Note on July 13: There was a change in the title. Yesterday it read, 'Great Conference on teaching-learning.' It seems we suffered from overexpectations.
The motto says, "from teaching experience to learning results". What is underpinned - the webpage of the conference states - is a conception with marks in the Russian language, so much so there is one single word for both teaching and learning in Russian. Such word is 'obuchenie'. The best place to capitalize on that at the moment is the 10th ABCI Conference, which opens today in São Paulo and goes on until Saturday morning
While most talks take place in the huge ballroom of the WTCenter shared with Sheraton Hotel, several simultaneous panels are scheduled during the three days.
Just on Tuesday 10th I joined many others to listen to Thomas Kane from Harvard at iFHC. Based on his speech on teachers evaluations, I firmly propose that the motto of the ABCI conference also implies that teaching results strongly depend on crucial aspects of the learning experience. So that motto could very well read 'from learning experience to teaching results'.
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We were bluntly denied access to cover the conference this morning, at the very location of the event. I tried to solve matters to no avail. Elsewhere - at the Cultura Inglesa office in the British Brazilian Center - a so-called Henrique declared 'it was impossible'; 'All the arrangements regarding coverage were set well in advance.' And finished with the regretful usual local scorn, 'Good luck.'
So disregard what follows below, posted before we were denied access.
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If that is really the case, I hope to find out there at the WTC. And later provide you with some further provocative thoughts about one of the most challenging careers, where the quantum of risks is multiplied since a second language is an intervening factor.
The main page of the ABCI Conference is found here:
http://www.abci2012.com.br/index.php
