Rovena Elaine Capel, President of the Penang English Language Learning & Teaching Association (PELLTA), Penang, Malaysia

Many changes have taken place in the world of teaching over the past two years, and this is especially so in the role that our association has had to play in providing support to our members. PELLTA also realized we needed to help our members and other teachers in ways we had never done before to stay relevant and to maintain connectivity with them throughout the pandemic.

The main committee had numerous meetings to think about the new platforms to host webinars that had to replace the previous model of operations: physical workshops and seminars. We had to decide on the most effective online platforms for each webinar: Zoom, FB, Google Meet, Streamyard, YouTube, etc. We had to learn new IT skills to reach out in support of teachers caught in the drastic educational changes that came with the global crisis. All bookings made at outside venues to run previously planned workshops had to be cancelled.

PELLTA moved towards developing online monthly workshops and webinars through working with teachers, professional organisations, and experts from across the globe to provide specialized development to support members in this new digital online learning loop. We had trial runs before each webinar to ensure its efficiency and smooth running.

PELLTA organised several activities, especially webinars and hands-on workshops that highlighted online teaching tools. We started the year with a hands-on session in March 2021 entitled Power-Up: Tech Tools to Enhance Learner Engagement conducted by two teacher educators, Dr. Denise Quah (PELLTA Hon. Secretary) and Ms. Yeoh Hee Hee from the Institute of Teacher Education Tuanku Bainun Campus, Penang. Digital applications such as Jamboard, PearDeck, and Book Creator were among some of the applications shared with the participants with exciting and practical ideas to be used in the virtual classroom. In May 2021, we had Dr. Crayton Walker from the University of Birmingham with an online workshop entitled Grammar Rules and Grammar Reason. Dr. Walker led the participants through several interesting and discerning activities in analysing authentic texts and current grammar rules.

In the third quarter of the year, PELLTA participated in a collaborative webinar with Pearson Education Malaysia in Reimagining English Assessment conducted by Mr. Stuart Connor and Mr. Matthew Lampkin. Participants discussed Artificial Intelligence (AI) - enabled and CEFR-aligned assessments, and were introduced to some thought-provoking Pearson tests. In August, a young inspiring local teacher, Ms. Soffea Rahim, shared her many ideas on how to use the different online teaching applications such as Padlet, Whiteboard.fi, and Teacher Made in a very interesting webinar called Practical Ideas for Online Teaching. In the following month, PELLTA invited Associate Professor Dr. Tamas Kiss of Sunway University Malaysia, to speak on ways to develop creativity among learners in his hands-on workshop: Creativity in the English Language Classroom.

Two upcoming events this year are a Teacher Talk 3 session scheduled for 23rd October and the much-awaited 10^th International ELT Conference (iELT-Con 2021) which is to be held in November 2021. The Teacher Talk session will see a discussion steered by three different teachers from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand touching on teacher-related issues and the lessons learned from this pandemic.

iELT-Con 2021 (November 20 and 21) is PELLTA's biennial highlight that provides a platform for the English Language Teaching (ELT) community across the globe to participate in and explore various themes. PELLTA's past conferences were held in hotels in Penang previously and always drew many people from around the world. This November will see PELLTA's first virtual conference. The theme is "Developing Future Skills in English Language Teaching."  With keynote addresses by renowned speakers like Dr. Gabriela Kleckova (University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic, TESOL International Association President for 2021-2022), Associate Professor Jonathan Newton (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand), Associate Professor Tamas Kiss (Sunway University, Malaysia) and ​Mr. Allen Davenport (Cambridge University Press), PELLTA looks forward to an inspirational conference this year. Do join us! For more information about our coming conference, please visit us at https://ieltcon2021.wixsite.com/main

PELLTA hopes to have many more interesting sessions in the coming year and looks forward to working with more teacher-educator groups to contribute significantly to the ELT community. This pandemic has been a learning curve for PELLTA. We have had to adapt quickly to the changes and challenges faced by everyone. It was intimidating initially but suffice to say we have changed and grown through this crisis. This pandemic has most certainly opened new doors for PELLTA.

With sincere wishes from PELLTA for everyone's safety and good health always.

BIO

Rovena Elaine Capel is a retired English Language Lecturer from the Institute of Teacher Education, Penang Campus, Malaysia. She has been the PELLTA president since 2002. She warmly welcomes discussions with other affiliate leaders on how to enhance the work of ELT associations.