AAELTA+conference+reflection+by+Fatih+Gün

AAELTA conference reflection by Fatih Gün;

I will talk about the presentation held by Aschalew Teklu Minas and this conference is about the teacher development through peer presentations. Peer presentation is an activity that a teacher gives a presentation about a topic in any subject to his/her colleagues. Before starting to his presentation Mr. Minas shows some examples of peer presentations which are made by his friends working as teachers in AAELTA(Addish Ababa English Language Teachers’ Association). These teachers are giving peer-presentations not only indoor but also outside of the classroom even in a cafe. Although AAELTA is not a formal company, it has survived due to its involvement in English teacher development projects initiated by the British Council. AAELTA makes some activities to help teachers to improve their teaching skills and one of these is Saturday meetings which are unique to AAELTA and these meetings are arranged and attended on members’ convenience, so not consistent and organized. These Saturday morning meetings help teachers to be more professional in their fields by helping them via peer presentations. These sessions are just like a session in which people interact with each other share their knowledge, feelings, experiences with others. They also discuss how these sessions could contribute better to teachers’ career. To evaluate the benefits of peer presentations they have given questionnaires to some people to make a research. Mr. Minas shares the results of these questionnaires. Some of these people who answered questions have experienced peer presentation for 1-3 years, some 4-6, 7-9,10-12 and finally some 13or above. Half of the respondents have attended more than 20 session; 65%of the respondents have attended over 15 sessions and 85% over 10. 70% of the respondents attended most sessions after completing ELT training. 90% of the respondents have given presentations in few or none of the sessions they attended. 80% of the respondents have felt that sessions make contributions to their professional career. This is an important result because it shows that these sessions are held in a good way to help teachers to improve themselves. 85% of the respondents feel that the sessions have contributed at least much to their knowledge of ELT concepts of issues. More than half of the respondents feel that the sessions have contributed to their knowledge of English language testing methods or techniques. The most important reason for this is interaction with other experts. Mr. Minas says that thanks to this interaction teachers find opportunity to see others’ strategies, techniques. These the same number of people also think that peer presentations have made contributions to their teaching skills in the classroom. Thanks to peer presentations, they find opportunity to see others’ ideas about the topics and also share their own ideas with others. According to Mr. Minas, another thing peer presentation do is contributing at least much to their problem solving skills. Respondents also say that it contributes to their team work abilities and creativity. To sum up, this session of conference was held by Aschalew Teklu Minas to show the positive ways of peer presentations in teachers’ professional career.