Members of seven South Asian English Language Teachers Associations came together for a six-day intensive seminar-workshop (11-16^th December 2011) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, sponsored by the Hornby Trust and run by the British Council. Organized as a retreat in an idyllic centre in a lush green suburban area, it brought together 30 participants from Bangladesh (BELTA), India (ELTAI), Pakistan (SPELT), Sri Lanka (SLELTA) , Nepal (NELTA), Afghanistan (ELTA-A) and Iran (AzerELTA). Each TA was represented through a mix of experienced and newer members.

The objective of this seminar was to enable TA participants to share best practices and learn specific skills related to running and extending their associations effectively. In addition, it explored ways of creating stronger links between TAs in the region.

As such, the seminar offered opportunities for TA participants to:

• share success stories and best practice in key areas
• review TAs’ current strategic plans and develop ways of improving them
• develop core financial management skills
• develop skills related to marketing, fund-raising & sponsorship
• raise the confidence levels of less experienced members in their volunteer roles
• raise awareness and greater acceptance of ways of promoting more transparent succession planning such as recruitment, role shadowing, mentoring.

George Pickering, ELT consultant and leadership and management trainer, with his unique training style spiced with humour, provided the major. Several interactive workshops had the participants discussing key issues around topics in groups before sharing their ideas in plenary sessions. They moved around to different groups in order to allow them to work with as many different people as possible. The course was also designed to ensure that more participant centred-activities took place in the afternoons, and towards the end of the week. The TA representatives made mini-presentations on certain topics, gave joint presentations about their own TAs and, on the final day, delivered short presentations on the post-workshop projects which they had designed and would be carrying out. For a glimpse of the activities at the Hornby School, look here.

During the seminar, a sub-committee, made up of a member from each TA was formed to look into future regional co-operation between the TAs. The committee came up with a number of proposals:

1. TAs in the South Asia region might sign Memorandums of Understanding between each other. These would include exchange of newsletters, journals, sharing of information regarding visiting speaker itineraries and annual conferences and a waiving of conference registration fees.
2. Participation in Peer Support Reviews, in which TAs would self-assess themselves and then be peer reviewed by TA members from other TAs at their annual conference.
3. Mentoring of less-experienced TA leaders by experienced leaders from other TAs.
4. Exploring opportunities for future collaboration by setting up a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) or a Discussion Forum (e.g. Yahoo group).
5. In the longer term, organizing a regional conference and carrying out joint research.

The feedback from the TA participants showed a great sense of satisfaction and appreciation not only for the day-time sessions but also for the fun-filled social activities in the evening. A workshop DVD video was made by a film crew which vividly captured the flavour of the event.

The longer term success of this seminar-workshop will of course depend on the performance of the post-workshop TA communities. The extent of this will obviously depend on which TA representatives will carry forward their strategic planning and post-workshop projects. Moreover, it will be interesting to see how many of the relatively inexperienced TA volunteers on the course will assume TA committee positions in the future.

With regard to BELTA, there have been three follow-up workshops since February to address some of the issues the TA had identified as its major challenges. One workshop was on ‘Personal Effectiveness’ and the other on ‘Leadership in Education’. BELTA had also identified the challenge of keeping its regional Chapters alive and interested. As such the British Council ELT Advisor in Dhaka has supported a Chapter Handbook Working Group. Over the last four months, the group has worked to finalize a Chapter Handbook that will provide realistic and easy guidelines for new Chapters to be mentored and to develop into effective TA entities. For more information on BELTA.

Finally, the most significant post-seminar outcome appears to be the proposed Peer Support Review (PSR) that is being initiated in Sri Lanka during SLELTA’s International Conference in September 2012. Again supported by the British Council, two representatives from the seven TAs will be attending - first to undertake a training session on PSR and then do the actual review, finally giving a feedback session to the host TA, SLELTA. Simultaneously, the visiting TA delegates will also represent their country on a TA panel session and conduct a workshop at the SLELTA conference. This PSR exercise will certainly prove to be an invaluable learning experience for all the TAs.

www.belta-bd.org

Arifa Rahman is a teacher educator in Bangladesh. With long experience in ELT and research, Arifa is actively involved in empowering English teachers through her TA, BELTA.