memory.
We
should encourage and inculcate the habit of visualizing by showing images and
hearing stories to students.
I hear and I forget
I
see and I remember
I
do and I understand
I
teach and I master
(Bringing
the world to the classroom) this is theme of national geographic learning..
We
went to exhibition hall where we had a cup of coffee. Moved around the stalls.
Talked with few of stall holders. We met here Santosh Mahapatra from India. We
exchanged few things about conference.
After that I went to room no 9.
10 Challenges for EFL course
designers by Marcel Lemmens
· EFL
teaching is different from all other teaching- Sentences and texts can not
exist without content. Foreign language education is related to language forms.
· How
to design materials that interest learners and fit their language levels
· Teenagers
are difficult to please- No lesson plan survives contact with teenagers
· EFL
teaching is permeated by correctness, accuracy and fluency
· There
is too much fuss about grammar- Learning grammar is not an end itself, it has a
function and that function is to aid communication
· There
is too much fuss about literature and culture
· Teaching
and learning English is time consuming
Be
adaptable. Less
is more. Life
is hard.
After
this session I went to how to get session where I talked with Marta from Poland
and Burkey from Istanbul. We asked few questions to each other working in group
activity.
In the evening we had dinner with all the
delegates from India. We were 11 persons from india. I enjoyed mango juice and
fish and chips dish. It was delicious one.
I would like to mention about well managed
and controlled traffic system of Brighton. When pedestrians want to cross the
road, there are “wait“ signposts. Simply we need to push button and wait for
the pedestrian signal to turn
green. After that pedestrians can
cross the road. Sometimes when anybody wants to cross road and if any vehicle
comes fast and the pedestrian returns or hesitates to cross the road, the
driver stops the vehicle and requests him or her to cross. It was really
fabulous to see and experience such thing that we hardly experience in our
country. Everywhere on the roads there were cctv cameras. None have a courage to break traffic rules.
Everyone drives in a line. And we hardly find any kind of traffic jam. That was
quite beautiful picture about it. I did not find too much motor bikes on the
road. Probably because of cold weather.
11th
April 2018 (Wednesday)
Plenary:
Sausage in the law: how textbooks are made by Dorothy Zemach (9.00-10.00)
This plenary
was relevant to people who are associated with publishers and writers.
·
Those who love Sausage and the law
should never watch either being made.
·
Textbooks are influential- they shape
a teacher’s activities, lesson plans or entire course curriculum- it’s time to
have look inside the sausage factory at how textbooks are created.
·
Publisher’ focused attitude about
what writers should write
·
Teachers have little knowledge about
how books are created
·
Teachers should use their power for
good
·
Struggle for getting highest quality material
You can watch
this plenary here:
Is it just
about language? Supporting non-native speakers (10.20-10.50)
The experts
response:
·
The discrepancy in language
proficiency accounts for most of the differences found in teaching behavior
(peter Midgyes)
·
Put language back centre stage
(Silvana Richardsan)
·
We all need to study English , but we
NESTs need to study it even more , because we are at linguistic disadvantage.
(Higor Cavalcante)
·
Teachers of English not only need to
speak and understand the language they are teaching, but they need to know a
good deal about the way that language works (Scott Thornburry)
Supporting
teachers for using technology for their continuing professional development by
Radhika Gholkar and Urvi Shah (British Council India)-Syndicate hall-2
Radhika
ma’am and Urvi ma’am introduced Tejas and TAG wherein how they continuously
supported tag coordinators and SARPs through face to face and social media ..
Highlights
·
Budget 2018 will help digitize our
education system (Financial express newspaper)
·
From “black board to digital board”
Government schools in rural india are witnessing a technological revolution
·
“Teacher education needs to orient
and sensitize the teacher to distinguish critically useful, developmentally
appropriate and detrimental use of ICT.” (NCFTE-2010, page 14)
·
Tejas- RAA-SARP-TAG Coordinators and
teachers
·
Tejas-18000 teachers involved, 750
Teacher Activity Groups,
·
9 district institute of education and
training, 30 state academic resource persons, 250 Tag coordinators, 108 block
resource centres, 750 kendra pramukhs ( government involvement)
·
Digital support- 472 participants take
digital self access course, 30 participants take digital e-moderated course,
750 whats app groups to be created and monitored
We
supported this session very much as it was related to our project. Both Radhika
ma’am and Urvi ma’am gave effective touch to each aspect of Tejas and tag and
they also gave evidence of technology support by giving our 3 SARPs’ examples.
After
this session we 3 went to seaside and had lunch together. It relaxed us very
much. Too much knowledge is indeed injurious to health… isn’t it?
Safe speaking
environments What? Why? How?
By Zoltan Dornyei (Cambridge University
press)- Durham hall
·
The ability to speak confidently and
authentically is an essential skill. In fact, many students measure their
progress in language learning through their confidence to speak spontaneously
in real world situations
·
“We cannot say we know English if we
don’t speak it”- Teacher, Indonesia
·
In order to facilitate speaking in
the language classroom we need to
1.
Create suitable conditions accordance
to group dynamics
2.
Apply the principles of safe speaking
environment
·
Safe speaking environments
1.
