International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) is an organisation in the field of
English language learning and teaching
English-Language Learner (often abbreviated as ELL) is a term used in some English-speaking countries such as the US and Canada to describe a person who is learning the English language and has a native language that is not English. Some educatio ...
. It is based in
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
and was founded in 1967 as ATEFL (it became ‘International’ in 1970), by W. R. (Bill) Lee, who also served as the organisation's first Chairman until 1984.
IATEFL works primarily to develop networks amongst related institutions and individuals involved in
language education
Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language educatio ...
as it is relevant to the
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...
. This includes classroom teachers, administrators of language programmes, teacher trainers/educators, writers and publishers, language assessors and examination bodies, and researchers, for example in
applied linguistics
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, communication res ...
. Since mid-1990s, the renowned British linguist
David Crystal
David Crystal, (born 6 July 1941) is a British linguist, academic, and prolific author best known for his works on linguistics and the English language.
Family
Crystal was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, on 6 July 1941 after his mother had ...
has been patron of IATEFL.
IATEFL holds an annual conference in the spring, with key speakers and individual papers, workshops and symposia. Membership is approximately 4000, spread through more than 100 countries. The primary activities for IATEFL members throughout the year are centred on
Special Interest Groups (SIGs), which hold various types of meetings, conferences and
webinar
Web conferencing is used as an umbrella term for various types of online conferencing and collaborative services including webinars (web seminars), webcasts, and web meetings. Sometimes it may be used also in the more narrow sense of the peer-l ...
s,
and publish newsletters. In addition to these, there is a bimonthly magazine for the whole organisation, ''IATEFL Voices''.
Officers are elected on a regular basis, with a professional staff performing logistics and promotional tasks throughout the year. Membership meets yearly at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the main conference.
References
External links
International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language
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English-language education