TESOL MacThrac and Relaxing Afterwards.

The annual conference of TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) Macedonia/Thrace in N. Greece was upon us once more. The title was ELT (English Language Teaching) Reimagined, in fact asking us to align our presentations with the needs of 21^st century students. My talk focused on teachers’ perspectives, attitudes and role, particularly in the light of the major role played by the social media today.  It was a refined and realigned version of my IATEFL, Liverpool presentation last spring.

                  

Angeliki has been teaching pre-sessional courses at Glasgow and Durham universities, where students undergo intensive study-skill classes prior to beginning their post-graduate studies. Her particular area of interest is how to improve the reasoning in their formal writing.

         

                                         

 

Below I’m deftly doing a power-point presentation – none of that old dog nonsense, eh? Truth to be told, Angeliki had actually designed the materials for me – so, not too high-tech after all. But I want you to look carefully at the second picture. Having discussed various points and problems, I’m moving into the final phase where I recommend how we can assist our learners become more critical readers. There I am, reasonably confident, reading glasses in hand. I had decided against attaching a spectacle cord, so on my own head be it – or not, as is more appropriate! Inadvertently I laid my specs on a front desk nearby, promptly forgetting where I’d put them. I spent the rest of the talk, squinting at the notes on my handout and basically winging it from memory - paying the price of pride! :)

                 

 

After my presentation, Leo Selivan came to chat. He’s from Jerusalem; we’ve met at various venues and formed a mutual admiration for each other’s work! And it truly is an international event: here are I am with two local ladies, Angeliki – representing our capital city -  and Bobbie-of-the-eyebrows, who comes from Bulgaria and speaks excellent Greek.

    

 

Afterwards as it was a cold night and Angeliki had an early morning flight ahead, we decided not to eat out but instead get a ‘cerry oot’: souvlakia and gyro-roasted meat in pitta bread.   Well, I wasn’t being too lazy as a hostess  as the previous day I’d made soup for lunch, then for supper we had Chinese chicken and noodles, followed by a clootie dumpling with port sauce.

                    

Talking of lazy, these cold nights our moggies do enjoy some time indoors with us though their winter quarters are in the basement. Here Prunella is reclining under the coffee table,         

                          

Mr Mao has just found a newly-ironed sheet to relax on, while Pushkin and Paireag have completely taken over the settee. I guess Z has to find an alternative seating area!