Adequate time and space
2.
Immersive activities
3.
Student selected topics
4.
Positive peer interaction
5.
Appropriate feedback
All the speakers in the conference
were very rich in language. They took great efforts to research and then they
were presenting in the conference confidently.
In
the evening we went to Royal pavilion museum. Actually when we reached there,
it was closed, but we could wander around it and observe the beauty of royal
pavilion. It is the best attraction of Brighton city. In world war 1 , it was
used as Indian army hospital where Indians were treated during the war. It has
royal pavilion garden and has wide variety of organic plants. It reminds us
Indian dome like structure. We spent lot of time at this place and clicked many
photos. I noticed here many birds like Herring gull, common blackbird, starling
and pigeon.
Then we walked to Brighton Pier. We spent lot
of time at Brighton pier. It was based in sea. We could see crystal clear
bright water of English Channel. And one could hear the musical sound of
sea-waves and herring gull. I was lucky
enough to see the sunset having seaside background. The sun was taking its time
to go at home. It was 8.00pm. The sun was still at the the west horizon. After
sunset, there was light in the sky until an hour. We were very delighted to
have some fun at pier.
Today we got an Indian hotel which was run by
Punjabi man- Mr Chavala. He started to speak in Hindi. He shared lots of things
about UK. He told me that he has been living in UK for 12 years with his family
and he likes this country very much. He felt proud being Indian but now he has
much interest in this country. We
ordered Hyderabadi chicken in 9 pounds. In his hotel there were many Indian
countryside paintings displaying village life and at the entrance inside the
hotel there was model of half auto rickshaw.
I asked him if there is any kind of cast-based
discrimination in UK. He strongly denied it. He gave an example of his boss. “I
work here as a manager in this hotel and the owner is native. My owner’s son
follows my orders here. He even cleans the toilets, if I say him.” I heard lots of unbelievable things from him.
Smoking and drinking wine is very common. Because of cold weather drinking wine
is part of their life.
While having dinner I felt satisfied as it
really tasted like our Indian food. This day was really memorable to us.
12th
April 2018 (Thursday)
I felt very happy today as my stay in UK was
extended by 3 days. My return ticket was scheduled on 14th April and
the return journey of Nisar and Nagesh was scheduled on 17th april.
I requested to Amy ma’am and urvi ma’am to cancel my ticktes and extend my stay
up to 17th April. My air tickets were cancelled and re-booked. Now I
could stay up to 17th April and could go back to Mumbai with Nisar
and Nagesh. Yesterday I talked to Amy ma’am and she and Urvi mam did this immediately.
Plenary:
Knowledge is power: Access to education for marginalized women by Brita
Fernandez (9.00-10.00)
Listening to Brita was
extremely great moment. It was the best and exceptional plenary in the conference.
She inspired and motivated all. Brita is an advocate of women empowerment,
women’s rights and equality. She has worked for over 20 years with marginalized
women all over the world. Marginalized women means women who had never been to
schools, who had been exploited, who had to face poverty. She shared her experiences
working with marginalized women. She told that knowledge is the key to
unlocking potential and transforming lives. Women have gained confidence due to
knowledge who had never been to school. She gave references of the women living
in extreme poverty. She showed videos of syrian women refugees. Women are also
human beings and so respect them. It was the motivational theme behind the
speech.
Highlights:
· Rwanda-
half a million women raped in 100 days
· Bosnia-
between 20-50000 women raped
· Congo-
1000 women raped every day
· Syria-
over 5 million refugees, northern Iraq 250000 refugees, of which 80% women and
children
· Nigeria-
2.3 million people have fled their homes
· Women
who do not have access to knowledge
· Who
do not have access to schools
· Helping
women is not politics, this is not about power, it’s humanity.
· Specific
goal- gender equality
· We
meet women as human beings
· We
meet women to improve their health
· We
help them to gain confidence, to know their rights
· We
Help women to come together in
community, help them to earn and sustain
· We
believe “Stronger women make stronger nations”
· Working
in 8 countries to empower women
· Focus
on skill development
Women
for women international Impact
·
Practice of family planning- 30% to
87%
·
Sharing knowledge of rights- 10% to
89%
“In
modern wars it is more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier…..”
“
Women endure violence, rape and see their children killed.”
After
wars “she needs education, she needs you, she needs love, she needs inspire,
she needs courage.”
Watch this
plenary here:
After the
plenary Brita ma’am got standing ovation. Everybody was enchanted by the words
of Brita and the women in the videos which were shown. It was very touching.
Everyone stood and clapped for her marvelous work with marginalized women. She
really proved that only women can empower women. It was remarkable speech
focused on respect woman respect human.It was amazing moment to click photo with Brita ma'am.
In
the same hall- Oxford I attended a session “ Inspired professional development:
the road ahead by Silvana Richardson and Gabbriel Diaz Maggioli” It was
associated with the ideas and opportunies for teachers to engage in ongoing
professional development.
After this session we went to Brighton
centre to visit exhibition stalls. I was
delighted that every stallholder was offering gifts like pen, pencil, booklets
and chocolates. Some stallholders were offering wine. Most of the visitors were
enjoying. Tea and coffee was also being served. There was one special stall
where each day they gave ice-cream to each person once in a day. We enjoyed
this stall very much. We spent more time
here today. 
