BRAZTESOL Conference - Different Generations: A common Goal

We, Carolina Piacenti and Evania Netto have just attended the Braz-Tesol Conference in João Pessoa, AL. It was a great conference: well organized, in a great site (Escola Internacional Cidade Viva) and in a beautiful city. Furthermore, the quality of the presentations were fantastic and there wasn´t a single talk or workshop that we didn´t like or regretted attending.

However, as the topic of our own presentation was “generations” and the way that different generations of teachers can benefit by working together, we started paying attention to the mix of generations that could be seen and heard in the event. To start with, we browsed through the program and realized we could choose from a workshop given by one of the most renowned ELT senior representatives from Brasília-Sara Walker, watch the plenary session given by the brilliant Jeremy Harmer or feel touched by the emotional session about getting older given by Jane Revell. It was not only the senior generation that made presence in the conference, though. Looking again at the program, we could easily verify that the Baby Boomers and the members of Generation X were also active, bringing innumerous contributions to the field with names such as Ben Goldstein, Paul Seligson and Jeff Stranks. 

On the other hand, if one preferred to see the newer generation of speakers, they would not be disappointed as they would be able to check CTJ world-wide technology expert Carla Arena, an academic session about gaming and gamification used in teaching and learning a second language given by Janaína Weissheimer or the fantastic J.J. Wilson talk about teacher development. Nevertheless, due to the amount and variety of choices, one would not be able to see everything and would have to choose something related to their own field of interests which would turn out not to make attendees less enthusiastic but to enhance their social networking and ability to reflect upon their careers as they could see themselves working in pairs with Scott Thurnbury, Steve Taylore-Knowles, Élcio Souza or just a novice teacher who had just graduated from college.

So, as you can see, Braz-Tesol was a fruitful and enriching professional experience where different identities met to form a mosaic of generations that by collaborating could help each other achieve the goal that the older, the middle or the younger generations of teachers  have in common - to teach English in effective ways.