TEFL International successfully hosted our First Annual TEFL International
Indian TESOL Conference at the Birla High School for Girls in Kolkata on
August 19th and 20th, 2006.Dr. Brian Tomlinson, host of Post-Grad Research at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK was the keynote speaker. Dr. Tomlinson made a strong impression on the over 140 participants with his talk on: A Flexible Framework for Teacher Developed Materials. The audience was very impressed on his interactive and engaging presentation about simple ideas for using materials in an active classroom.
Other speakers included: Dr. Pabitra Sarkar, Head of the Asiatic Society
in Kolkata and well-known linguist, who spoke about the phonological
barriers of South Asian learners; Author and journalist Jyotirmov Sanyal
gave a presentation on Developing Writing Skills.; Rashad Ullah, from
Yale University’s department of linguistics, spoke on the importance of
English morphology; Cultural expert and writer, Aditi Sen discussed the
problems with language teaching in India and English as a second
language in an Indian context.; Finally, Shamila Bose, principal at
Birla High School gave a talk on the need to look at different
approaches to language learning in India.TEFL International India will not be running a conference this year, but TEFL International China will be hosting their first annual teacher conference on Oct. 8th and 9th with Dr. Alan Maley as the keynote speaker. The venue is to be announced and although admission is free, tickets should be requested in advance by contacting mikef@teflintl.com