IATEFL Diary Part 2

In part two of our IATEFL diary, one of our trainers Douglas tells you about his experiences of running a workshop and gives you a few insights into the city of Liverpool.

In Part 1, Andy wrote about the IATEFL conference this year in Liverpool, and to follow this up, I’m going to tell you about a workshop I did and some of the attractions I saw in Liverpool.  My workshop on Tuesday 9^th April was about every student's favourite part of their learning; the test!  We discussed attitudes to different forms of assessment and some practical ideas for communicative classroom testing.  I was happy to get a full room with a keen and lively audience, which helped to settle my nerves as a first-time conference speaker.  I gave some pros and cons of different ways of testing and, fortunately, the audience was full of questions throughout the workshop.

On the last day, I visited a few of the sights of Liverpool.  I started with the Tate Gallery and the Maritime Museum on the Albert Docks.  The Tate, which is free like the Tate in London, has a range of modern art, sculpture, paintings and installations, and is well worth a visit. My favourite piece was a piece called 'Twelve Blacks and Four Silvers' by Jesus Rafael Soto, an optical illusion of squares in a grid, which look like they are shaking if you move from side to side.

The Maritime Museum has a fascinating exhibition of ships that perished at sea, such as the famous Titanic from the film. It also has a Museum of Slavery, which aims to educate people about the slave trade through a collection of audio/visual and interactive displays.

I finished by heading into the city centre to see the famous Cavern Club, home of the Fab Four (that’s The Beatles for those who don’t know!). It was inspiring to walk around this famous venue, where so many great artists and bands have performed. The memorabilia on the wall includes original guitars used by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and there are gigs there every afternoon until late in the evening. Most of these are free but you have to pay a small entry fee for evening performances from Thursday to Sunday.

I had a great week in Liverpool and would recommend it to all our students for a daytrip.

By Douglas

Glossary

workshop - (n.) a short, interactive training session

keen - (adj.) interested

to settle someone’s nerves - (idiom) to calm someone down

pros and cons - (n. phr.) advantages and disadvantages

well worth - (adv. phr) a really good use of time

to perish - (v.) to sink (in this case) or to die

memorabilia - (n.) things worthy of being remembered; mementos

gigs - (n.) an informal word for concerts