KARACHI: The two-day 42nd Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (Spelt) International Conference commenced at four venues simultaneously on Saturday.

Now in its 42nd year, the conference is being held under the theme of ‘Bridging Language and Learning: Designing Equitable Practices for Diverse Classrooms’ for which a community of educators, researchers and practitioners have united to share their commitment to meaningful, inclusive and transformative English language teaching.

According to the chairperson of the 2026 conference, Raabia Hirani, Spelt’s four academic partner venues each explored a distinct dimension of equitable English Language Teaching (ELT) practice. Hence the Habib Public School hosted ‘Innovations in English Language Education’, Durbeen at GECE looked at ‘Multilingual Language Education: Research, Practice and Policy’, Happy Home School System convened ‘Digital Literacies and Language Development’ and Iqra University (IU) School System presented ‘Making ELT work in Diverse Classrooms’. “Together these symposiums reflected the breadth and depth of ELT challenges and possibilities in diverse Pakistani classrooms,” said Ms Hirani.

At the Habib Public School, the opening ceremony of the conference included a plenary address on ‘Before Innovation: What is Worth Preserving? — Innovating with Purpose’ by Chair, Outreach Council, Spelt and Managing Director, Teachers’ Development Centre, Abbas Husain.

Mr Husain’s interactive session explored the human capacities that give educational innovation its purpose: sustained attention, imagination, thoughtful expression, generous listening and independent judgement.

Two-day Spelt conference commences at four venues

Through an encounter with a short text by Nobel Laureate Laszlo Krasznahorkai, he reflected on classroom practice which helped participants consider how these capacities grow through the teacher’s choices and the relationships that make learning possible.

“What happens when efficiency displaces reflection, or ready access to answers diminishes the willingness to wrestle with a question,” he asked. “How might new tools deepen our engagement with language, literature, and one another?” He prompted further. The session invited teachers to develop thoughtful criteria for embracing change, keeping the intellectual and human formation of learners at the heart of English language education.

Another interactive session at the same venue was about ‘Authentic Communication in ELT’ by the visiting English lecturer from Qatar University, Christina Rivera. Her session demonstrated how traditional speaking activities in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms often lack authentic purpose, resulting in limited student engagement and reduced confidence in real-world

(EFL) classrooms often lack authentic purpose, resulting in limited student engagement and reduced confidence in real-world communication.

‘Word Power Unlocked: Teaching Vocabulary with Research, Routines and AI’ was another very interesting session by Faiqa Baig, an academic coordinator at The Indus Academy in Karachi. It provided the chance to learn how to unlock the mind through context clues, building student-friendly definitions with word parts, mapping words and keeping words alive through short retrieval games.

Leena Samuel, English Language and Literature teacher at the Karachi Grammar School, also had an interesting workshop on innovating narrative and descriptive writing through ‘Story Forge’, an innovative, gamified framework designed to elevate both narrative and descriptive writing in English language education. By guiding students through a five-stage story trail, ‘Hook’, ‘Build-Up’, ‘Turning Point’, ‘Climax’ and ‘Resolution’, she showed how they can learn the craft of description by adding sensory details, similes, and metaphors into their story plot progression.

Earlier, Spelt’s Central Executive Committee member and the Founder and Executive Director of The School of Writing in Karachi Mohsin Tejani welcomed the participants. Habib Public School’s Principal Minhas Tejani also spoke. Sunday, the concluding day of the conference, will be hosted entirely at a fifth venue, the Habib University.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2026