APIBA Newsletter N°16 - February 2003

Asociación de Profesores de Inglés de Buenos Aires Asociación Civil sin Fines de Lucro Personería Jurídica c.7111 Res. 8524/79 CUIT 30-66211994-2

Newsletter 16 F e b r u a r y

Table o off content contentss

From the President

This new year starts with a partially renewed Executive Committee. After 5 years' service in various positions, we said good-bye to Stella Schulte who stood down to allow the achievement of numerical balance in renewals. We'll miss you! Laura Renart and Sandra Revale stood for re-election and we also incorporated Silvia Rettaroli, who re-joins the Committee after a sabbatical to write her Licenciatura thesis, and Luciana Fernández, who will be replacing María de los Ángeles Rodríguez as Deputy Treasurer. Welcome to you all!

As in years past, we have set ourselves the goal of encouraging participation on behalf of the members as well as attracting new teachers to become members. To this end, we have scheduled a number of activities which are described in this Newsletter. We will also be attending several presentations and other events organised by other institutions in order to represent APIBA and be available to answer queries about the Association and how to become a member.

Finally, I would like to encourage all APIBA members to get in touch with the Association and send us their suggestions, comments and proposals on how we can improve our activities and services.

Cristina Banfi

H a b e m u s

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A P I B A

CARGO NOMBRE Presidente Dra. Cristina Silvia Banfi Vice-Presidente Prof. Analía Kandel Secretaria Prof. Laura Renart Tesorera Prof. Sandra Revale Pro-Tesorera Prof. Luciana Fernández Vocal Titular 1ra Prof. Silvia Rettaroli Vocal Titular 2do - Prof. Pablo Toledo Editor de gacetilla Vocal Suplente 1ra Prof. Litty Mora Vocal Suplente 2da Prof. Marisa Vilaseco

c o m m i t t e e After our last general assembly and the members' vote, there are two new faces in the committee (well, a new face and an old-timer coming back for more). To those who stayed on and those who have just joined us, courage!

APIBA SIGs Co-Liaison Officers: Alejandra M. Jorge & Silvia Rettaroli

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From the President FAAPI 2003 update APIBA goes Chinese APIBA first time presenters in FAAPI 2003 • APIBA publications and how to get them • New committee • SIGs news • Upcoming conferences

O f f i c e

H o u r s

Remember our office hours:

√ TUESDAYS 13.30-16.30 (Lib. Rodríguez; Sarmiento 835)

√ THURSDAYS 13.30-16.30 (Lib. KEL; M.T. de Alvear 1369)

Di$count$ for Members • The British Arts Centre (BAC) offers a 50% discount on their play tickets for all APIBA members, and a 25% global discount for groups of students accompanied by an APIBA member.

• The National Resources Centre and AACI’s General English Library offer 25% discounts on memberships for all APIBA members To claim these benefits all you need to do is bring along your APIBA membership card and your receipt for the current year.

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In 2002, the APIBA SIGs grew to eleven: Business, Computers, Language, Cultural Studies, Literature, Phonology, SLT (Second Language Teaching) (Lomas de Zamora/ Bernal); Applied Linguistics; Professional Development (Pilar/ Olavarría). We would like to encourage APIBA members living and/or working in the Province of Buenos Aires to contact the SIGs Liaison Officer with proposals to set up new SIGs in various districts under our jurisdiction.

There were many SIG-related events. Analia Kandel presented a paper on the SIGs at FAAPI 2002 Annual Conference, where the SIGs displayed poster presentations. The SIGs closing meeting took place on Saturday November 30 at IES-LV "J. R. Fernández". Each SIG held its last individual meeting, followed by a general meeting where they were informed about the APIBA SIGs Symposium 2003, to be held on June 14. The APIBA SIGs Symposium 2003 will bring together ELT professionals to discuss, reflect upon and develop their ideas. APIBA SIG members and members of SIGs of other FAAPI Associations will conduct workshops, make demonstrations or present papers.

The deadline for presenting papers is April 30. For further information contact the SIGs Liaison Officers at apibasigs@apiba.org.ar.

As of last October 19, Analía Kandel finished her term as APIBA SIGs Liaison Officer, after holding office for three years. The position is now held by two APIBA members, Alejandra Jorge (liaison and information flow) and Silvia Rettaroli (administration and record-keeping).

Finally, we hope to see you all on April 12, 2003 at our APIBA SIGs Opening Meeting which this time will be held at the INSTP-UTN (Triunvirato 3174), 2PM to 5PM. SIG members will have the chance to hold their first individual meeting where coordinators will be elected and topics to be dealt with during the current academic year will be proposed.

