How to work effectively with students with special educational needs? How to support communication and mitigate conflicts? These are the exemplary topics of fifty workshops carried out at this year’s English Teaching Market (ETM) meeting attended by over 300 English teachers of village schools all over Poland.
Jubilee English Teaching Market was held at Stare Jabłonki at the end of June 2024.
As always, subjects of classes covered a broad range of issues. And as always, lectures and workshops on teaching methodology, applications of technology in teaching English or those offering ready ideas for exceptional and interesting language lessons were very popular.
“Already in the early May I start looking forward to the beginning of summer break and going to Stare Jabłonki,” says Agnieszka, an English teacher from Małopolskie province, who took part in the English Teaching Market conference for the third time. “ETM offers not only interesting and inspiring workshops but also an opportunity to meet teachers like me, working in small village schools. These meetings, discussions, the time we spend together and experience sharing are as important to me as participation in the thematic classes,” she explains.
The opening lecture was given by Marek Kamiński, a well-known traveler, philosopher and a Guiness Award winner who told us with passion about the role of resilience in crossing borders and winning what still hasn’t been won.
Among the lectures which most impressed the participants were those given by Paul Jenkins (The Psychology of Positivity), Jen MacArthur who was representing the US Embassy (Reading Pictures: Treating Images as Text to Promote Critical Thinking), or Toni Bourge (Team Work).
At this year’s round of conference among the lecturers and coaches there were a few experienced hosts such as: Tamara Ryzner, Sylwia Międzybrodzka, Grzegorz Michałek, and Magłorzata Porębska.
The workshop and training offer at the conference was supplemented by numerous and eagerly visited stands of publishers and distributors of English teaching aids such as books, magazines, games, etc. Equally popular were stands of NGOs as well as scholarship and grant programs whose representatives encouraged the conference participants to visit them.
For 20 years the English Teaching Market national educational meetings held for English teachers from small towns and villages as well as representatives of interested institutions, organizations, schools and publishers have been helping to develop the cooperation network. So far, a total of over 9,000 people have participated in them. They are an important element of the PAFF “English Teaching” program that is managed by the “NIDA” Nidzica Development Foundation.
