Where am I?

I'm in Wales. In Cardiff. I've never been to Wales before. I'm here for the 43rd IATEFL conference, so I'm probably not going to have the time to see much of Cardiff. But I will be finding out about learning technologies and materials design, and listening to David Crystal on language change, Jeremy Harmer on how to keep students motivated, Michael McCarthy on "Changing the way the world learns English", Mario Rinvolucri on "A methodology for teaching spoken English" and many others.

IATEFL stands for International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language. Its mission is to link, develop and support English Language Teaching (ELT) professionals throughout the world.

IATEFL holds its International Annual Conference & Exhibition every spring; it's attended by about 1,500 ELT professionals from more than 70 different countries. There's a four-day programme of more than 300 talks, workshops and symposia. Around 70 ELT-related exhibitors show delegates the latest ELT publications and services.

So what am I hoping to gain from four days in Cardiff? I want to learn, to be inspired and to get lots of bright ideas for Spotlight's language section. And if there's a little time left over, I'm off to Marks and Spencer for a nice sandwich and some new pants.

Coverage of the conference can be viewed online.