Monday, April 16

Having arrived safe and sound in Britain, I managed to get some rest and look around Edinburgh
which, by the way, was bathing in sunshine - a somewhat peculiar thing. But then again, the British
weather did itself credit; all four seasons in a single day. I also met Rathi, the
otherRoving Reporter from India. I immediately felt we would be doing a great job. Her friendly attitude
and outgoing nature convinced me of the fact that she would be a great fellow reporter. Rathi is
currently a trainer and instructs people on writing e-mails. In comparison to her job, mine is boring – I
teach a bunch of (ungrateful) teenagers at a General Education School in the South of Serbia! Yet I
should mention that I feel extremely privileged to be one of this year’s Roving Reporters. I think that
nothing better than this could have happened to me.

Tuesday, April 17

Edinburgh, of course, was marvellous. For me, a first-time visitor to Britain, it was the first impression
of Britain all together. Anyway, Princess Street, the Jury’s Inn, where we were staying, the surrounding
area and all the wonderful buildings I managed to take pictures of (thousands!!!) during the non-rain
intervals, will remain carved into my memory forever.

Somewhere around two o’clock, Rathi and I got a chance to meet the 21 Hornby scholars prior to their
rehearsal with Rod Bolitho, distinguished for his books on language and teaching. The Hornby
scholars are taking a one-year TESOL course at four different universities in Britain. Margaret, from
Nigeria, who’s studying at Leeds, for instance, commented on the huge change of environment that
she experienced after arriving but otherwise thought that her two majors; Language Learning and
Teaching for TESOL and Investigating English for TESOL will surely be of great value when returning
to her home country. The same goes for Oybek from Uzbekistan, and Mauricio from Mexico; both
studying at Lancaster. They, however, are taking a TESOL course with a somewhat different approach
based mainly on communicative and pedagogical grammar, language testing and multilingualism.

The dinner party later that evening was also a marvellous experience both thanks to the hospitality of
the wonderful restaurant staff and the fact that Roy Cross, the Director of British Council Scotland,
agreed to pay for the dinner as a sign of good will and as a special treat since it was his birthday. As a
reward we sang “Happy Birthday”. Being a good host, he entertained us with his sense of humour and
made us all feel just great despite the fact that we had had a very long day.

During the dinner party I was sitting next to John Joseph, professor of Applied Linguistics at Edinburgh
University. We had a wonderful conversation ranging from PhD research on various linguistic topics to
child-raising as it turned out that our children are of similar (teenage) age. I found the conversation at
the table very instructive and entertaining especially because of the many different stories about
distinctive features in the English language variants, such as the length of the vowels, the diphthongs
where they are not supposed to be and similar things. We laughed a lot and had a wonderful time.

Wednesday, April 18

I should probably mention the bus ride from Edinburgh to Aberdeen. Apart from the fact that the
journey took us almost seven hours, producing a worse jet lag than any plane could ever do, the trip
was worth the anguish. Our driver, Frazer, not only drove but also kept us informed and educated us
along the way. We learned that everything worth inventing has actually been invented by the Scottish
people such as, the telephone, golf, whisky, a special “irn brw” used to cure “not hangovers but the
thirst in the morning after a difficult night” and last but not least, naturally, a marvellous way of saving
money by sharing daily tickets with other fellow bus riders because “the Scottish are wise with money,
they don’t like to spend it unreasonably”. Along the winding road we learned lots of Scottish and
Gaelic words and we visited some lovely old buildings and really cosy towns.

Finally, we arrived in Aberdeen and forgot all about the exhausting trip after the really welcoming
reception at Aberdeen University where we were greeted by Barbara Hewitt, on behalf of the British
Council, and by the Vice Principle for Research and Commercialisation, on behalf of the Aberdeen
University.

After so many eventful days we went to our rooms to have our well-deserved rest!

April 19
After a really early breakfast and the rain greeting us in front of the hotel, the day started with a warm
and welcoming speech by Tessa Woodward. All the necessary announcements were made, important
people were introduced and even the names of the two Roving Reporters were mentioned. What an
honour! Right after that Guy Cook opened the conference with his wonderful plenary session. It is
probably unnecessary to mention all the things this distinguished Professor of Language and Education
at the Open University has managed to accomplish. The title of the plenary session, “Unmarked
improvement: values, facts, and first languages”, proved to be a challenging title and a very
instructive approach to attitudes to translation teachers of EFL usually have.
The most important statement, apart from the very humorous comments, informative quotes and
appropriate examples, was probably the fact that EFL teachers particularly, and many ESL teachers as
well, tend to take a monolingual approach thus neglecting the importance of translation in the process
of teaching English. The EFL/ESL classroom cannot follow the motto “One nation, one people, one
language”, a somewhat overrated statement since it implies that a classroom is a state. Quite contrary to
that, the L1, i.e. the mother tongue of the students, should by all means be acknowledged. The
importance is highlighted even more by the fact that the students’ culture is part of their language and
by neglecting their language, the teacher, in a monolingual classroom, neglects their culture which
leads to the danger of neglecting their identity as well.
What is more, Guy Cook insists on the fact that there is no valid database that could confirm the
standpoint that the monolingual approach in teaching is the best one. The disregard of the students’
mother tongue can in fact demotivate the students and be counterproductive. Therefore, Guy Cook
believes, there is neither a scientific nor a pedagogic reason to exclude L1 from the teaching process.
There are probably more reasons, utilitarian and political, to make the use of L1 quite valuable in the
process of teaching English. The former reason implies that the students would be motivated to think
more about appropriate equivalents in their own languages and the latter one, of course, emphasises the
importance of cultural diversities and tolerance among nations.
Personally, I think that this plenary session was a wonderful metaphor. When I looked around Boyd,
the conference room, I could see people from many different nations all over the world. If
the IATEFL, with a stress on the I – meaning international, is to fulfil its aim and purpose, I could not
think of a better platform to launch the spirit of the whole conference from.