Until we meet again

Hello everyone, the conference has now finished and I survived my presentation. We won't be using this blog for a few weeks but the next time we're out and about we'll come back and add some more.

In the meantime, why not join in with our other blogs on our main website bbclearningenglish.com

Here are the links to our blogs and some other interesting areas of our website.

The Blogs
1) The Student Blogger

2) The Teacher Blogger

Other Interesting Links
1) How to (a functional English online series

2) The Flatmates (an interactive online soap)

3) Talk About English - a weekly webcast

4) Talking Business (a guide to the language you need to succeed in business)

Saturday - Paul's presentation day

Only three hours to go but I've been too busy to be able to finish my presentation. It's almost there but I need to edit some audio. Will I get the time or will I bluff it? Will my nerves hold out for another three hours? Will I have an audience - it seems very busy here but I'm not on stage until 17:45pm and there are plenty of planes, trains and automobiles going somewhere between then and now.

An update on the presentation tomorrow ... if I survive
Paul

The growth of Spanish

We had a visit from a colleague from the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish equivalent of the British Council. He explained that demand for Spanish tuition is outpacing supply, so the Cervantes is looking to further develop its distance learning and online offers. We showed him bbclearningenglish.com... and he suggested we should look at www.cervantes.es and compare notes....

LUNCH

Everyone has just disappeared off to lunch and important meetings, so it's very busy at the moment (in fact this has been written in stages!). We've had visitors today from Mozambique, Estonia, Germany, Norway, the UK, the Netherlands....

Some photos of us working

Friday - the busy day

Almost 12 and this is the first opportunity to try and blog today. I'm not sure how long I will be left alone so this could be very very short.

First, a magnetic sentence. Make of this what you will...

"When a chat quizzes you take answers that ..." (anonymous)

Can you complete the sentence?

And another, "is he a teacher or a student?"

Gotta go, back later

Professor Chen Lin at BBC stand

Prof Chen Lin of Beijing Foreign Studies University at the BBC Learning English stand at IATEFL with Andrew Thompson. Prof Chen reminded us that he negotiated the first broadcast of Follow Me, the BBC television ELT series presented by Kathy Flower, on China's main network, CCTV, in the 1980s. Prof Chen also designs English courses for the Chinese Ministry of Education, and is an adviser for China Daily and the Chinese Open University, CCRTVU.

Lunch time at the IATEFL conference centre in Aberdeen..... BIG queues

Felicia Moh, English Language Projects Manager at the British Council in Nigeria, says hello to friends and colleagues across Africa. Felicia is using BBC Learning English radio programmes with the Council and local broadcasters to help teachers around the continent.

Dr Gill Philip, from Universita degli Studi di Bologna CILTA, playing the BBC Learning English word game. Her message: Everyone can learn to speak a language

ESOL - Scottish Accents

A teacher from a language school in Fife: we have many immigrants on ESOL courses. Most materials, recordings etc that they come across have southern English accents. Yet out on the streets and at work everyone they come into contact with speaks broad Scots. It can be very confusing for them!

Random feedback about bbclearningenglish

* From a delegate who works in publishing in Germany: I like the drag and drop exercises you've done. They are simple, don't require any complicated technology, and they work. They follow the KISS principle - 'keep it simple, stupid'!

* From a Polish teacher - I use news from the BBC for my higher level students. What I really want is material in audio text and video.

* Teacher from Azerbaijan - English news and commentary is very helpful for our students

* English Language Teachers' Association of Afghanistan - we have very few materials, so need as much as we can get...

* Foreign Languages School, Nangjing, China - material on English culture is very helpful for our students

A relatively quiet moment... between sessions/seminars
and talks....

Thursday mid morning

Question on the stand: what materials do you have for advanced translation and interpretation students? They need high level English practice, and cross-cultural awareness.... Our answer: try Working Abroad on BBC Learning English.

The first magnetic sentences

We share my English (unknown)
Do take music live! (unknown)
We ask questions (unknown)
...

Rainy Thursday Morning

It is raining and a little cold. The heaters are on in the conference centre. Paul Carrie and Andrew have arrived, set up shop.. and IATEFL is starting.....but our BBC posters are still in the post. A very impressive digital radio (to be won in competition) is now on display. We are opne for business!

Time to go home

It's nearing the end of the first day, and the conference centre is getting ready to close. Three of us are already here (Andrew Thompson, Caroline Dunton and Paul Scott - find out more about two of us at our 'Meet the Team' page at bbclearningenglish.com).





As the lights begin dim the pressure is on to complete examples of our soft puzzles. So far, the going is not good - we've managed to complete 1 puzzle out of 4 in about an hour. Oh no, an update, Carrie has just completed the purple puzzle, just the green and blue to go.



Tomorrow, we'll be challenging the delegates to create sentences with our magnet puzzles. Will any of the sentences be worth publishing? Come here to find out.

Setting Up - Wednesday 18th April

Three photos taken whilst setting up the stand.


1) Andrew sorting out some teachers packs



2) Andrew setting up the stand (where is everyone else?)


3) Our stand (squashed in the middle but already attracting interest)