ELTAM - newsletter

It comes out three times a year (January, April, and September) and enables ELTAM members to keep up with the current trends and events that are taking place both in our country and abroad. We would like it to be the link that would support teachers’ continuing self-development and enable communication among teachers so that we can all share our teaching and research experiences as well as learn from each other.

We hope that you enjoy reading our Newsletter and that you would like to establish closer contact with us. Please remember that we are very open to feedback. Let us know what you think of it and what you would like to see in future issues. We also invite you to be a part of it and share your views and ideas with the others. Please send your contributions to kusevska@mol.com.mk.

Welcome to the fourth issue of ELTAM Newsletter. I am pleased to point out that ELTAM experienced considerable growth last year. Let me remind you of the wonderful workshop on Communication and Leadership in October with Ed Pope, the extremely successful conference in Ohrid, the fruitful meeting with the local coordinators in December and the informative Newsletter that has become established and started appearing in regular periods. You should always look for it in January, April and September.

The number of ELTAM members has grown considerably and we hope that this trend persists. Our goal is to see ELTAM as the major network of teachers from all parts of the country and all sectors of education.

In this issue, you will be able to read about ELTAM activities, the coming NOTIATEFLEAST conference in Zagreb next September, some of the British Council projects, St. Valentine’s Day, the five tips for brain-friendly learning, etc. Please, remember that you are always welcome to send your contributions and join any of the ELTAM activities.

ELTAM held its 2^nd International Conference in Ohrid, on 26-27. October, at Hotel Metropol. There were 165 participants, 38 of whom had a presentation. Apart from Macedonia, there were a number of participants from Bulgaria and from Albania, one from Slovakia and one from the USA. Many British and USA fellows working in Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro took part as well, either as speakers or just as attendants. So the conference fulfilled its aim of uniting the EFL professionals from the region and wider.

The programme was designed so that the presentations were held all day on Saturday, 26. October, from 10 am till 18 pm with an hour and a half break for lunch. In the evening ELTAM members gathered for a meeting. The programme continued on Sunday from 9 am till 1 pm finishing with a closing ceremony.

After the opening, Tim Phillips, the new EFL manager at the British Council in Skopje held a 45-minute plenary talk about building connections, focusing on both links between students and teachers and among the teachers themselves. This gave the conference a positive start. The rest of the presentations consisted of 26 sixty-minute workshops and 11 thirty-minute papers organized in four or five parallel sessions, so that the teachers could make a choice according to their interest.

The participants had a chance to take more active part in the workshops, to try and experience the presented material in an interactive way the presented material. There were workshops aiming at all levels – primary, secondary, tertiary. A number of workshops were particularly designed for teacher development, discussing time management, teaching styles, the effects of the teacher’s personality and emotional life on his/her teaching, creating teaching materials. Some tackled particular language skills or teaching techniques – speaking, listening, writing, vocabulary practice, using video, drama, role-play, games. Three workshops acquainted the participants with the projects going on in the region: CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching for Adults) courses and the Forum for Across the Curriculum Teaching (FACT) in Bulgaria and communication and leadership in Macedonia. The teachers also got information and instruction how to apply for a project at ECML (European Centre for Modern Languages).

The presenters of the papers talked on various topics they had studied or done research on. Many dealt with ESP, some investigated the importance of culture in leaching a language, bilingualism, grammar etc. The efforts to form an English Language Centre at the SEE University at Tetovo was presented.

At the ELTAM meeting the members discussed the possibilities of better information circulation, especially among the teachers out of Skopje. A decision was reached to form a network of teachers who will be responsible for informing the members of their region and organizing local ELTAM activities, as well as representing their regional community at central meetings. It was also decided to establish an ELTAM website for more efficient information of the members.

As stated in the feedback questionnaire, participants took away from the conference new ideas, friendship, as well as feeling of warmth, hospitality and good will. Although the overall impressions were gradually positive, recommendations were made about how to make future conferences even nore effective.

REPORT ON THE MEETING OF ELTAM LOCAL COORDINATORS

Fanija Smickovska, Center for Foreign Languages

The aim of the meeting held at “Kiril I Metodij” Primary School on December 14, 2002 was to establish the network of the local ELTAM co-ordinators. There were 18 participants: 9 local co-ordinators, 8 ELTAM representatives and the ELT manager at the British Council, Macedonia.

