Dear colleagues, 

            The Belarusian Association of Teachers of English kindly invites you to take part in the 6^th International BelNATE-IATEFL conference “Teaching English as a World Language in the Information Age”, which will take place on November 3-5, 2004.

            The conference is designed to provide an opportunity for a discussion of ideas that will help those who are involved in ELT and Area Studies. It will address the changes that have taken place in ELT in recent years under the influence of the spread of information technologies and transformations in related fields. We hope that the conference will help initiate and advance a fruitful discussion about the ways to improve ELT in Belarus using the teaching strategies developed by some of our colleagues.

            The conference will bring together teachers from all the regions of Belarus as well as academicians from N.I.S. and other countries to discuss major issues of ELT, Culture, Literatures in English, CALL, distance learning and other subjects in the context of the multicultural paradigm of diversity and pluralism.        

            The conference will be of great benefit to teachers at all levels of the Belarusian system of education because it will familiarize them with new approaches and educational technologies that have to be integrated into school and university curricula and teaching. They are expected to intersect with innovative pedagogies and new methodologies in ELT and Area studies.

             We know that participation in the conference will be a strain on your family budget. However, taking into account the quality of our previous conferences, may we hope that it will be worth the trouble. The Organizing Committee is doing its best to invite lecturers and teachers from the ELT leading centers and universities. We hope to see publishers and authors of new books as distinguished guests at our conference. As usual, we shall have a book exhibition, which will display the most recent ELT publications. An interesting cultural programme is being prepared.

            The success of the conference depends on our joint effort. We shall be grateful for any proposals that will help make our conference a major event in the life of the teaching community in Belarus. Sharing is caring, don’t you think?

            The conference venue will again be the Minsk State Linguistics University, which is not only Alma Mater for many of us but also the home of BelNATE. It has greatly changed since 2002. You have to see for yourselves its refurbished rooms, new equipment and excellent learning facilities.

            It is time we met again. Please, fill in the speaker proposal form and send it before September 1, 2004.

            Looking forward to seeing you all in Minsk, 

            Prof. Yuri Stulov 

            BelNATE Chairman  

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