Sharing the best teaching practices

The basic objective of the conference was to promote teachers for their career and growth and give them the required assistance and guidance

By Humera Majeed

Recently, the Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (SPELT) organised an international conference for the teachers of Karachi. SPELT along with many other organisations, has been working for many years, for the promotion and development of English, as one of the major languages in Pakistan.

This year, the slogan of the conference was "We Share, we Care, we are the ELT World." It started with the key note address of Dr Monique Bournot from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She spoke on "Challenges and Benefits of Immersion Programmes." Her address focused on tribulations one can face in starting a new language program. She highlighted the challenges faced by the French language program, which are almost the same as one faces in running an English program in Pakistan. However, she pointed out that instead of criticising such difficulties, the actual thing is to work for the growth of English language otherwise, one day, it would become extinct as many languages have.

The 24th SPELT conference started on 18th of October with the plenary presentation of Dr Greame Cane, Director of CEL, AKU, Karachi. His presentation's title was: "Words Fail: Answer To Some Frequently Asked Questions About English." He discussed some structures of English which are generally and persistently misunderstood and become perplexing. It was really a knowledgeable presentation for the participants.

On the same day, multiple workshops were conducted. Papers on varied topics from classroom to curriculum, from children to stakeholders were read out to the audience. The presenters tried to share their best experiences and provided solutions and practices (exercises) which could help become a better teacher and definitely to promote education and English language in the long run.

The third and the last day of the conference began with the plenary of Dr Saiqa Imtiaz Asif from Bahauddin Zakariya University (Multan). She spoke on the role of schools in the endorsement of "linguistic cringe." In order to cease the formation of a nameless and nomadic generation, her paper advocated a balanced approach on the part of English teachers and educationists.

On the same day, another plenary speaker Dr Tim Murphy from Canada University of International Studies, Japan spoke on "Participation Precedes Learning." He threw light on different roles played by the teachers and the learners during assistance and conversion.

Besides this the conference also had numerous workshops, presentations and papers on the third day. Local and international teachers, trainers and people affiliated with education field shared some valuable experiences in this conference. The conference covered almost all the topics, which throughout the academic year could agitate the English teachers and also gave solutions to many problems which they face in the classrooms.

There was a full Urdu session too in the conference under the title: 'Tadrees-e-Urdu Mein Hum Zuban-o-Hum Qadam'. Under this title, various workshops for Urdu language teachers on skills, dictation, pronunciation, teaching techniques and other effective topics were held.

The basic objective of the conference was to promote teachers for their career and growth and give them the assistance and guidance. In essence the conference lived upto its slogan: "we share we care we are the ELT world."