Dr Neil McMillan gives plenary talk to packed audience at IATEFL 2025
Published: 6 June 2025
Dr Neil McMillan, Glasgow College, UESTC EAP Lecturer, gives well received plenary at prestigious IATEFL 2025 conference
On 11th April, Dr Neil McMillan, a member of the English for Academic Practice (EAP) teaching team who is based at the Glasgow campus and who teaches at both Chengdu and Hainan, gave a plenary speech at the most prestigious conference of the season, IATEFL – the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language. Taking place in Scotland’s famous capital city, Edinburgh, the conference drew a crowd of thousands, making it the biggest conference for English teachers in the world. Accordingly, the plenary talk is on the main stage, delivered to the event’s largest audience.
The title of Neil’s talk was ‘Big Asks and Uphill Tasks: Making a Case for TBLT’ - and the topic was the Task-Based Language Teaching methodology. In it, he referenced his work with Glasgow College, UESTC and UESTC, and included various examples of task performance by both UESTC/GC English teachers and students. The Abstract describes it thus:
TBLT is a well-established, research-backed pedagogy regarded highly by students and stakeholders alike. Yet it remains a minority approach in ELT and is under- or misrepresented in coursebooks and training programmes, leaving many teachers unsure about whether or how to adopt it. This plenary sets out to explore why and attempts the uphill task of making a case for TBLT.
Dr McMillan reported:
“It was a bit nerve-wracking at first but once I got some laughs and a bit of applause, it all seemed to go smoothly. It was gratifying to have a full room for my Q&A session and to receive so many positive comments - some about my main topic, and others about issues I raised around teacher pay and conditions.”
Dr Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel (Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology & Neuroscience), another plenary speaker from UofG, also engaged conference delegates with 'Lessons learned: using the science of learning to inform teaching'.
Three further UofG academics gave talks addressing language topics. They were: Dr Carol Macdiarmid (Senior Lecturer in Modern Foreign Languages, School of Modern Languages and Cultures) with 'Developing critical reading literacies: from needs analysis to ESAP materials'; Dr Vanessa McDonagh (Lecturer in Modern Foreign Languages, School of Modern Languages and Cultures) with 'How emotions help shape teacher identity construction', and Dr Steve Brown (TESOL Lecturer, School of Education) with 'Emancipation for transformation: why empowerment in ELT is not enough'.
Dr McMillan plans to continue his research by conducting a task-based needs analysis with students at Glasgow College, UESTC in collaboration with colleagues Jennifer MacDougall of UofG and Qi Linyi (Martha) of UESTC. The results will inform curriculum renewal with the aim of better preparing our students for the English demands of their engineering degrees.
His talk, in its entirety, is available to enjoy on YouTube. You may click on the image below to open the video:
About IATEFL
"The conference was held from Tuesday 8 April to Friday 11 April 2025, with Pre-Conference Events being held on Monday 7 April at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.
The IATEFL Conference is a 4 day celebration of the English language teaching profession with over 500 academic sessions, an exhibition of all that's new in the world of English language teaching, and a busy social programme of fun evening events and opportunities to network and be part of the global community of ELT professionals. The academic programme includes headline plenaries, presentations, workshops, panel discussions, lightening talks and poster presentations."
- taken from www.iateflconference.org/home
First published: 6 June 2025