In the evening we went to see Brighton
Mariana- the famous place in Brighton. There were hundreds of boats at the
seashore. Hotels and a big supermarket. We visited all these places and watched
the beautiful scenario of marina.
We
were very exhausted as we walked miles. We took take away dish from the Punjabi
hotel. When we reached at hotel, after having dinner I went to bed immediately.
13th
April 2018 (Friday)
This
was the last day of the conference and also the last day in Brighton. I was
quite nervous because I had to book accommodation in London. I managed to book
online. I booked a room in dormitory at
Safestay Holland park. It was near high street kengsington station. 40 pounds
for 3 nights. It was cheaper.
Today the topic of plenary was “Living
to tell the tale: a history of language testing’ by Barry O’sullivan.
This
talk told the story of the test. It started in China about 2250 years ago. It identified individuals with the ability to
govern the emerging HAN EMPIRE, the Chinese Imperial Examinations. By the
middle of the 19th century, Europe had begun to take note of their
need for competitive examinations for military, educational and administrative
posts. In early 20th century, the scene was set for the emergence of
testing as a major industry. The different philosophies of learning and testing
that emerged in USA and Europe how testing is practiced to this day.
It
was our aim to meet different people from worldwide. We could meet few of them
and clicked some photos with them. We met one teacher. She was from Russia. We
wanted to know whether English has been taught as second language in her
country. She said,”yes”. “Parents also want that their children should learn to
speak English and so they demand English language teaching in schools. Some
international schools are also offer English medium education.”
We met many persons who were working for
British Council in various countries. One teacher from Palestine was very
enthusiastic to know more about TAG, how it works and how we support tag
coordinators, how we conduct monthly twitter chat. She found everything very
interesting. We met Radhika Cabrelle from India. She is working for British
Council and once she visited Tag meeting in Gadchiroli. She shared her awesome
experience of shadowing in the remote part of Gadchiroli.
We
talked to a person from Saudi Arab. He was Ahmad and very joyful one. I also
got chance to talk with an Australian teacher. She shared her classroom
practices. I asked her whether learners like to work in pair and group. And she
told me that they truly love to work in pair and group. Even shy students enjoy talking freely.
After this we went to attend last plenary.
This was going to be held in Oxford at Hilton hotel. Again we had to walk from
Brighton centre to Hilton crossing few footpaths. I enjoyed these two beautiful
places of brighton. While strolling between these hotels, I was delighted to
see the Brighton seafront, clean seashore and the sound of Herring gulls, the
tall and magnificent Hotels, the interior designs of hotels, the respectful
nature of the people inside and outside the hotels. It was absolutely memorable
visit to foreign land.
I could not forget one incident while walking
along seaside of Brighton. Nisar and me were enjoying photos which were
displayed on the seashore. I was clicking his photos. One four year old boy was
walking with his father. Unintentionally I touched him. Until I turned to look
back , the boy came close and said, “Sorry.” I also beg pardon. Actually I had
to say sorry. But that little boy did before me. His father was looking this
from a little distane. When his son reached at him, he patted his back. It was
wonderful scene that I couldn’t catch in camera. How these people respect
visitors and how they teach hospitality right from childhood. It was nice
evidence.
The last
plenary :Mugging de Queen’s English by john Agard
John
Agard is a Queen’s Gold Medal winning poet who has written widely for both
adults and children. He was born in Guyana and moved to England in 1977. His
published poetry includes Man to Pan (1982), Weblines (2000). As a children
writer Agard sir has received critical acclaim.
He read many poems in his own inimitable
style. It was enriching experience to hear John Agard sir. His presentation
style was extremely impressive and effective.
This was the end of the conference. Next year
Liverpool will be hosting this conference. Great indeed………………………to be part of
this 52nd IATEFL conference. I could not forget excellent
presentations, enriching events, intellectual personalities and beautiful
surrounding.
Thanks to British Council for giving such
golden opportunity….It was my long cherished dream to attend this conference
and it was fulfilled..
We spent 3 days in London. Visited many
places like Windsor castle, Tower of London, Tower bridge, British Museum,
Albert hall, kengsington palace, V and A museum,science museum, We enjoyed the sky view of London from the top most building of UK- Sharad (1020ft high). We traveled a lot by underground trains, buses and
many times on foot. We visited Hyde park, green park, Holland park the most
beautiful gardens in London.
On 14th April we visited the house
Of Dr B.R. Ambedkar where he lived during 1921-22.
It was a great journey.
We all landed safe and sound at Mumbai airport
on 18th April at 11.00am.
Regards
Ashok
Chavan
(Thanks to the State Government of Maharashtra, British Council, RAA, Aurangabad, RAA,Nashik for the support and motivation. Special thanks to Hon.Nandkumar sir, Dr.Sunil Magar sir, Dr Subhash kamble sir, Hon.Ravindra Jawale sir, Hon.Amy Lightfoot, Hon.Urvi Shah, Radhika Gholkar and all my dear SARPs)
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