On 12th January TESOL Greece held the annual Pitta cutting event at the theatre space kindly provided to us by the Hellenic American Union. The event was celebrated with a unique World Café workshop on ‘Teacher Motivation’ ran by none other than our very own Suzanne Antonaros.
The ‘World Café Method’ is designed to encourage contributions and to promote respectful listening from all participants, allowing new ideas, insights and questions to emerge from group discussions and creative and collaborative thinking.
We knew therefore that we would participate in conversations that matter to EFL teaching professionals and help create an atmosphere, which will foster animated and engaging discussions. And we weren’t disappointed.
Eftichis Kantarakis
TESOL Greece Newsletter editor
The HAU theatre was transformed into a welcoming café, with tables for 4 covered with paper table-cloths and equipped with coloured markers.
Participants were asked to provide their opinions and consensus on the paper, whether in writing or in pictures.
3 possible combinations of participants were changed around each table and the consensus written on each table came from at least 10 different participants.
This World Café workshop was a first for us, and one in which Suzanne, though the co-ordinator of it all, spoke very little and everyone else spoke very much!
The event proceeded with the traditional pitta cutting and the lucky colleague who found the coin, won a seminar kindly offered by the Educational & Training Consultants (ETC) and it was concluded with a coffee break, kindly offered by Burlington Books.
TESOL Greece would like to thank our sponsors, the Hellenic American Union and Burlington Books as well as our wonderful secretary Antigoni Kostanti, who, incidentally, won the separate board pitta coin!
This year has already started with a very successful event and more are yet to come! Don’t forget the main ELT event of the year, the 34th TESOL Greece International Conference, March 30th and 31st See you all there.
