TESOL President Andy Curtis (while he was President Elect) visited Bangladesh in August 2014. He was there as the invited Keynote Speaker at the University of Liberal Arts’ 2^nd International ELT Conference. Andy’s wife Liying Cheng accompanied him and was herself a plenary speaker on Language Assessment.

As BELTA is a TESOL Affiliate since 2009, Andy contacted BELTA before coming and expressed his intention to meet BELTA members with the possibility of doing something with or for BELTA while he was here. BELTA jumped at the idea. We usually run after reputed academics and speakers to be resource persons at our language development sessions. And here was Andy Curtis, well known applied linguist, educationist, international consultant and above all, TESOL top brass himself offering to do a workshop for us. In a modest and friendly manner, he wrote to BELTA: “I might be able to do something with or for BELTA while I’m there…... Please let me know if you think that would be possible, and if so, what would be most useful and helpful for me/us to do.”

And so based on our on-line discussions, BELTA organized a 90-minute workshop in partnership with BRAC Institute of Languages. The title was “Reflective Practice and Teacher Professional Development: Being and Becoming”. It was attended by around 80 BELTA members and other English teachers. Andy arrived early and went around the hall talking to groups of teachers in his pleasant easy-going manner endearing himself to the participants, young and old.

An expert in intercultural communications, Andy Curtis was a pleasure to watch and listen to. During his interactive presentation, he spoke in a simple, friendly manner – not talking down to the teachers as an authority but as a friendly professional sharing the difficulties and challenges that all teachers face in their regular work. Whether focusing on points on his slides or referring to amusing professional anecdotes or engaging the participants in reflecting on pedagogic  issues, he skillfully drew attention to the fact that perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of ‘being a teacher’ is ‘being able to step outside of our own selves’ i.e. looking objectively at ourselves. This may be especially true for busy language teachers in the classroom. However, the professional and developmental rewards of being able to do so could be enriching. Andy looked at how we could create some space between ‘me’, ‘myself’ and ‘I’, to engage in reflective practices and see our professional selves anew.

After the workshop Andy Curtis said he was impressed by the energy and enthusiasm of the ELT professionals in the audience. The talk was followed by a lively question-and-answer session, with many insightful and perceptive questions from the audience. Following the talk, with the help of the English Language Fellow at BRAC University, the number of ELT professionals in Bangladesh who were members of TESOL grew four-fold, reflecting the strong commitment of teachers here to their own professional development.

Incidentally, we had an interesting guest at the workshop. Dr Hilary Smith, President TESOLANZ from the University Of Wellington, New Zealand was visiting Bangladesh with her husband, a consultant on an international children’s development project here. She saw the information about Andy’s workshop on the BELTA website and asked if she could come along. Of course, Hilary was most welcome and both she and her husband attended the event. Incidentally, Hilary came back to the country at a later date and herself presented a workshop for BELTA members.  

At the end of the same year, BELTA requested Andy Curtis to send a message of felicitation to the 7^th BELTA International Conference 2015.  He complied and sent a very warm message for the delegates which was printed in the Conference Book together with his photo. Although he was not there in person, he was surely there in spirit. He was full of praise for BELTA and the members’ enthusiasm for professional development. Even here Andy’s historical knowledge and erudition was apparent. He wrote, “As we know, Bangladesh is one of the few countries that came about as the result of language, starting with the Bengali Language Movement in 1948, reaching its climax in 1952, and resulting in UNESCO declaring 21 February as International Mother Language Day in 1999. This unique language history of Bangladesh means that the daily classroom work of all language teachers in the country, including teachers of English, is a key aspect of language education in Bangladesh, of which BELTA is an essential part”.

Andy Curtis later told us that he had mentioned to the TESOL Central Office about BELTA’s request from the TESOL President to write a welcome message for the delegates of the international conference in the program book, and they agreed that this was something that perhaps they could do more of, as it was increasingly becoming difficult to get to the 100-plus affiliate conferences held every year. To sum up, the TESOL President’s short but eventful visit to BELTA has been a very significant chapter in the life of BELTA - the outcome for both has been synergetic to some degree.

Arifa Rahman (PhD, Institute of Education, University of London) is English language teacher-educator and researcher. She is a reviewer for academic journals, and an educational consultant on program evaluation and language assessment. With numerous international publications, she has presented widely in national and international conferences. Arifa’s current research interest is inequity in language education policy. She is Past President BELTA.