September 12 Conference Sponsors THANK YOU

We would like to thank our generous sponsors of the upcoming EPAFI event
on September 12
on Testing and Assessment
in Atlantis Hotel
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Secondary Teachers Conference Programme

Testing and Assessment in ELT Conference	Friday, 12th September 2008 Secondary School E.F.L. Teachers, Room 2
8.00- 8.30	Registration
8.30-9.00	Inauguration speeches Despoina Aggelidaki, EFL School Advisor Maria Protogeraki, E.P.A.F.I. Chair
9.00- 10.15	Dina Tsaggari, Hellenic Open University “Alternative Methods of Language Assessment”
10.15-11.30	Pavlos Pavlou, Cyprus University “Fundamental notions in Language Testing”
11.30-12.00	Coffee Break
12.00-13.15	Dina Tsaggari “Validating Language Tests”
13.15-13.35	Hill Side Press ELT Consultant, “Open to life. Open to up-to-date knowledge, culture, self-awareness inside and outside the classroom.”
13.35-13.55	Katerina Laina, MM publications ELT Consultant “Captivate your class”
13.55-14.15	Catherine Mantadaki, Express Publishing ELT Consultant, “Teaching Towards a Critical Mind”
14.15-15.00	Round Table Discussion

Primary school Teachers Conference Programme

Testing and Assessment in ELT Conference	Friday, 12th September 2008 Primary School E.F.L. Teachers, Room 1
8.00- 8.30	Registration
8.30- 9.00	Inauguration speeches Eleni Poulla, EFL Teachers School Advisor Maria Papaioannou, E.P.A.F.I. Vice Chair
9.00- 10.15	Pavlos Pavlou, Cyprus University “Fundamental notions in Language Testing”
10.15-11.30	Dina Tsaggari, Hellenic Open University “Validating Language Tests”
11.30-12.00	Coffee Break
12.00-13.15	Pavlos Pavlou, Cyprus University “Alternative methods of Language Assessment”
13.15-13.35	Catherine Mantadaki, Express Publishing ELT Consultant, “Teaching Towards a Critical Mind”
13.35-13.55	Hill Side Press ELT Consultant, “Open to life. Open to up-to-date knowledge, culture, self-awareness inside and outside the Classroom”
13.55-14.15	Katerina Laina, MM publications ELT Consultant “Captivate your class”
14.15-15.00	Round Table Discussion

EPAFI BOARD MEMBERS ELECTIONS AND GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETING

The Annual General Assembly meeting of EPAFI members will be held on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 6.00 p.m. at the 2nd General Lyceym of Heraklion. If the quorum is not met then the General Assembly meeting will take place on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 6.00, at the General Lyceum of Heraklion.

The EPAFI board members elections will be held in Atlantis Hotel on September 12, 2008. To be eligible to stand for elections, EFL colleagues should be members of the association. Candidates should be aware that:

1. Nominations shall be made to the secretary during the meeting or any time prior to the election. Where no nominations are received, proposals may be taken from the floor at the General Assembly (GA) meeting in September.
   
2. Postal votes will not be accepted.

The General Assembly meeting will be held on September 9, 2008. Old and new EPAFI members are equally invited to participate.

The Board secretary

September 12, Testing and Evaluation ELT Conference

The English Teachers Association in Heraklion and the EFL School Advisors, Despina Aggelidaki and Eleni Poulla organise a new event on Language Testing, Evaluation and Assessment. The one-day event will take place on 12th September 2008 in Atlantis Hotel, in Heraklion.

Invited Speakers are: Tsaggari Nina (HOU) and Pavlos Pavlou (Cyprus)

We aim to raise awareness and address a wide range of issues in EFL testing, assessment and evaluation such as quality and fairness related to the exams, establishing common standards for all stages of the testing process, and enable an exchange of ideas and sharing of best practice.

Certificates of attendance will be provided by the School Advisors. For more information please contact: epoulla At sch Dot gr, dangeli At sch Dot gr

Sponsors of this event are: Burlington Books, HillSide Press, Express Publishing, MM publications and Eleftheroudakis Bookshop

With No Frills or Tuition, a College Draws Notice

With No Frills or Tuition, a College Draws Notice

Published: July 21, 2008, Tamar Lewin, NewYork Times

BEREA, Ky. — Berea College, founded 150 years ago to educate freed slaves and “poor white mountaineers,” accepts only applicants from low-income families, and it charges no tuition.

“You can literally come to Berea with nothing but what you can carry, and graduate debt free,” said Joseph P. Bagnoli Jr., the associate provost for enrollment management. “We call it the best education money can’t buy.”

Actually, what buys that education is Berea’s $1.1 billion endowment, which puts the college among the nation’s wealthiest. But unlike most well-endowed colleges, Berea has no football team, coed dorms, hot tubs or climbing walls. Instead, it has a no-frills budget, with food from the college farm, handmade furniture from the college crafts workshops, and 10-hour-a-week campus jobs for every student.

Berea’s approach provides an unusual perspective on the growing debate over whether the wealthiest universities are doing enough for the public good to warrant their tax exemption, or simply hoarding money to serve an elite few. As many elite universities scramble to recruit more low-income students, Berea’s no-tuition model has attracted increasing attention.

“Asking whether that’s where our values lead us is a powerful way to consider what our values are,” said Anthony Marx, the president of Amherst College, who considered the possibility of using Amherst’s $1 million-per-student endowment to offer free tuition but concluded that it would make no sense, given Amherst’s more affluent student body and the fact that the college already subsidizes about half the cost of each student’s education.

To read the full article, click:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/education/21endowments.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin

Does students' spelling matter?

University lecturers should "ignor" students' appalling spelling mistakes and avoid giving themselves the "opertunity" to be riled.

Dr Ken Smith, a senior lecturer in criminology at Bucks New University, makes the "arguement" that most misspelled words make more sense. Rather than getting upset over "thier" for their, why bother with it at all? Why not replace it altogether with "there", he suggests. "Either we go on beating ourselves and our students up over this problem or we simply give everyone a break and accept these variant spellings as such," he argues.

The Spelling Society, which celebrates its 100th birthday this year, certainly doesn't agree it's time to accept variant spellings just yet.

Guardian Education News, August 2008

To read more please click here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2008/aug/07/doesspellingmatter