2009 Cardiff Online Roving Reporter: Natalia Eydelman (Russia)

Let me first extend a warm welcome to all the 39th IATEFL Cardiff Conference participants who are attending either in person or virtually.

It’s a great honour for me to have been elected as one of Roving Reporters for this year’s IATEFL Conference. Together with Yuliya Ivanova we’ll do our best to cover the conference events for you. I hope that we will be able to provide you with a taste of the conference atmosphere and introduce you to the presenters and delegates and stimulate discussions on the issues teachers around the world face and find inspiration from.

What about me? I teach writing, ICT, and Media Studies at University and in my free time I enjoy travelling, watching films, and reading.

I enjoy teaching my students writing using different kinds of technology. I try to encourage blogging and social networking and in that way, I believe writing becomes more meaningful.

I also enjoy actively sharing ideas with colleagues and I’m always excited when something that has worked in my classroom has been useful for them or when I learn something from them that can make my classes more engaging.

I hope that the conference will give me a chance to grow professionally and make a lot of friends.

I am looking forward to sharing my conference experiences with you, and hope it will become a memorable event for all of us!

Read Natalia's reports

2009 Cardiff Online Roving Reporter: Yuliya Ivanova (Ukraine)

I am a Foreign Languages graduate from Kharkiv State University (Ukraine). After graduating I worked as a secondary school teacher for a short period of time and then won a grant to study management in France (University of Aix-Marseilles) and the UK (Management School of Lancaster University). The knowledge and experience gained there helped me greatly when some seven years ago I opened my own language school. All these years I have not only been teaching English and running the school, I have also been a teacher trainer..

My work is really my hobby, but besides my work I am fond of travelling, I am keen on studying foreign languages. My mother tongue is Russian, I am fluent in Ukrainian and I also speak French, Italian and Portuguese. I am married with two children

As I am pretty much concerned about the quality of the teaching process and as we have always been ready to try new methods and technologies in our school, I am very happy to have a chance to hear teachers from all over the world sharing their ideas and experience. I hope the experience of being a Roving Reporter at IATEFL 2009 will provide me with an excellent opportunity to engage with others and bring back to my school some fresh ideas. I am also happy that, as a Roving Reporter, I will be able to help other teachers all over the world follow the exciting events of the conference via Cardiff Online..

Read Yuliya's reports