Let’s celebrate 70 years of ELT Journal

This year Oxford University Press is excited to join IATEFL in the effort to bring more teachers to the 50^th annual IATEFL conference in Birmingham through the Scholarship scheme. Sponsoring a scholarship seemed to be the most natural way to celebrate our own anniversary – the 70 years of ELT Journal, a quarterly publication for all those involved in English Language Teaching (ELT), whether as a second, additional, or foreign language, or as an international Lingua Franca. The ELT Journal has long had strong links with IATEFL, and the ELT J Debate has become an eagerly anticipated fixture in the IATEFL conference programme.

We hope that through this scholarship practising teachers will get a chance to take advantage of the IATEFL conference as a professional development opportunity – both in terms of ideas and theory shared at the talks and workshops, but also as a great time to network with fellow teachers from around the world.

The IATEFL annual meeting gives a truly global overview of contexts, experiences and practices, and to many delegates that is most valuable aspect of the conference.

It is not necessary to be a member of IATEFL to apply, and the applications must be submitted to IATEFL by 23 July 2015.

The award consists of:

• Registration for the Pre-Conference event of the winner’s choice
• Registration for the IATEFL Annual Conference
• A year’s IATEFL membership
• GBP 1500 towards conference related costs, including travel, accommodation, and visa costs
• An annual individual subscription to ELT Journal online
• An Oxford Teachers’ Academy online course of the winner’s choice

To qualify you must:

• Be a practising teacher in primary, secondary, tertiary or adult education, state or private
• Be interested in continuous professional development
• Agree to submit a blog post about your conference experience by June 2016, to be published on the OUP blog: oupeltglobalblog.com
• Agree to be interviewed (on video) by OUP about your conference experience, to be published on the OUP ELT global YouTube channel

To be considered for this scholarship you must submit a statement between 400 and 500 words in which you:

• Outline your teaching context, including a brief description of your teaching community and the part you play in it.
• Outline the professional development opportunities available to you in your context.
• Identify key professional challenges NOT addressed by the professional development opportunities available to you in your context.
• Outline an action plan for how you intend to take the learning gained during the conference to your teaching community.