General Impressions of the Conference

1. Membership
2. Length: 1 preconference day plus 4 full days
3. Attendance: 2,500; their largest ever
4. Sessions: Good variety; I tended to go to the Learning Technologies Special Interest Group (LT SIG) ones. Very nice plenaries, most of them with a Beatles reference or two; after all, we were in Liverpool.

Comparison/Contrast From My Perspective

IATEFL is smaller than TESOL, and the conference reflects that. At around 2,500 attendees, the size was very hospitable. If you stayed largely within one SIG, as I did, you saw the same people in the audience repeatedly. I quickly felt at home there, especially after attending the preconference session.

The preconference was an all-day series of lectures by different CALL specialists, both from the United Kingdom and from elsewhere in the world. It was broader and more comprehensive coverage of CALL than the TESOL approach of offering an in-depth, hands-on look at a single topic for a half day or whole day. Then again, there was less opportunity for audience participation other than Q&A at the end of the lectures.

The sessions were generally 30 minutes long, with some running for 50 minutes. A great many of the LT SIG sessions were webcast. This provides access to content to a much larger number of people, both in the live sessions and in the recordings. The sense of sharing with a broad audience was high.

I learned about Dogme, a movement in the United Kingdom that promotes oral language and conversation as the primary ways of teaching English. It seemed quite well known among conference-goers, but I’d never heard of it. It raises interesting questions about the role of native- versus nonnative-speaking English teachers. (Editor’s note: Since this report was written, Paul Sweeney provided the following link to a Wikipedia article on Dogme for those that are interested.)

There was a lot of “here’s a cool app” at both the IATEFL conference and the TESOL convention. It would be nice to move past the “gee whiz” attitude, and quickly. Even the presentation with a Dogme advocate spent half the time explaining “cool apps” to use. I heard about Evernote and Scoop.it as the best things since sliced bread at too many sessions in Dallas and Liverpool.

Memorable Sessions

The opening plenary by David Crystal, “The World in Which We Live in: Beatles, Blends, and Blogs,” was an engaging look at oral language through Beatles lyrics. Professor Crystal, a well-respected sociolinguist, also related anecdotes about his experience as a Beatles contemporary and fellow musician in Liverpool.

Nik Peachey offered suggestions for evaluating web-based tools, one of the few sessions that I attended that took a critical look at apps and sites rather than just recommending them.

Paul Driver’s talk on “History, Folklore, and Gossip: Geospatial Narratives and Mobile Language Learning” was a narrative in itself. The concept of digital storytelling with mobile devices isn’t new, but his talk was a fascinating look at what individuals are doing to empower young people to care about and for their neighborhoods.

We had an evening sponsored by Macmillan at The Cavern, the Liverpool nightclub where the Beatles got started. There’s something about having a room full of English teachers singing Beatles songs along with the Beatles look-alike band that is just unforgettable. For the musicians, too, no doubt.

What I Learned

There were a few main takeaways from my time at IATEFL:

1. Both the CALL-IS and LT SIG need to do a better job of taking a critical look at technology, rather than just making blanket recommendations, especially about mobile apps. It’s still “Not so much the program, more what you do with it” that counts.
2. The CALL-IS is doing a better job each year with webcasting sessions at TESOL, but TESOL could do a lot more to enable people around the world to watch sessions online. IATEFL does a very good job of making the sessions available, with help from the British Council.
3. Sponsors at IATEFL have great evening activities for free or modest cost. The events can be ticketed to control numbers—but publishers just don’t seem to do as much in the evening at TESOL.
4. Late afternoon or evening meetings that include snacks and beverages are more fun.
5. The interests of the CALL-IS and LT SIG are quite complementary, and there is much that we can learn from each other. We need to do more joint activities, building on our common interests. The LT SIG people are a great group!

Clockwise from top left; author’s comments: 1) I never could figure out what these were. You see them in various places around town. I think they’re like the plaster ducks in Eugene and cows in Corvallis—decorated art of sorts 2) The liver bird (rhymes with diver, not with the meat) is the symbol of the city. The one on top of City Hall was too far away for my camera. 3) John Lennon memorial sculpture, with the convention center behind on the left. 4) And the rather inscrutable sign. As Shaw noted, two countries separated by a common language. 5) Two members of the Cavern Club Beatles Band. 6) Albert Dock, across from the convention center.

Read the second part of the report.

Dr. Deborah Healey has taught English and trained teachers for more than 30 years. She currently offers online courses for teachers internationally through the University of Oregon’s American English Institute and teaches in the Master’s program in Linguistics, Language Teaching Specialization. She worked in Yemen and has presented extensively throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The former editor of ORTESOL Journal, she is a coauthor of TESOL Technology Standards: Description, Implementation, Integration and part of the Trace Effects team. She is a senior instructor. Deborah likes outdoor activities in beautiful Oregon and spending time with her 5-year-old granddaughter, Jasmine (and Jasmine's parents, too).