I. The meeting started with a brief address by Gordiana Gjorgova, the ELTAM president, and an introduction of the local co-ordinators. The ELTAM president then gave an account of all ELTAM activities so far, commenting on particular events and referring to the past period as being a successful one given the number of people actively involved and the situation in the country. She presented the report on the IATEFL planning workshop in Zagreb and informed the participants about the twenty sponsored places for newly qualified teachers for the IATEFL conference in Zagreb on September 25-28, 2003.

Following this, the local co-ordinators were asked to give their opinion and ideas about how to enable expanding and better functioning of the network. Here are some of their remarks:

- ELTAM should ask for support at the Ministry and they should become partners

- there shouldn’t be any distinctions in terms of levels (primary, secondary, university ) within ELTAM

The representatives expressed their concern about the financial difficulties of the teachers and added that some of them couldn’t afford the membership fee or seminar/conference costs.

II. Tim Philips, the ELT manager at the British Council, talked about the prospects for co-operation between the British Council and ELTAM. At the beginning of his speech, he suggested making a small membership leaflet in view of marketing and promotion of ELTAM. He added that regional meetings open to non-members should be held once a year and that the teachers’ community in the regions needed more seminars or workshops in order to become motivated to join ELTAM.

After giving a brief description of his work at the British Council, he emphasised that one of his more important objectives is to establish a lasting partnership between the British Council and ELTAM, especially through projects. His opinion is that the support by the Ministry of Education is of great importance and this is especially necessary for the teacher-training project. The co-operation with the Ministry of Education should be a long-term process and he offered to assist in establishing the relations between ELTAM and the Ministry representatives. He also announced the intention of the British Council to carry out activities throughout the country.

In view of all this, the ELT manager dwelled on the funding issues shedding light on the British Council’s policy of supporting projects.

Finally, the participants at the meeting were acquainted with the latest and future activities of the British Council in the country and the region:

This workshop is suitable for teachers teaching science subjects in English or teachers of English who would like to teach the language through content.

· the plan to form a Readers’ Group with people interested in meeting in a group to discuss books in English of their own choice. The first meeting will take place at the British Council at 17.00 on Wednesday 19^th February 2003.

· The Writing School Project – The aim of this project is to raise the competence of secondary school teachers of English in the teaching and evaluation of writing.

· Macedonian Drama and Creative Arts Project (MADCAP) – This project will include a one-day workshop, a summer course and a drama festival.

At this stage, all attendants were divided into two groups and worked on giving suggestions about the two projects. The workshop session ended with rounding up the teachers’ ideas.

III. The afternoon session of the meeting was designed as a workshop in which the participants were invited to explore ideas and proposals concerning the meeting’s objectives. They were divided into three groups in accordance with the following objectives:

· Planning the Annual Programme and the long-term possibilities for future activities of ELTAM and sources of funding

After the reports on the results attained in the group work, useful conclusions were drawn and final proposal documents were created.

The participants agreed that the meeting was of great use to them and it was the first step in establishing the local ELTAM network.

Report on the IATEFL planning workshop for the ,,Finding yourself as a teacher,, NOTIATEFLEAST conference that will take place in Zagreb on 25-28, September 2003

The workshop was organized in Zagreb in Hotel Panorama on 21-24 November 2002 and it was hosted by The British Council Croatia. The facilitators were Roy Cross of British Council Croatia and Margit Szesztay of IATEFL Hungary. Participants of the workshop were representatives of the National Techers’ associations and NQT newly qualified teachers from Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Ukraine and Russia. Gordiana Gjorgova and Miroslava Pavlova Anevska were representatives of ELTAM, from Macedonia and their presence their was sponsored by the British Council Macedonia.

The aim of this workshop was to plan the IATEFL conference that will be held in Zagreb, Croatia from 25-28 September 2003. The conference is intended to bring together, motivate and network the next generation of teachers, members of ELTECS, IATEFL and of National teachers’ associations.

During the seven sessions of the workshop, the participants worked on defining the theme and aims of the conference and came up with the title, Find yourself as a teacher, which has to be proposed to other members of the planning committee and agreed on later.

