Getting Together Again

Another conference...

This diminutive lady, Dr Choong, is/was director of the main institute which the Fellows project is working with, so she is/was kind of our big boss (or seemed to think so). Her institute, ELTC (English Language Training Centre), in KL hosted this conference to coincide with her retirement (one compulsorily retires at 58 here). So there was a fair bit of pomp and ceremony surrounding her.

So we were wondering about the glass ball thing on the plinth next to her ...

So this was impressive! The important people were invited onto the stage, and then the most important one put his hands on the globe and it went green and flashy, and ended up with glowing writing inside it.

Lloyd no longer works with us in KT, he has transferred to Dr Choong's institute in KL, but of course he was also at the conference, along with one of our IPG lecturers who was presenting with him.

Bea came along for the last few days of her Malaysian trip. She had some serious "research" to complete about Malaysian culture (i.e. food).

I had two sessions to present, and Peter had one.

Unfortunately Peter's brilliant session on using movies (specifially Shrek) in English teaching was cut from 1 hour to 25 minutes - very hard to present in so short a time!

I then had 25 minutes to present the classroom game "Typhoon".

Not a particularly exciting time, living in a nice hotel in the big city.

This sign made it look like it could be intrepid and exciting ...

... not that one hopes for such an incident.

There was a little bit of "culture" around, though probably less than in Kuala Terengganu.

Bea got to go to a lot of shops, and things (clothes, shoes, belts, makeup etc) are very cheap here, so she has some memories to cherish and wear!

International Conference

It's all about our "KPI"s. (Key Performance Indicators). These are the things we have to achieve in our job in order to receive our end-of-year bonus. It's a bit different from working for an Education Department in Australia. So, anyway, number 3 is:

"Prepare and present one professional paper related to improving English Language teaching and/or training in Malaysia at a conference, seminar or other appropriate professional forum."

So, there you have it.

The MELTA conference (Malaysian English Language Teachers Association) was being held right here in Kuala Terengganu this year, so of course we chose to present at MELTA.



Lots of big meetings, plenaries, that sort of stuff.

And then parallel sessions - 113 of them - by people like me.



My session was late in the day, last one before tea, and I expected there wouldn't be many there. But it was packed, extra chairs needed to be found. Music and Rhythm (in the English teaching classroom) make for a popular topic.

Peter's was well attended too, talking about changes in Education. Unfortunately I was unwell and didn't get to attend his.