Things we learned from #iELT17

Things we learned from #iELT17

On the weekend of the 5th/6th May, ELTjam and Oxford TEFL organised the InnovateELT Conference in Barcelona. The theme of the weekend was Power to the Learner and we heard from people across the industry about ways in which we can think more about what learners want and need as they progress on their language-learning journey. By way of a summary, here the ELTjam team share some of their most memorable takeaways from the event and we link to other posts that talk about the conference.

Shaking up the ELT conference format

ELT conferences are great. They’re an opportunity to learn, to network, to make new friends. They’re also a chance to enjoy a few nights out where it’s acceptable that ELT is the only thing on the conversational menu! But having attended a couple of conferences already this year, with IATEFL on the way, and with my memories of past years still fresh, I increasingly feel that the ELT conference scene could benefit from a bit of a shakeup. On May 8–9th this year, ELTjam and Oxford TEFL Barcelona are hoping to do just that with our Innovate ELT Conference.

Here are a few of the things about ELT conferences that we felt were due an update and how we’ve decided to address those things for our event in Barcelona.