Member Event Fund Report – YALS

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‘Thank you YALS for being an important part of this years’ ELTA conference.’

Olja Milosevic, ELTA president.

The International Conference of English Language Teachers was organized by the national association of English language teachers – ELTA (www.elta.org.rs). The title of the event was Awaken your Curiosity. The event was held on 19 and 20 May, 2017 at Singidunum Univesty in Belgrade. According to the organizers there were about 350 participants from several countries (Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Bosnia, Turkey, Italy and Greece).

YALS had an info-stand in the main hall. The info-stand was not only a meeting point for the conference participants but also a place where all those who own, or think about starting a language school could get useful information about the only national association of schools and about Eaquals. As stated in the project proposal, all our printed materials – bookmarks, two-sided leaflets telling schools why they should join an association, A3 size description of YALS and Eaquals and the Information booklet with the list of all the member schools, contained both YALS and Eaquals logos. Also we printed pens with the YALS website and we had delicious cupcakes with the YALS logo on them.

Another segment of the project proposal was having 5 presenters from YALS. The presenters were: Katarina Andric with the workshop The Art of recycling, Sofija Ljiljak Vukajlovic with the workshop Aiming High with Gifted Language learners, Jovana Popovic with Global Issues for Future Citizens of the World, Jelena Spasic with The Giving Tree and Marija Pejatovic with Let’s Grow Together. All the presenters included both YALS and Eaquals logos on their slides and informed the audience that their presentations were supported by the Eaquals Members’ Event Funding.

The results of this project were manifold – it involved 5 presenters from 4 YALS school and 3 towns and enabled us not only to advocate high quality standards, creativity and commitment to teaching but also provided an opportunity to show a variety of ideas shared and developed within our organisation; it enabled us to promote the importance of standards and quality in school management and teaching and, by having an info-stand and distributing printed materials, it allowed us to be visible and competitive on the market.