KARACHI: The 32nd Society of English Language Teachers (Spelt) International Conference-2016 will be held from Oct 29 to 30 at the Habib University here.

“Starting from Karachi, the Spelt Conference will move on to Islamabad, Lahore and Abbottabad where it will be held simultaneously on Nov 5 and 6,” said Prof Zakia Sarwar, founder and honorary executive director of Spelt, during a press conference held at the Karachi Press Club here on Thursday.

“Education is not a priority with neither our civil nor our military governments. But quality education requires planning and continuity. The crimes committed by the consecutive governments in Pakistan is not doing that and not paying attention to teachers’ education. All do lip service,” she said, adding that just publishing textbooks was not enough as teaching required technical know-how on how to teach from books.

Ameena Saiyid, managing director of Oxford University Press that has been collaborating with Spelt for these conferences over the years, said that it was a good way of interaction among teachers, especially English language teachers. “Some 3,000 teachers are impacted through this conference. They learn from each other by sharing of their expertise and knowledge,” she said, giving all credit to Spelt for creating this platform. “It is a very powerful international forum not to be missed,” she added.

Dr Asif Farrukhi spoke on behalf of Habib University, which is partnering with Spelt for the first time. “Habib University is interested in following what Spelt and OUP are doing. The dedication and voluntarism of your teachers should be learned from,” he said.

Lubna Mohiuddin, the conference coordinator, said this would be her fourth conference. “The best thing about this is that our founding members are still with us and mentioning the young people,” she said.

Informing further about the upcoming conference, Mohsin Tejani said that over a thousand teachers from schools, colleges, universities and other academic institutions, besides journalists and business professionals, were expected to attend the event in Karachi.

The globally respected conference, now in its fourth decade, focusses on key areas of professional development in the vital field of English language teaching. Like earlier Spelt conferences, this one also will feature ground-breaking sessions led by professionals and experts in the fields of English language teaching, or ELT, English as a second language, or ESL and teachers of English to speakers of other languages or TESOL from Pakistan and across the globe.

This year’s highlights include Dr Dudley Reynolds, president TESOL, US, who will deliver the keynote address on ‘Expanding your horizons in ELT’.

Renowned academic Dr Arifa Syeda Zehra will address the Urdu strand. Other prominent national and international speakers include Adrian Tennant, ELT consultant and ESL lecturer from the UK, Dr Phyllis Ghim-Lian Chew, professor of English language and literature from the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and Dr Christine Ludwig of Association Systemic Functional Linguistics Australia besides our very own Abbas Husain of the Teachers Development Centre and Prof Zakia Sarwar of Spelt.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2016