The aims of the conference were defined around the needs of newly qualified teachers NQT and few that were mentioned are: sharing ideas, learning some practical tips, networking, building confidence in adjusting the syllabus, coping with challenges and raising awareness among young teachers. They need to be refined later and agreed upon by everybody. In the next sessions there was planning of the shape and content of the conference with several suggestions about the programme, which will be decided later, in accordance with the contributions that will be received.

There was also a session about the budget and financing of the conference, as well as, discussion about the quotas. Each national teacher’s association, which is liable to the Wider membership scheme will be offered a number of sponsored places. They will have to inform their members or potential members that are NQT or work with them, and start publicizing the event so that the organizing committee will be informed in due time about the number of participants from each country. A quota proposal was prepared and it will be sent to the associations as soon as it is confirmed.

At the end of the workshop the participants volunteered to refine separate parts of the documents for the preparation of the conference and set up a time framework for the conference deadlines. They all agreed that such a conference will be of great benefit to the teaching profession in the future with focus on the challenges and skills transfer not only among the individuals, but among systems as well. There was a feeling of enthusiasm at the end that with careful planning and dedication, everybody will contribute to a successful IATEFL event in Zagreb in September 2003.

During the month of December the members of the organizing team worked on the registration forms and call for contributions, which has to be ready by January 15 2003. As soon as it becomes official it will be announced to ELTAM members and other interested teachers. ELTAM will cooperate with The British Council Macedonia on the organization of the conference and the selection of the sponsored participants from Macedonia.

Anzela Nikolovska, English Department, Faculty of Philology

In line with the efforts of The Macedonian English Teachers` Association for networking and cooperation with other English Teachers` Associations, in September 2002 a Partnership Agreement was signed with the Bulgarian Asociation of English teachers which is an IATEFL associate member. According to the agreement, two members of one Association (at least one participant must be a presenter) can attend the Annual Conference of the other Association which will cover the participation fees, whereas the travel expenses will be covered by the home Association.

the eleventh National Conference of the Bulgarian Association of English Teachers (BETA - IATEFL) which took place in Sofia on 21^st and 22^nd September 2002.

The two Conference days were a rare opportunity to get an idea of how an Association of English Teachers functions, to make contacts, learn practical tips on how to make the English classroom a better place, etc. It was highly illuminating to hear the keynote speeches of Peter Medgyes, Hana Kryszewska and Roy Cross who addressed issues such as humour in the classroom, the developments in psychology that teach EFL teachers and how individuals can cross professional borders. The variety of workshop topics made it difficult for participants to choose which session to attend. Topics ranged from The Forum for Across the Curriculum Teaching, testing, drama and teaching culture to teaching human rights and English conceptual metaphors.

At the BETA Annual General Meeting BETA President Dr. Ellie Boyadzhieva submitted the annual financial report and gave information about the activities and achievements of BETA (among which the Open BETA Days, the four Special Interest Groups and the website of the Association) as well as organisation issues such as rolling memebership.

Apart from the interesting workshops and plenaries, there was also a book exhibition with a special discount and a prize draw as well as a wonderful cocktail party.

One left the Conference enriched with new ideas, contacts and respect for all the hard work that the Organising Committee had invested to make this event a success.

Email: anzela@freemail.com.mk

How do you make lessons so memorable that students easily remember what happened and what language they learned? Drama in ELT offers one dynamic way to achieve this.

Give me an example

You’re teaching the present perfect. Ask the students to mime to each other things they have done in their lives (e.g. “I have climbed a mountain”) or situations where you can see something has happened to the person (e.g. “I have broken my arm”) and the others guess what has happened using the present perfect. This can even be a competition with points for correct guesses.

Better still you can think of a dramatic “frame” for your whole lesson. For example, you want to practice the structure “going to”. So build your lesson around the idea of a community who are facing a big flood: What’s going to happen? What are they going to do?

But aren’t most people shy to act?

Drama in ELT is not about becoming an actor or performing on a stage. It is about giving people confidence in using the language. Obviously you don’t immediately expect students to mime or perform. You gradually introduce drama techniques.

How does drama help learning?

