Most BNCs are facing a crisis that began before the pandemic. What is happening in education in general is not necessarily responding to the needs or interests of students. And teachers are tired of teaching – we have seen a mass migration of teachers leaving the field of teaching for other easier, greener pastures. From the point of view of language education, we are still doing basically the same thing we have been doing since the 70s or 80s when the communicative approach was presented in the language teaching field. There has been the integration of new technology to the process, but that process remains largely the same.
In our language programs there is an extremely high dropout rate among students, and truly very few students actually finish the complete programs we offer. There is a need to explore what is happening both in the class and out of it to see if there is something fundamental about how we are approaching teaching that makes them give up easily.
In addition to the questions about our language teaching, which for the great majority of BNCs is the primary source of income, we are also thinking about the other services we offer as well as the administrative structures of our centers. We are in need of an in-depth analysis of our situation and, instead of looking back at best practices, we need to look ahead to see where our centers are going in order to remain relevant and viable into the future.
So, we are looking to continue the work that we began in ABLA Express. We need a wider group of discussion, including not only executive directors but also academic and cultural directors and Education USA advisors. The 3-day ABLA 2023 conference will consist in a combination of virtual and face-to-face plenary sessions and panels by experts on the future of education as well as continued hands-on workshops designed to continue the development of new strategies that can be applied by most BNCs to support the continued development and sustainability of our programs.
Conference tracks
English Teaching
Management
Socio-cultural Innovation
Education USA
May 23rd - 25th
Bogotá, Colombia
Register now until April 30th