Teacher Development and Autonomous Learning Special Interest Group (TDALSIG)
IATEFL - Poland

about us

Welcome to the Teacher Development and Autonomous Learning SIG

The TD&AL SIG was set up in 1998.

Participants enjoy the friendly, supportive atmosphere at our events, which have often proved to be a springboard enabling them to develop further.

We run various kinds of events, including one-day workshops, weekend retreats and weekend residential conferences look at the link: what we do for a quick glance at our activities.

In the four years of our existence we have organised four weekend mini-conferences at the Cieszyn Affiliate of the University of Silesia. Apart from Polish teachers, we have had participants from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Denmark and the Basque Country. Although the structure of the weekend largely resembles most EFL conferences we have been experimenting with different conference formats. A certain proportion of the time has been programmed with specific sessions offered by participants but a certain amount is left unprogrammed. During these sessions we generally brainstorm to discover what the 'burning issues' are then form ourselves into groups on the basis of who has chosen what. We want to allow space for the immediate interests of the participants to fuel some of the sessions. One reason behind this is to allow participants who do not feel ready to offer a formal talk or workshop to present their work in a more informal setting. And the other is to allow the participants to create their own conference. We try and find a line between structure and spontaneity.

We have produced 10 newsletters so far and you can read articles from them on these pages.

We continue to endeavour to establish links with teachers from nearby countries so that we can take part in each other's events and share articles for newsletters. We are hoping that teachers from Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Latvia will be taking part. We have made contact with the teaching organizations in these countries and had enthusiastic responses.

Please look at our statement of purpose for formal definitions of how we operate.

If you are based in Poland and want to take part in our meetings please get in touch. And if you are involved in a similar organisation somewhere else in the world we would be interested to hear from you.

Marta Bujakowska (co-ordinator) embi@a4.pl