Simon Greenall:
 “I am looking forward to my visit to Russia.”

Interviews with famous people in ELT have become a good tradition of our newsletter and its distinctive feature. This   time meet Simon Greenall, past president who has just stepped down  at Edinburgh conference and who looks forward to serving on the Executive Committee as outgoing Vice President. He is better known to our readers as the author of  Reward. In September, he is going to visit  St. Petersburg .  He was very busy and probably spoke to  hundreds of people during the conference. I managed to talk to him during the break.

Tatiana Ivanova
T.I. How do you think the conference is going?
S.G. Fine, I think. It’s very difficult to know. We’ve worked very hard all year round, longer even for this conference. Now that it’s here we’re just responding to events really, but I’ve personally got a good feel about it. It is going on very well.
T.I. Is this conference somewhat different from other conferences? It is the last conference of the Millennium. Does it make it different?
S.G. No, it doesn’t. One of the reasons is that it’s not the last conference of the Millennium for many countries. We were going to make a big issue out of this, then suddenly realised that with different calendars around the world the Millennium is only actually something that interests us primarily in the West, you know, including Russia, so we are not making a big deal of the Millennium. I think next year there will be probably a bit more. No, it’s a standard conference. There may be other reasons to change the style of the conference in the future but it has nothing to do with the Millennium.
T.I. Has it something to do with the pessimistic opinion that big conferences like this are inefficient?
S.G. I would not want to misrepresent Adrian’s views (Adrian Underhill is the newly elected president of IATEFL, who has taken over from Simon), but he is very well versed in the dynamics of conferences and networking. We are very pleased that IATEFL conferences become a major event in the language teaching calendar, but I think Adrian is very aware that they may become something less attractive to people. And I think under his supervision there is a good chance  that we will rethink the conference and do it in a slightly different way probably maintaining the size of it in some form or other, but operating it in a slightly more intimate, more informal way. That’s the way forward, I think.
T.I. You have just stepped down as a president, but was elected vice-president of IATEFL. Thank you very much for everything you have been doing. Could you tell me what was the worst thing and the best thing during your two years of office.
S.G. The worst thing ....I can’t think of a single event, but the worst thing, I suppose is: the feeling that the organisation is very big both the conference and the association itself and it is difficult for somebody who is elected and comes in effectively from the outside I was an ordinary member of IATEFL before, but for  somebody who comes in and starts running the Association it is difficult to feel that you are doing that job efficiently... I like to do the job efficiently, but I was never certain that I was able to do so.
Best thing... best thing was probably the conferences at which I’ve been president. I came in at the end of the conference in Brighton in 1997 and probably this year it’s not quite as good as I am leaving and there is a note sadness... So I suppose the best thing would have been Manchester conference last year when I was in the middle of my term of office, I knew everything that was going on and I felt competent and confident. And whereas I still feel competent and confident I am slightly sadder today than I was at the Manchester conference 1998.
T.I. What do you think of the main trends in IATEFL development in future?
S.G. I think probably two words - professionalisation and internationalisation. We started out as a very UK based organisation, calling ourselves international, but I don’t think we were really. I think we have been moving in the past few years into much, much greater outreach around the world and sponsorships of different events in different parts of the world and basically our profile being seen as becoming more and more international. We keep our main conferences in the UK because people get funding to come here but then we have various events where we go to them , that’s the international side of  IATEFL.
And the professional side... Although it is amateur strictly speaking and volunteer association, we believe that people today expect professional service
Everything we have been doing from new logo, mission statement, using all the different media, such as websites etc. So  all this is a part of a process of professionalisation.
T.I. Your book, Reward is very well known, probably better known than the fact that you were the IATEFL president for two years. What do you like better, to run IATEFL or to write books?
S.G. It’s a very good question. And if you really want to know, maybe it is not the best answer for the interview, but the honest answer is the books. I am very pleased and proud of what you’ve just said. Reward was a labour of love for five years really, and I am delighted that it’s known in Russia, in St. Petersburg. I am very, very proud of it. Though I have got certain regrets about leaving this job, but for me the greatest pleasure is writing
T.I. You are going to be in St. Petersburg this September. What do you expect from this visit?
S.G. I am certainly looking forward to this visit, it is my first visit to Russia. I had many invitations and it is the first one that’s going to happen. I don’t know what to expect. It is going to be above all an enormous privilege to come there and I am looking forward to seeing a city that I know so much about from books and films and whatever, but have never seen myself and I am feeling that it’s part of our common European culture and it’s nice to belong to that, so the European aspect of my visit is very important as the Russian side is as well.
T.I. Thank you very much for this interview. We look forward to your visit.
S.G. I look forward to it as well.

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