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EmailA guest post by Misty Adoniou
In this blog, Misty Adoniou shares her experience attending and speaking at the TESOL Greece 2016 convention, in Athens, Greece, 19–20 March.
TESOL Greece is a TESOL affiliate with a long history, founded in 1980, and I had the very great honour of presenting the opening keynote at its 37th convention held in Athens on 19–20 March 2016 .
I attended as part of TESOL International Association’s Affiliate Speaker Program, which gives TESOL affiliates the opportunity to have a member of the Board of Directors speak at their annual event.
Acropolis Museum, Misty Adoniou front centre.
I may have been the opening speaker, but TESOL Greece knows how to party, and the convention actually got underway the evening before with a night time tour of the magnificent Acropolis museum, followed by an evening of Greek food and dance at a local tavern.
The theme of the convention was “Join the Education R-Evolution,” and in my keynote I urged for a revolution in the ways we teach spelling and vocabulary to English language learners. We went on a revolutionary evolutionary journey through the history of English spelling. Later in the day, I joined a panel with other keynote speakers, Jeremy Harmer, and former IATEFL Presidents Alan Maley and Carol Read as we answered questions from the audience on an array of topics from testing to what keeps us motivated.
Interactive plenary.
Misty Adoniou (R) and Jeremy Harmer
The TESOL Greece team is a wonderfully young and energetic board, and they made fantastic use of social media throughout the convention. The plenaries were all live streamed to members, and interviews were conducted throughout the day with speakers who had come from all around the globe. These interviews were videoed for members to view.
Misty Adoniou interviewed for TESOL Greece.
Day 1 finished with more food and dance at a local bar for all the convention participants, where an excellent time was had by all, with tasty Greek treats and a lot of Greek dancing!
Convention party.
On Day 2, I had the opportunity to attend some wonderful presentations, from using street theatre to teach English, with performers Katerina Drakopoulou and Efi Tzouri, to examining the tools used by advertising gurus to capture the attention of buyers and seeing how they might be useful for classroom teachers—a session by Nick Michelioudakis that was both entertaining and informative.
The convention finished a wonderful performance of Shakespeare with well-known ELT professional Luke Prodromou and his team, and yet another party! A great time was had by all, and my sincere thanks to Suzanne Antonaros and her team at TESOL Greece who hosted me.
If you’d like to attend a professional learning event with super hospitality and wonderful presentations, get along to next year’s TESOL Greece convention.
Misty Adoniou is an associate professor in language literacy and teaching English as a second language at the University of Canberra. She is a past president of the Australian Council of TESOL Associations and TESOL Greece, and a past chair of the Affiliate Leadership Council of TESOL International Association. Adoniou worked as a primary school ESL teacher for 10 years before moving to Greece and working in the field of EFL. In 2002, she moved into teacher education in Australia, where she teaches courses in TESOL, writing pedagogies, and children’s literature.