Drama has the potential to increase English learning in an interactive and fun way. By using techniques that actors use to prepare themselves for drama – warm-ups, mime, improvisation, still images – drama in ELT activates the whole person in language learning and integrates the physical, affective and intellectual, so that you can find ways of reaching all types of learner. Here’s evidence of drama’s effectiveness from what one student said after participating in a drama-based lesson:

I have learned that every change and new way of learning helps you to love what you learn and learn it better; it also helps in socialising with my fellow-students and having something to remember.

How can I find out about drama in ELT?

British drama in education web site with a lot of inspiring ideas and information including lesson plans that can be adapted to ELT

How can I start drama in ELT in Macedonia?

If you’re interested in exploring this approach to ELT, then the British Council will be running workshops and other events, including a drama festival, for students and teachers. Contact Tim Phillips to be put on the contact list for these events.

The five principles of brain-friendly learning are designed to make learning a joyful, rich and memorable experience that has a measurable impact on personal and organizational success. This article, which deals with the first principle, is adapted from a free weekly email for trainers, coaches and facilitators, available from Kaizen training: www.kaizen-training.com or ++44(0)1923 262278.

Five Principles of Brain-friendly Learning

How do children learn to walk?

By doing it, falling over, getting up and trying again until they are successful. How can adults help children to walk? Giving them lectures on locomotion, muscle tone and balance probably doesn’t help much. What does help is providing a good environment for walking (a safe place for mistakes, a few things to hold onto) and plenty of encouragement. The fact is, when it comes to teaching a child how to walk, you can’t do the learning for her – she has to do it herself.

The same is true of adults. Learning is a process that happens inside their brain, not yours. All you can do is create a good environment for learning (a safe place for mistakes, a few things to hold on to) and plenty of encouragement.

That’s why we like the term ‘facilitator’ rather than trainer, teacher or instructor. Don’t get use wrong – we’re not saying that all learning has to be purely by trial and error. There is a place for giving input and sharing expertise, but it has to be kept in its place. You can’t do someone else’s learning for them.

Creation of meaning

The role of the facilitator is to design a series of activities or experiences through which the learners can incorporate new insights, skills and strategies into what they already know, do and believe. In other words, learning is not about the consumption of information – it is about the creation of meaning, value and action on the part of the learner. Learning is not something you ‘absorb’, it is something you create for yourself – literally and psychologically – in your total mind/body/system.

More than 80% of the neurons in our brain are interneurons, they are designed to detect patterns and make meaning, rather than simply take in information that has already been neatly processed. Thus, the human brain learns best when we:

This means that a trainer must develop superb facilitation skills, rather than just being an information ‘hose’. And these skills are extremely useful in all kinds of business contexts – from chairing meetings to coaching a ‘problem’ employee.

Challenge!

Take a learning experience you facilitate and identify design improvements through answering the following questions:

· How can you spoon-feed less and have the learners create meaning and value for themselves? What are you currently giving them (eg handouts, quizzes, models, diagrams, process-charts, and so on) that it might be better for them to create as part of the learning process?

· What is your current ratio of instruction to activity? How appropriate is this?

This can offer a challenge to the traditional instructional design process, which often takes far too long and focuses more on the content than the process.

TIP Things that are created by the learners are 10 times more memorable and meaningful than things created by the facilitator.

Presentations, handouts job aids, checklists, quizzes and tests, stories and metaphors, roleplay, scenarios, process flowcharts.

As a rough rule of thumb, we suggest that at least 70% of the time on any learning event is taken up by the learners doing something, rather than focusing on the facilitator. A training course is not something you do to people – or even for people – but something you do with people.

Brain-friendly* is a term registered to Mark Fletcher and used here with his permission.

History of St. Valentine's Day

St Valentine's Day was supposedly started in the time of the Roman Empire. In Ancient Rome, the date of February 14 was a holiday to honor the Queen of Roman Goddesses and Gods, Juno. Juno was known as the Goddess of women and marriage. The next day February 15 was the first day of the Festival known as the Feast of Lupercia.

On February 14 was said that the young boys and girls of the villages would write down the names of every girl and place these names in a jar of which each young man would have to draw a name of a girl and this particular maiden would be their partner for the duration of the festival. Sometimes these parings would last a year and end up in marriage.

These rituals under the laws of Claudius were banned as the Emperor believed that the reasons why men would now go to war were because they did not want to leave their lovers or families. As a result all marriages and engagements were canceled. Saint Valentine, a Roman priest, was said to have married these couples in secret and for this he was executed on the 14th day of February.