Chinese Whispers: The first APIBA member in China

by Laur enart Lauraa R Renart When I was asked whether I could consider the possibility of teaching in China I said 'yes' and then I sat down to think. Last August, as part of Norwich Institute for Language Education staff and through the initiative of British Council Beijing we were appointed to train primary school teachers in the cities of Xiangfan, Hubei, and in Nanjing, Jiangsu. But I wasn't alone in this enterprise: I had two wonderful 'partners in crime', Simon Smith - thank God for his knowledge of Chinese - and Melanie Williams. Or the 'foreign experts', as they called us.

As part of a major educational reform in China, all children after 3rd grade will have to learn English as of 2004, which means massive training of teachers all over the country. Traditionally, the role of the teacher of English is not well-regarded and consequently, there aren't too many graduate teachers who know what they have to do. That was the first obstacle we had to avoid, or weave into the whole project, let's say. Teacher training in China revolves mainly on Phonology and Intensive Reading but there is a notorious lack of methodological training for the young teachers. The Chinese are addicted to the dictionary, whether electronic or traditional, and asking these teachers to work in groups, discuss and exchange ideas was a major task. They look down as a sign of respect but, can you imagine this in a language class?

Our aim was to introduce these teachers into the use of communicative and holistic ways of teaching young learners and dealing with the child in class. Rejection and "we can't do this in our classrooms" was an every day characteristic in this 10-day project in each city.

China is still very traditional in terms of the use of memory as part of their teaching practice and concepts like 'giving children time to think and process what they are learning' or 'making the classroom an enjoyable environment' were a total innovation for most of them.

Their reality involves sometimes more than 70 children in one class; a single book to choose from in each province; classes on Sunday on a regular basis and a very strict external examination system, designed by people who aren't teachers.

Apart from the chopsticks, the grueling heat and the constant fear to think that I was eating snake on the other side of the world, I met people who share similar worries: to be constantly updated, to make use of minimal resources under great pressure, to make do without photocopies or to deal with large classes. And the same passion to go to school every day.

How to obtain APIBA publications

Our experience as first time presenters a t FA A P I 2 0 0 2 Thanks to the scholarships for first time presenters granted by APIBA, we were able to attend the FAAPI 2002 Conference ¨Curriculum Development: Managing the change¨. This gave us the opportunity to share with other teachers, from all over the country, our experience as writing tutors in a Language III course at I.S.P. ¨Dr. Joaquín V. González¨.

In this course, a peer-group, conference-centered process-oriented methodology for the teaching of writing was implemented. During our presentation, we recounted this experience from three different perspectives: the writing teacher's (Analía Kandel), the writing tutors´ (Carolina Curátolo, María Luisa Ghisalberti and Myriam Sosa Belenky) and the students´ writers (Fabricio Costa, María Eugenia

De

Tomasi,

Paz

Moltrasio and Andrea Nicosia).

Attending the conference as first time presenters turned out to be an extremely enriching enterprise for different reasons.

First, we learned about how to co-write and co-present a paper in a conference. Second, we

Available publications

How to obtain them

Actas Congreso APIBA "The Future of Teacher Edu-

From APIBA office. You can

cation" Mayo 1999

also request them by fax or e-

ideas with teachers from all over

Ingles@info

mail (info@apiba.org.ar) and

the country as it fostered further

Cassettes David Crystal (Presentaciones Agosto 5 de

pay for them via a bank de-

research and experimentation on

2000) Cassette 1: "English Accents: Past, Present and

posit (cost of publication +

our part. All in all, the experience

Future" Cassette 2: "The Future of Englishes"

postage)

was a timely step forward in our

Cuadros Comparativos de Licenciaturas y Maestrías

From APIBA website http://

compilado en Seminario Anual APIBA 1999

www.apiba.org.ar/activities/

careers and as a result, we feel

Cuadro informativo sobre Exámenes Internacionales

9900/activities9900.htm

compilado en Seminario APIBA Junio 2000

profited from the exchange of

grateful for the chance APIBA gave us and eager to attend the next conference as presenters

Kandel, Analía (2002) APIBA SIGs Handbook 2002.

Free of charge for APIBA Mem-

Buenos Aires: Ediciones APIBA.

bers from our office. You can

Day, Raymond (2002) APIBA History: A History

also request them by fax or e-

of the Asociación de Profesores de Inglés de Bue-

mail (info@apiba.org.ar) and

MYRIAM SOSA BELENKY

nos Aires, 1971-2001. Buenos Aires: Ediciones

pay for them via a bank deposit

CAROLINA CURÁTOLO

APIBA.

(cost of publication + postage)

(APIBA members)

once again.

Upcomin g confer ences Upcoming conferences

FAAPI 2003 update We have received two FAAPI-related emails, and duly forward them to our members We are very pleased to contact you and all the members of your association to provide information about FAAPI 2003. As you may know the topic of next year's conference will be Humanizing our Teaching Practice, Minding the Whole Person.

