A first "rate" MATE event

Between 22-24 October 2010, in Iasi, the most important city in Moldavia, there took place the 11th edition of this conference, generously entitled “Teaching Resources in ELT”. This event brought together important names and famous publishing houses, giving all the participants the opportunity to benefit from three full and useful days and, at the same time, gave M.A.T.E. the possibility to record another successful event.

On the first day, after some memorable opening speeches, delivered by former chairs of the association, impactful names such as Michael Vince, Vaughan Jones and Philip Kerr delighted the audience with unforgettable plenaries (“Being resourceful with resources”, “Let’s talk about me: why students are your reachest resource” and “The wonderful world of word associations”). Just before some Irish dances, impeccably performed by Romanian students, Steven Fawkes enchanted all the teachers in the room with his plenary: “Something to do: Promoting Language Use Through Interesting Resources and Activities”.

On the second day, the participants followed other interesting topics, such as “The essential nature of creativity”, “Teaching advanced vocabulary”, “The power of image”, “Motivation – what really drives learning?”, “3Ms – What do we want our young people to know and be able to do?”, delivered by David A. Hill, Bob Obee, Ben Goldstein, Johanna Stirling and Noreen Caplen.

The celebration of English finished on the third day with equally attractive subjects, such as: “Challanges of teaching and learning writing. How your dictionary can help”, “Resources at your fingertips”, “Getting ready for Cambridge exams”, “Welcome to the SEETA world: 12 teachers’ associations – one online community”, the presenters being important names such as David Baker, Nicola Crowley, Monica Ralea and Philip Kerr.

These sessions gave our colleagues and guests the opportunity to share valuable insights into the workings of other European educational or training institutions, a serious of tools and practical guidelines for improving the methods of teaching English, showing how important it is to select the quality resources and to ensure that the learners have access to learning material that is relevant to there needs. We are sure that the resources presented during this conference and the information obtained have helped many techers to build on innovative material and methods, offering amazing ideas for subsequent projects.

Camelia ARHIP, English teacher, President of M.A.T.E.