Pilgrims 35th Anniversary Conference

August 16th to 22nd, 2009

In what way is this event different from a TESOL conference in, say, France, Italy, Spain or Greece or an IATEFL conference in UK? The major difference is that you have the chance to commit to workshops that last 4.5 hours which allow you the chance to go beyond an initial “sniff” and really get into the topic. If you work with Sheelagh Deller on “CLIL: an arranged marriage”, or with Eleanor Watts on “Story-telling for young learners”, or with Marie Delaney on “Teaching the Unteachable”, or with Hanna Kryszewska on “English through Art and Music” you will have time to get your teeth into the subject and to absorb the tutor’s thinking in the area. The workshop leaders are mostly people who have published whole books on the subjects they are working on; they are not people just paddling on the edge of their topic.

Over the week you have the chance to join three of these in-depth 4.5 hour workshops.
If you would like to copy-taste the whole range of workshops on offer over the week, please go to:

www.pilgrims.co.uk/conference

All the workshop leaders have been carefully selected and evaluated a) for their track record in the area they are working in and b) for the excellence of their animation skills. This is not a democractic conference which accepts anybody who offers a workshop that looks somehow half OK. None of this group of animators is doing a workshop to earn university career brownie points!

The quality of the participants

Our experience from previous Pilgrims Conferences is that the human and academic quality of the participants is high and this makes for really sustained and useful meetings, debates and discussions at coffee break, meal breaks and in the evenings. You are likely to be rubbing shoulders with experienced and talented people who have made a real decision to come to the Canterbury Hilltop, not dropped in by mistake. People who come to our conferences tend to know what they want.

The charm of Kent and Canterbury

We will do our damnedest to keep you on the on the Pilgrims Hilltop with plenaries, workshops, drama events, music events, social gatherings and a rich evening programme. However, should you manage to slip away down to Canterbury, a mediaeval city awaits you, built round a stream that calls itself a river ( The Stour), and surrounded by the apple and pear orchards of Kent. Why not plan an extra two days after the conference to explore the Garden of England, as Kent is called?

The 5 plenaries over the week

Everybody will be invited to go to the five inter-active plenaries we have planned ( not uni-directional commentaries on a set of power point slides) .

Hanna Kryszewska and I will have the pleasure of joining our Pilgrims colleagues and welcoming you to our Canterbury Hilltop in August this year. ( 16th to 22nd) To learn more go to www.pilgrims.co.uk/conference

Mario Rinvolucri

( I am sure you know that the pounds been devalued vis a vis the euro by thirty and more percent., so when I say “ high price” you hear “ low price!”)