We are now busily working in the organization, and in fifteen days you will find the Call for Papers at www.faapi.com.ar , together with some other interesting information. Three well-known specialists have already confirmed their participation: Adrian Underhill, Luke Prodromou and our Claudia Ferradas Moi. We are also planning two pre-conference events; one, together with a group of teachers from the Universidad Nacional de Salta: the VIII Latin American ESP Colloquium, which will take place on September 16 and 17.

The other is still being arranged, but it will take place on the 17th.

We very much hope to welcome you to Salta, la Linda on 18th, 19th and 20th September 2003.

Ana Triboli Pisi Fernanda Irrazabal

Innovative ways to teaching English Date: March 7 and 8 2003 Venue: Facultad de Filosofía, Humani-

dades y Artes, Universidad Nacional de San Juan Topics: Innovative experiences related to ICT (technology in the class, techniques, materials, resources), interaction in the class (alternative solutions to discipline problems, teacher’s and student’s , mixedability classes) and learning styles and strategies. Pedagogical implications derived from current research.

Information: inglés@ffha.unsj.edu.ar / sanchez.morchio@interredes.com.ar

First Annual Conference of Applied Drama Date: February 27 and 28th , March 1 Venue : Teatro Santamaría (Montevideo 842 )

Dear President, We are very happy to tell you that the VIII LATIN AMERICAN ESP COLLOQUIUM is being organized as one of the FAAPI 2003 pre-conference events. This Colloquium is a very special event for university ESP and EAP researchers.

(More information and call for papers available on email request to info@apiba.org.ar) Ana Tríboli Graciela Saravia ASPI President Co-ordinator of the ESP COLLOQUIUM

General Objectives: learn more about human interaction and students’ emotions in their learning process; enable teachers to apply drama in their daily teaching routine.

Registration: Montevideo 850 (weekdays 10 AM to 5 PM); www.thebsasplayers.com; Fax (54-11) 4812-5307 / 4814-5455

MEMBERSHIP FORM 2003 (Please feel free to make copies) From APIBA Statutes: Artículo 5º.- De los Asociados.- Se establece una sola categoría de socios. Estos deberán poseer título docente en la especialidad, expedido por: a) las Universidades nacionales, provinciales o privadas; b) los Institutos Superiores del Profesorado nacionales, provinciales o privados.- En todos los casos los títulos deberán ser los reconocidos por el Ministerio de Educación de la Nación para la impartición de la asignatura en las escuelas nacionales.- Son requisitos para ser socio de esta Asociación: 1º.- Que la solicitud haya sido aceptada por la Comisión Directiva de la Asociación. 2º.- Que el socio abone regularmente la cuota mensual1 que determina la asamblea.

1 La cuota de APIBA se abona anualmente. Ver monto al pie.

I would like to (re-)apply for membership of the Association of Teachers of English of Buenos Aires

Name:__________________________________________________________________________________ I.D. Number (DNI/LE/LC): _________________________________________________________________ Address:

Street / No: _____________________________________________________________________ Town: _________________________________________________ Post Code: _______________

Telephone Number: ______________________________ Fax Number: ______________________________ E-mail Address: ___________________________________________________________________________ Degree: _______________________ Awarded by: ________________________________ Year: __________ Work at: ______________________________________________ Position: ___________________________ [ ] 1) I am already a Member of APIBA Members need only pay outstanding dues from 2001 to the present as APIBA declared a Moratorium on dues not paid before 2000.

2) I am applying for Membership of APIBA for the first time

[

]

New members have to pay dues for the current year, submit a photocopy of their degree and two passport-sized photographs. These can be submitted by hand to any Executive Committee member or posted to the APIBA office. Remember that this is an initial step and that the application procedure is concluded when all the material is submitted and once the APIBA Committee have accepted the application.

2001 Dues ($50) $______ 2002 Dues ($50) $______ 2003 Dues before April 30 ($30) / after April 30 ($50) $______ Voluntary Contribution $______ TOTAL AMOUNT $______ Send/Bring cash or a cheque to the APIBA Office: M.T. de Alvear 1369 (Kel Ediciones), C1058AAU Buenos Aires. Or deposit total amount at any branch of Banco Francés, Cuenta Corriente Especial en $017-041719/2.

By signing below you affirm that you have read APIBA Statutes and agree to be bound by them.

Date: ______________________________ Signature: ______________________________________ IMPORTANT: Please write your full name on your deposit slip and fax it to (011) 4326-3927 with this form.

For information about APIBA: E-mail: info@apiba.org.ar Web: www.apiba.org.ar Tel/fax (011) 4326-3927 (Librería Rodríguez)