32nd IATEFL Hungary Conference

The 46th TESOL Conference took place in Madrid, the capital of Spain . This time the
conference was named “ KmO- The Road Ahead Together” and it lasted for three days 8-
12th October. The Spanish colleagues welcomed a hundred and forty presenters from
different continents and we all enjoyed traditional Spanish hospitality. It was the first face
to face conference since March 2020, but there were many colleagues who attended online.
I was honored to be part of such an important event among so many famous colleagues.

During these three days of conference we all enjoyed inspiring workshops and insightful
plenary sessions.  There were ten different workshops at the same time and it was difficult
to choose which one to attend.  Although the workshops were with different topics they all
had something in common: a positive atmosphere and a lot of interesting and applicable
ideas. All speakers presented new perspectives in teaching English and shared their own
ideas and good examples of practice. Topics were different from inclusion and digital
pedagogy to English for special purposes and university teaching.
Opening plenary speaker was Sandie Mourao, and has delivered an excellent talk about
using picture books in classes, which was source of innovative pedagogical ideas.

I would like to single out two ladies with their vigorous workshops. One of them is Jenny
Dooley, known as author of numerous coursebooks. In her sessions Jenny shared with us
flipped learning, which is a pedagogical methodology that allows students to bridge the gap
between learning at home and practicing at school.
The second energetic lady is Teresa Betswick, also known as an author of many course
books, specialized for A2 and B1 exams. This time Teresa has tried to provide us some
practical activities to get our learners doing more with the coursebook. All the activities
require minimal preparation and can be easily adapted to different ages and levels.

Closing plenary speaker was Libor Štepanek and they really saved the best for the end.
Libor has thaught us how to change our perpectives, when he exposed us to
authenticcreative situations.His talk is designed to familiarise language teachers with the
Creative Approach to Language Teaching (CALT). 
I was extremely satisfied with my workshop also and participants reaction. They were
interested in topic and most of them liked my ideas about using digital pedagogy. I am
invited to deliver some webinars for colleagues in Greece and France, because the Spanish
colleagues had positive experience with my webinar in September 2022, some Spanish
colleagues have recognized me from that webinar and thanked me for useful ideas I have
shared with them.
All in all , attending this conference was a great experience. It was great combination of
learning, meeting new people and doing some sightseeing in beautiful Madrid.