17th BELTA-UAP-THT Teacher Development Conference 2023 Held at UAP

The Department of English, University of Asia Pacific (UAP), in partnership with Bangladesh English Language Teachers Association (BELTA) and the Japan Association of Language Teaching (JALT) organized the BELTA-UAP-THT 17th Teacher Development Conference on 28th October, 2023 at the UAP auditorium.

The opening ceremony of the daylong event was held at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 28, 2023 with the honorable Vice Chancellor of UAP, Prof. Dr. Qumrul Ahsan as the Chief Guest. It was also addressed by the BELTA President Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka Prof. Ahmed Bashir, ELT specialist and Dean of Faculty of International Liberal Arts, team leader of THT Prof. Dr. Cecilia Silva and Convener of the conference Associate Professor, Department of English, UAP Mr. Takad Ahmed Chowdhury.

The conference included seven important sessions covering a range of important topics relevant to English language teaching in the changing landscape. It provided a valuable opportunity for nearly one hundred English language teachers from universities, colleges, secondary schools, and madrasas who attended the conference for their professional growth and development in the field of English language teaching in Bangladesh. The impressive lineup of distinguished resource persons sponsored by THT for this conference included:
1. Prof. Dr. Patrick Dougherty, Dean of the Faculty of International Liberal Arts, Akita International University, Japan.
2. Prof. Dr. Anne McLellan Howard, Miyazaki International College, Japan.
3. Prof. Dr. Cecilia Silva, Tohoku University, Japan.
4. Prof. Dr. Erin Mikulec, School of Teaching and Learning, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, USA.
5. Prof. Dr. Marian Wang, Center for Education, Konan University, Japan.
6. Prof. Dr. Brent A. Jones, Director of Language Programs, Konan University, Japan.

In addition, an exciting and insightful panel discussion was held on this year’s theme of the conference, which is ‘Language Teaching: Insights from Changing Landscape. The panel discussion yielded significant insights into the field of language education by the expert panelists, namely Prof. Dr. Patrick Dougherty, Dean of the Faculty of International Liberal Arts, Akita International University, Japan, Prof. Dr. Cecilia Silva, Tohoku University, Japan, Prof. Dr. Md. Moninoor Roshid, IER, University of Dhaka and Mr. Muhammad Humayun Kabir, English Language Instructor, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB), and Access Teacher, English Access Micro scholarship Program.

The closing ceremony was held at 4:30 p.m. with Prof. Dr. M.A. Baqui Khalily, Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Science, as the Chief Guest. It was also addressed by Prof. Dr. Patrick Dougherty, Dean of the Faculty of International Liberal Arts, Akita International University, Japan, and Dr. Md. Atikur Rahman, Associate Professor of English and Joint Secretary, BELTA. The conference was skillfully hosted by Tasmiah Akhtar, Lecturer of English, UAP.