FEK - AGM 2016

th
April 28
Annual report

Good afternoon and welcome to the 2016 Annual General Meeting of

ATEI (Association of English Teachers in Iceland). Id like to thank
you all for attending on this sunny afternoon.

First, let me introduce the current board members. They are:

Lilja Margrt Mller Treasurer
runn Patricia Sleight Secretary
Lilja Gumundsdttir
Samuel Lefever (who took over for Robert Berman)
Jn Hannesson
Kristen Mary Swenson - Chair

runn Patricia Sleight is the FEK representative on the STL

board.
Gun Ester Aalsteinsdttir manages the FEK website.
Agnes Valdimarsdttir is FEKs representative on the Mlfrur
Editorial Board.

Its been a busy year! The board has met regularly and has had ten
meetings since our last AGM, in April of last year. As of today, April
28th, FEK has 159 members and 127 of them are registered K
members. Our numbers are up. Weve added to our membership
since last year, which was 142 members and 110 K members, but I
think this is something that we need to continue targeting during the
upcoming year. There are many teachers who are teaching English in
Icelandic schools who are not members in the association and we
should continue with our goal of reaching as many teachers as
possible and getting them onboard.

Id like give you a brief overview of what we have done over the past
12 months as well as mention some of the upcoming events.

Lilja, runn and I have just returned from the 50th IATEFL
conference which was held in Birmingham, April 12th through 16th.
At this years conference there were over 2,500 delegates from over
100 countries and there were 6 teachers from Iceland in attendance.
IATEFL is a 4-day program of around 500 talks, workshops and
symposiums and, as usual, the conference was both informative and
entertaining. IATEFL conferences always leave one feeling
invigorated and full of new ideas and I have yet to leave IATEFL
without a suitcase full of books, pamphlets and notes. IATEFL has
also been important venue to meet new colleagues. Many of FEKs
summer courses have been taught by experts in the field, who were
met for the first time at the IATEFL conference.

The 2017 IATEFL conference will be held in Glasgow, April 4th

through 7th. The pre-conference events, or SIGs (Special Interest
Groups) start one day earlier. I encourage you to attend.

The 2015 summer course was held at EH, August 5th - 7th. The title
of the course was: Teaching the Unteachable and 6+1 Traits of
Writing. Robert Berman was the coordinator for the course. It was
a great success and I would like to extend my special thanks to
Robert for all his hard work in organizing the event and for making
it a success. I would also like to say thanks to all of the northern
members who helped out in the planning. There were 30 participants
who registered for the course, but some dropped out just before it
started. In Marie Delaneys section there were 7 participants from
primary and 21 from secondary schools. In the writing section there
were 24 participants. One problem came up: primary school teachers
were suddenly expected to cover their own book costs (secondary
school teachers were to get theirs free). FEK covered the cost.

Other events during the year include:

1. The reading club: Mostly for retired teachers, the reading club
meets on a regular basis and the group now has 12-14 people.
Jn Hannesson has organized these events.
2. FEK collaborated with the ESU (English Speaking Union) in
sponsoring the National Public Speaking Competition. It was
held at the University of Reykjavk on February 20th. The
theme this year was Integrity has no need of rules. The
competition, which is open to all youth between the ages of 16-
20, was well attended. This years winner is Tinna Lf
Jrgensen from V. She will go on to represent Iceland in the
final competition, which will be held in London in May 2016.
Jn Hannesson did most of the planning for this event and I
would like to extend a special thanks to him for that.
3. The short story competition was opened on the European Day
of Languages on September 26th. As in the past, there were
 four age categories. The judging took place in December and a
reception was held for the winners, their parents and their
teachers on March 4th at Geruberg. This year the Canadian
Embassy sponsored the event by providing prizes for the
winners in each of the categories. The Canadian Ambassador,
Stewart Wheeler, presented the awards and held a speech in
which he praised the imagination, abilities and creativity of the
young writers and stressed the importance of language
learning. I would like to thank Lilja Margrt Mller and
runn Patricia Sleight for all their help in making this event
such a success.
4. English teachers Coffee Meetings take place twice a year, once
in the fall and once in the spring. Teachers meet up to discuss
their work and teaching practices. This past school year, we
had one meeting in Hverageri and one at MH. The discussion
topics were short story writing and 10th grade assessment,
respectively.
5. Our newsletter was sent to all FEK members in March.
6. FEK has a new email address: enskukennarar@gmail.com
7. Gun Ester Aalsteinsdttir has done a fantastic job on the
FEK website, which is new and improved. She will continue to
update and add information quickly and efficiently. Thanks to
Gun Ester for making our website better.

Next, Id like to mention this years summer course, A Brief History

of Race, Literature, Love, and Swearing in Yorkshire. It will be held
from June 20th -24th at the University of Yorks Norwegian Study
Center. We received a grant from RANNS to subsidize the course
and Samuel Lefever has done most of the planning and is the
supervisor for the course. If you are interested then please talk to
Samuel for more information.

The FEKI Facebook site is proving itself to be a useful tool in getting

information out to our membership and Im happy to say that we
now have 280 members, which is an increase of about 50 members
from last years number of 226. FEK has also made itself visible in
Mlfrur and we were especially pleased to hear that the publication
now allows articles to be published in English.

It is my sincere hope that we continue to increase our visibility and

our membership during the upcoming year. We can make our
association of teachers of English in Iceland even better by getting
more people involved, organizing even more events and courses, and
by providing information and sharing experiences. As you all know,
being a part of an active professional community is valuable to our
development as educators. Lets keep the ball rolling.

On a personal note:
Its hard to believe that I have been on the Board of FEK for the
past 11 years, since the spring of 2005. Its been an extremely
valuable experience and has provided me with opportunities for
growth, both professionally and personally. Ive enjoyed my time on
the board. However, as many of you know, I will be stepping down as
the FEK Chair at todays meeting. My time as Chair has been
rewarding, but this autumn I will be going on sabbatical. I wish to
thank-you all for the trust that you have shown me throughout the
years and look forward to seeing FEK continue to flourish and grow.

Thank-you.

Kristen Mary Swenson

FEK Chair