by Zeynep Zengin, FLE Junior Student/2015
I was expected as a photographer in the METU ELT Convention when the assistant students were picked and I was happy when I heard I was picked for taking photographs. There were good parts and bad parts about working in a conference like this and I would like to mention those.
The good parts will be the ones I will cherish my whole life because as a photographer I get to take memories that will stay forever and we had a chance to go to wherever they needed us and we did not have to pay anything at all since it was too much for a student to pay. Threfore, we were happy to be given this opportunity and we had gotten the chance to meet and talk to the people that actually made the speeches in the conference. That was the best part and I liked talking and asking not only about professional language teaching context but also becoming friends and feeling as a part of the ELT family. They are not that actually serious when you get to meet them and it was a great experience.
Another thing is that we have learned so much and the ones I liked the most was the experiences that the presenters shared with us and it was worth it all since we have been able to remember them years after working just like they did. We have gotten the chance to see where we might fail and look forward to start teaching to have our own experiences. The most important of all is that this conference has changed my idea which was neglecting the opinion of even seeing a student to teach to teach is a wonderful mastery where you can change the future and it is a process of art and science with a right amount of dedication ,so this was a major turning point in my life that had made me feel better about teaching and I suggest everyone to consider working with ELT professionals for a short while or having a small talk with them after having attended their presentation.
The bad parts are not as many as the good parts but first of all being a photographer means that you have to walk to all the conference center to take photos whenever and wherever needed and the need is just when the time is right. Since the time can be right anytime we wait alert and this is tiring. We also walk a lot and stay this alert all day from 7:30am to 11:30pm. This really is so tiring that when I came home I sat on my bed and I woke up the other morning to go back as I got up to continue my work. It was really hard in terms of physical factors.
Overall, I am happy that I attended in this conference as a student assistant to see how a conference is held and how much dedication has been put to make a conference like that and how a work expected or unexpected is overcome. If I were to ever make a small conference or even a student-parent-teacher meeting I would know what to arrange such as the students works in a pile for each of them, some food, etc. It gave me an idea how to organize a meeting big or small. It gave me so many ideas on how to teach what. I made so many friends from the ELT world so, the tiring was worth it all.
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