The 7th QLS Convention:“Quality from Within”

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As Michael Anetopoulos, QLS Chairperson stated in his opening speech, “the road to quality, which QLS has chosen is a steep, uphill, tiring path; yet it leads to such avenues of inner happiness at a job well done and to such success that it makes it all worthwhile”.

The Convention was attended by QLS members and their teachers, as well as by FLS Owners who plan to join the association in the near future.

QLS is an association of Foreign Language Schools, established in 2002, aiming at improving the quality of languages services offered by its members.

QLS schools pass a rigorous inspection scheme every two years in order to retain membership.

QLS is also an associate member of EAQUALS (European Association of Quality Language Services), a prestigious organisation, based in Switzerland, which certifies quality in education.QLS in just seven years accomplished projects such as:

•The production of the Greek Inspection Scheme;

•The production of the Greek edition of the ALTE-EAQUALS European Language Portfolio;

•Participation in two EU programmes;

•Cooperation with sister associations in the South and Central Europe (close links have been established with PASE (the Polish Association) and QUEST (the Romanian Association).

Features of the Convention

The Conference featured:

•Plenary sessions

•Presentations

•Workshops

•Coffee and lunch breaks

•The Convention dinner

The Plenary Speakers

These included:

1.Lilika Couri, Teacher-Trainer (ETC), who talked about teachers/parents relationships and how these affect school management, teaching and learning.

Lilika called Foreign Language School Owners to make informed and thoughtful choices. This is a basic principle of quality language programmes and providers.

2.George Vassilakis, Teacher-Trainer and Academic Director of City & Guilds Exams in Greece, who demonstrated techniques and activities that could be used to develop learners’ speaking skills.

3.David Gibson, Teacher-Trainer, who focused on teaching literature as a gateway to new ideas and perspectives, to some understanding of other cultures and ideologies, and above all as the beginning of lifelong learning through reading great writers.

4.Rose Aravanis, Teacher-Trainer, who provided techniques for developing effective listening skills.

5.Marisa Constantinides, Teacher-Trainer (CELT Athens), who looked at activities involving technology, which promote holistic learning and motivate the learners to acquire language through collaborative and meaningful projects.

6.Richard Rossner, Chief Executive of EAQUALS, who considered forms of teacher assessment and reviewed ways with which teachers can monitor themselves as part of continual professional development.

Apart from the plenary sessions there were about 20 presentations being run as parallel sessions, which addressed issues relevant to current practices and developments in the language classroom.

The 7th Annual QLS Convention was generously sponsored by Burlington Books. The publishing company’s team had seen to every detail and contributed enormously to the smooth running of the proceedings.

All in all the 7th QLS Convention was very successful and showed the dynamism of an association which has made remarkable achievements in a very short period of time.

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