Report on SCELT Forum – June 2024
The Slovak Chamber of English Language Teachers has designed a fabulous learning experience for (I guess) more than 400 professionals. We’ve been waiting for a long time for this annual conference, but 14th and 15th June 2024 was finally the first time in 5 years that it was possible to meet our Slovak colleagues at their ELT biggest event.
Kudos to the whole team of hardworking organizers of SCELT and especially to the chair – Jana Pastorkova who so enthusiastically manged to revive the Slovak association.
It has been a superb conference taking place in Banska Bystrica at a very convenient venue of Matej Bej University.
Since the forum was aimed mainly at public schools’ teachers its content was highly practical and touched upon very concrete teachers problems and solutions. I personally liked the fact that despite all the hype of AI at each and every recent conference, the Forum had only talks on this popular topic.
There were more than 55 lectures, plenaries and workshops with such renowned speakers as Grzegorz Śpiewak, Hugh Dellar, Barbara K. Horvath, Claudia Molnar, Rakesh Bhanot, Sylvie Doláková and many more.
Plenaries were delivered by Judith Kovács, Grzegorz Śpiewak and Hugh Dellar.
Also, David Fisher & Mark Andrews invited the audience into an inspiring journey of live reading of The Bear – educational theatre’s new play.
I had an opportunity to present a talk “Public speaking to boost students’ balanced development” which was very well received.
Forum’s organization was flawless thanks to frequent announcements, effective signposting and online programme available here:
The Forum’s papers, slides and materials could be viewed here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ynaijs6TstQ7x0HWE8ZK52f6FrzcUPDn.
You may check out the photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/bxfrxn36ScGcV7aMA
The Forum was accompanied by Reception and International Evening along with an event recognising the culture of participants’ countries. That was a great moment to chat and exchange comments on ELT matters, drink a glass of wine & sway on the dancefloor with long not seen colleagues.
I would like to thank Slovak Chamber of English Language Teachers for inviting me to the Forum which also gave me a chance to admire the natural beauty of Slovakia.
I would like to extend warm wishes to SCELT!
I could go to Slovakia’s biggest ELT event thanks to IATEFL Poland grant.
