Georgios Chatzis writes about his experience as a speaker and delegate at The Image Conference Brussels.
Everything was great! The sessions I attended were really good and gave me plenty of food for thought and the social programme was a good chance to meet people with whom I shared common interests and ideas and others who offered a new perspective.
What impressed me the most was the similarities between the presentations in terms of their educational value, while each offering a unique way of using images to focus on our common human characteristics and at the same time to highlight our cultural identities and raise awareness around world issues. For me Hania’s plenary in particular was a real revelation.
I think the poster perfectly captures the essence of the image conference. It has colour, character, emotion and heart which some larger conferences sometimes lack.
My talk was about using video to bring social issues into focus and make them relevant to students by connecting them to what they are interested in and what they already know. I also showed some examples of what students can do to raise awareness around these issues.
All of the presentations I attended approached the use of images or video as something with which one can educate the heart and the soul rather than just to provide training in terms of language. Although an ELT conference, the majority of presentations focused on values, empathy, raising awareness, developing creativity and instilling confidence to students. I think the slide by Linda Ruas “Some things are more important than learning English” says it all.