While St Valentine was in jail it is said that he fell in love with the jailers daughter. By a miracle or some say by the prayers of Valentine she gained her sight and as a last farewell in a note he was to "From Your Valentine".

Another story as to the origins of Valentine's day was that he was a priest who was also a physician and would cure the sick. He was also said to have tried to cure the jailers blind daughter, but, was arrested and on the day of his execution he wrote a note as a final farewell saying "From your Valentine" which some say is what caused her to gain her sight.

It is also said whilst he was in jail awaiting execution that he was sent little notes and flowers from the children whom he had helped when they were sick. This also may have been one of the reasons why he sent a farewell note to the jailers daughter and why we send valentines.

St Valentine's Day is celebrated on February 14 of each year, the reason why it is celebrated on this day is because this was the day that the Patron Saint of Lovers "St Valentine" was supposedly executed on. On this day lovers all around the world mark this occasion as a day for sending poems, cards, flowers or candy, etc. They might also be a social gathering or ball to mark the occasion.

Another Interesting origin is that St Valentine was the patron Saint of Epilepsy reason was that he was supposedly a sufferer and took a keen interest in those who suffered from this affliction and also that those who suffered this disease were suffering from Valentine's sickness.

What you could do with your students for St. Valentine’s Day

1. Say I love you in different languages

Q: What is the difference between a girl who is sick of her boyfriend and a sailor who falls into the ocean?
A: One is bored over a man the other is a man overboard.

Q: What did the boy octopus say to the girl octopus?
A: Can I hold your hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand?

Q: What did one snake say to the other snake?
A: Give me a little hug and a hiss, honey.

Q: What is the perfect breakup gift to give to someone for valentines day?
A: A copy of the book sex for dummies.

Q: What did the valentine card say to the stamp?
A: Stick with me and we'll go places!

· Bunch of roses with a ring inside one of the flowers (suggested for those intending on proposing to their loved one)

· Put hersheys kisses all over the floor and leave a note saying "I kiss the ground you walk on"

· Give your loved one a pizza with shape of a heart, a letter and a gift inside the pizza´s box.

· Put a chocolate candy (Kisses) on the side of your couple, so when he came to your room, he will see it. Three days before of St. Valentine Day.

· Cut out little hearts, a whole bunch of them, and put them inside a pretty card with a little glitter. When your beloved opens the card, magic comes out!

True Love

Moses Mendelssohn, the father of the well-known German composer, was far from being handsome. Along with a very short stature, he had a grotesque hunchback.

One day he visited a merchant in Hamburg who had a lovely daughter named Frumtje. Moses fell hopelessly in love with her. But Frumtje was repulsed by his misshapen appearance.

When it came time for him to leave, Moses gathered his courage and climbed the stairs to her room to take one last opportunity to speak with her. She was a vision of heavenly beauty, but caused him deep sadness by her refusal to look at him. After several attempts at conversation, Moses shyly asked, ‘Do you believe marriages are made in heaven?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he replied. ‘You see, in heaven at the birth of each boy, the Lord announces which girl he will marry. When I was born, my future bride was pointed out to me. Then the Lord added, ‘But your wife will be humpbacked.’

‘Right then and there I called out, ‘Oh Lord, a humpbacked woman would be a tragedy. Please, Lord, give me the hump and let her be beautiful.’

Then Frumtje looked up into his eyes and was stirred by some deep memory. She reached out and gave Mendelsson her hand and later became his devoted wife.

Barry and Joyce Vissell

These and many more activities could be found at http://www.stvalentinesnet.com

Coming IATEFL Events

2003

23^rd Annual Thailand TESOL International Conference, Bangkok: ‘ELT 2003: Culture, Content and Competency’

XXXIV Annual Conference of ELTAI: ‘Teaching English in ESL Contexts: Theories, methods and Techniques’, Chennai. Contact S. Rajagopalan at: sadasivraj@yahoo.co.in

TTEd and Research Special Interest Groups Conference: ‘The role of research in teacher education’, Nottingham Trent University.

Joint IATEFL, ESP and TEA SSIGs Workshop, Conference on ‘English for Specific Purposes and Testing, Evaluation and Assessment’, Bielefeld.