Languages Connect People
The Pancretan Conference has by now become an established major annual event attracting delegates from all over Greece and speakers from far and wide. Every srping, it is held in a different town of Crete island and is jointly organised by all the local PALSO associations of foreign language school owners. This year it was held in Aghios Nikolaos, in Lasithi, over two days, on April 29 and 30.

The location was fabulous and the conference site excellent with more than 500 delegates and representations from all the local PALSO Associations throughout Greece. It was an ideal opportunity to touch base with many friends of old, friends from all around Greece.

This year, the Pancretan Conference had an interesting and challenging theme around which all the keynote speakers were invited to respond to with their talks and workshops: "Languages Connect People". Some very interesting papers were presented on this topic, especially on the first day by EU member of parliament for Germany Mr George Hatzimarkos and Mr Christoforos Charalambakis, professor of Linguistics of the University of Athens. 

Luke Prodromou presented a very interesting report with conclusions drawn from his PhD research (Congratulations, Luke!) on the qualities of advanced learners who manage to attain native speaker status - a research of extreme interest to the non-native teacher of English whose aim and ambition is to reach that lofty height! The title was "Crossing borders with the Successful Use of English as an International Language" and at the moment of writing these lines I have a promise that Luke will send us a link or a summary of the points.

Kyriakos Vassilomanolakis also presented a very interesting talk with the title "Visual/Spatial learner types learn more easily"

Marisa Constantinides (writer of these lines)  also presented a paper on the theme of the conference with a focus on making the foreign language classroom a place for Peace Education. The talk was in Greek  but it will be translated soon. If any readers are interested in the topic, please send in your request and I shall notify you when the slides have been uploaded on this website.

HAVE THE DATES BEEN SET?

The dates for the examination are rumoured to be set some time in November (last weekend of November 2006), although the ASEP website itself has no official  announcement. This was enough  to start an influx of applications for the ASEP Course Preparation courses  at CELT Athens. We are pleased with the interest - most of it comes from past trainees who have recommended us to their colleagues and friends. Many thanks to all past candidates for this.

COWBOY OPERATIONS - Mr GRABBIT & Mrs RUN

ASEP candidate careers rely on getting good results and yet this seems to be a rather small concern by many institutions who have jumped on this particular bandwagon - eager to make a quick euro!

ASEP candidate preparation is a serious business and should be handled by serious and responsible institutions, not outfits out for for a quick take.
LANGUAGE EXAM PAPER - THE DOWNFALL OF MANY

I would especially like to caution candidates regarding the language paper. Studying vocabulary lists and following tips gleaned over a weekend seminar are not enough for producing excellent answers. Candidates need to experience language and to receive feedback on their writing, preferably by experienced native speakers who have a high level of language awareness and experience of  assessing advanced work. The same goes for lesson  planning.  

IS THE EXAM BECOMING MORE DIFFICULT?

The demands of the examination are increasing every year and new and unexpected questions may be introduced - for instance, last year, candidates were asked to provide a rationale for their lesson, something which our candidates had worked on, quite

simply because this is what we do and included in the list of possible new questions.

MORE HOURS ON OUR COURSE

This year we have increased the number of hours both for methodology and for the other exam papers. The competition is going to be tougher than ever and candidates - wherever they decide to go for their course, if they decide to attend one - should be cautious and diligent in their preparation.

WEBSITE SUPPORT

As for previous examinations, a special web with ideas for further work which will also give CELT trainees access to a bank of lesson plans written by successful candidates in the previous examination as well as dozens of samples of lesson plans written by very experienced and fully trained  teachers,  such as Cambridge DELTA Diploma candidates.