IATEFL Brighton 2011 Rocked!

Original image source of Brighton Pier here.

Brighton was awesome, the 45th IATEFL Brighton conference was amazing, the presentations I attended inspiring, and seeing many members of my lovely PLN was absolutely incredible. It was a dream come true to meet everyone under one roof, so to speak and also to present for the first time at such a huge global and international event. This is an initial posting, and I hope to post more impressions and feedback in the coming days....

My session on idioms went very well and a full house attended in the Boardroom of the Old Ship Hotel. As promised, I have enclosed my presentation below as a Slideshare.

Teaching Idioms Effectively with Web 2.0 Tools

I have also included the actual "Idiomatic Love Story", that I created specifically for IATEFL Brighton in order to showcase various Web 2.0 tools
An Idiomatic Love Story

A Huge Thanks
I'd like to say a very big thanks to everyone who attended my presentation on "Teaching Idioms Effectively with Web 2.0 Tools". It was lovely to have so much support from my PLN and also from people whom I had not met before. I really appreciated the enthusiasm you all had to do some of the activities and I am glad if the session was useful!! I am delighted that some very kind friends and kindred bloggers have written up a review, and I would like to post them here below for your reference:

Karin from Coffee Addict blog: Straight from the Horse's Mouth
Eva from A Journey in TEFL blog:IATEFL Chronicles, Day 2

Thank you so much, Eva and Karin!! It was lovely to meet you both in person.

Frederick's Fate
I placed the ultimate fate of Frederick'sIdiomatic Love Story completely in the hands of the audience. There was a surprising majority of approximately 66.66% who voted in favour of the "Bad Ending", which was inspired by my classes, who thought my original "Good Ending" was far "Too Hollywood!!" The final page in the Photofunia-inspired antique book below, reflects Frederick's sentiments perfectly.

Hello To My Lovely PLN
I will be posting up images I took of Brighton and the conference as soon as I get back to Abruzzo, or earlier, if possible! It's difficult to name everyone I met, but I would like to say a big hello to Marisa, Nicky, Gavin, Kristina, Carl, Anne, Simon, Isil Boy, Burcu, Petra, Eva, Shelly, Ozge, Sue L-J, Sue A, Sue K, Burcu A, Shaun, Russell, Martin, Carla, Willy, Mike, Brad, Tara, Berni, Anisoara, Laurey, Karin, Helen, and so many more!! You know who you are and I do hope you all got back to your countries and destinations safe and sound.

Sadly, I didn't manage to meet everyone I know via Twitter, Blogging and Nings. I'm so sorry our paths didn't cross this time round. The Brighton Conference Centre was a huge venue spread across different areas and sessions took place in many different rooms, so it wasn't easy to be in one place at exactly the same time as everyone.

I really, really do hope to meet you at the next global conference :)

You can view all the videos filmed during IATEFL Brighton here.

Thanks to all the Conference organisers for a wonderful weekend of high level Personal Development and Fun Extra Curricular activities, such as the amazing Pecha Kucha Event on Sunday night, that I attended.

Watch this space for my next post on IATEFL Brighton called "The King and I".......