BUSEL held its 8th International Conference at the Bilkent Hotel between 23-25 January. This year’s theme was “Speaking in the Monolingual Classroom: A need for a fresh approach?”. The school hosted over 50 speakers from 6 different countries, including Britain and the USA, as well as over 250 participants from 4 different continents, with presentations and workshops on diverse topics linked to the theme of teaching and speaking in today’s world. The conference addressed some of the key issues involved in teaching and speaking in the mono-lingual context and drew upon the experiences of teachers, learners, trainers, materials writers, and researchers.
This year’s plenary speakers for the conference included, Martin Bygate (University of Leeds), Hugh Dellar (University of Westminster), Jeffrey Connor-Linton (Georgetown Unıversity), Barry O’Sullivan (University of Reading), Alan Tonkyn (University of Reading) and Adrian Underhill, (International Teacher Training Institute, Embassy CES), all renowned researchers in the field. Research papers presented by the BUSEL staff stressed the importance of training students to better express themselves in informational, interactional and instructional contexts as well as in oral presentations.
The annual BUSEL ELT Conference is now an established event in the ELT world, attracting prominent names from Britain and the USA. The conferences have provided a rich forum for teachers, lecturers, teacher trainers, researchers, curriculum and testing experts, materials writers and educational managers from a variety of institutional contexts to explore issues and share their views, perceptions and experiences.