08/2007 - Chennai, India

New and Emerging Technologies in ELT

Loyola College, Chennai, August 3 - 5, 2007

Powerpoint presentations and other materials from the conference are available to SIG members and conference participants

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The "New and Emerging Technologies in ELT" was a 3-day conference organized jointly by IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG, ELTAI (English Language Teachers Association of India) and Loyola College. It took place from 3rd to 5th August at Loyola College in Chennai (Madras) India.

The conference attracted 350 participants and presenters from 18 different countries and hosted 50 talks and workshops and numerous poster sessions. More specifically, countries represented at the conference were the UK, India, Australia, the USA, Italy, Malaysia, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey, Cyprus, Japan, Pakistan, Iran, the Ukraine, the UAE and Bangladesh. It was a wonderful mix of people, ideas, outloooks and experiences and the participants had many opportunities to exchange views and discuss new and emerging technologies. Opportunities for discussion were provided at question times and open scheduled discussions but also at the social events, the excursions and the delicious lunch and tea breaks.

The event developed three angles equally well: the academic, the social and the cultural angle.

The Academic Angle

The talks offered the participants a broad perspective of new developments in the area of technology and focused mainly on Web 2.0 technologies.

Jim Coleman's plenary (Open University, UK) explored some of the arguments for CALL and distinguished misconceptions from valid criticisms. He also focused on CALL's turn to the socio-cultural approach to learning in line with recent developments in SLA and society's widespread adoption of new technologies for social networking.

This focus on 'community' seemed to be one which was echoed in most of the talks and workshops of the conference - very much in line with Web 2.0 developments and the social networking culture which is encouraged.

Gary Motteram (University of Manchester, UK) and Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou (Cyprus Pedagogical Institute, Cyprus) talked about whether teachers are fit for Web 6.0 thus making a point about whether teachers are ready to deal with recent developments but also if they are equipped with the skills which will allow them to be able to keep up with future developments in this modern fast-changing world. They discussed the need to disengage from the hype and look into the real potential of technologies in relation to pedagogy and context. They offered a step-by-step approach in approaching Web 2.0 for language learning and discussed how colleagues who do not have access to fast bandwidth can still take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies.

Michael Coghlan (e-learning consultant, Australia) explored the potential of Internet technology to revolutionise the language classroom but also emphasized the new responsibilities of educators in providing guidance for the young people who are creating their identities in personal online spaces.

Eric Baber (freelance educational technologist, UK) talked about technology and innovation and when an innovation is an actual asset rather than just part of a bandwagon without any real benefit. Eric discussed when an innovation can yield useful results and how one should go about implementing it at institution-level.

The participants also had a chance to find out about many projects which implement Web 2.0 technologies in language classrooms around the world. Meg Cassamally (University of Nottingham, UK) talked about fostering collaborative reflectivity through asynchronous discussion forums. Revathi Viswanathan (ICFAI National College, India) talked about using mobile technologies in teaching soft skills. Caroline Tees and Emma Cosgrove (British Council, Singapore) presented on how they use Writeboard. Michael Cheng (National Chengchi University, Taiwan) discussed sharing videos over YouTube whereas Atanu Bhattacharya and Kiran Chauhan (H.M Patel Institute of English Training and Research, India) presented on how they use blogs in their teaching. Caleb Pritchard (Ferris University, Japan), Claire Ann Pinks (University of Siena, Italy), Nicolas Gromik (Tohoku University, Japan) also offered examples of Web 2.0 implementation.

The conference also included workshops which offered some hand-on practice to participants. These also focused on Web 2.0 technologies and social networking tools. Some sample workshops are Kalyan Chattopadhyay's (Bankim Sardar College, India) which showed participants how to use Yahoogroups for collaborative learning, Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou's (Cyprus Pedagogical Institute, Cyprus) workshop which presented a variety of CMC tools, Gary Motteram's (University of Manchester, UK) which focused on Moodle, Eric Baber's (UK) which focused on Wikis, Nicolas Gromik's (Tohoku University, Japan) which focused on video blogging and Stephen Jenner's (British Council, India) which focused on blogging.

For a look at the complete conference programme click here.

The Cultural and Social Angle

Every aspect of the conference provided many opportunities for social networking - the old-fashioned way! And every social aspect was tightly intertwined with cultural insights.

The conference's opening ceremony offered an insight into aspects of the local culture with samples of local dancing, which included the very elaborate Bharatanatyam dance.

The meals themselves were an interesting aspect of the local culture and the Tamil Nadu vegetarian cuisine.

Delegates had additional opportunities for networking and culture 'lessons' at the excursions organised by the conference. These included a tour of Chennai, an excursion to Kanchipuram (a temple town and also the centre of fine silk-weaving) and Mamallapuram (a town famous for its World-heritage sites and its stone carvings).

Overall, a great conference and congratulations are in order for to the organizing committee and the fantastic group of Loyola college student volunteers. This event is also a tribute to modern technology in that tremendous amount of work happened over the Internet with me - on behalf of LT SIG - working with ELTAI for long hours over a number of months without ever having met each other f2f - until we met at the conference ?

The conference organizing committee

S. Rajagopalan, S. Ioannou-Georgiou, G.M. James, V. Saraswathi, K. Elango, K.M. Prabhu, U. Raman, R. Viswanathan, L. Selvaraj, P. Ravindran

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The event was kindly sponsored by the University of Manchester and Summertown Publishing.

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