Penny Ur, a prominent ELT author, gave three presentations: one has been mentioned above. Then next day she volunteered to stand in for Alan Maley, who had to leave due to urgent family matters, her talk was or"Are teachers born or made?". And third time she spoke about the bridge between fluency and accuracy. So she really was the star of the conference.

I asked her for a short interview for our Newsletter and was not at all sure she would agree, there were so many people who wanted to talk to her. But she did agree and that is Penny. She is a real giver, very warm and encouraging and always ready to help.

P.U. No, not very often. May be I've given two or three in my life.

T.I. You were in St.Petersburg a year ago. What are your memories?

P.U. I remember the very, very warm welcome I got there. I remember, of course, beautiful places I've visited in the city, Winter Palace, the statues and the churches and the river and the canals and on the professional level I remember working with teacher trainers from the British Council and finding very much of a common language with them in the point that the problems which St.Petersburg teacher trainers face are very similar to the ones I face in Israel and we found we were working together in the same way. It was lovely.

T.I. You mentioned at one of the sessions here that you wanted very much to come to Romania. May I ask, why? What is your special interest in this conference?

P.U. I'm interested in going to the conferences in the countries, where teachers interest is developing very fast and these countries are not very rich and they therefore are managing on very limited resources. I find I have more to give, have more to say to teachers in the countries like this than I do in very rich countries like Japan or America, and I feel that if I come to countries like Romania, firstly I learn a lot and I have a lot to give and the interchange is much richer than it is in other countries.

T.I. Yesterday you made a wonderful presentation "Are teachers born or made?" You said that "teaching was thrust upon you"? . How did it happen?

P.U. It happened because I was an English-speaking immigrant to a non-English-speaking country, in this case Israel. They said: "Oh, you've got a University degree and you speak English, so you must be able to teach English", which actually doesn't follow at all. A lot of people can speak English and have no idea at all how to teach it, - anyway, they said: "You've got to teach it, we have nobody else to teach it". At the beginning I found it very very difficult, and later on I started enjoying it and learned to do it well, and I have been doing it since.

T.I. What is the most difficult thing for you in teaching profession?

P.U. Discipline problems. As children in the classroom in Israel anyway, are not terribly disciplined,. I have problems with classroom management. I mean, I manage, obviously. If I hadn't taught successfully , I wouldn't be here, but it is a continual problem for me and I'm learning how to deal with this problem. It has been one of the challenges of my teaching life which I find very satisfying to solve or partially solve as time goes on, but it remains a problem,  and I suppose  it always will be.

T.I. What gives you the biggest professional satisfaction?

P.U. Biggest satisfaction is seeing children who  you've taught learning English and speaking English and then coming back to you, you know. I've been in the profession for thirty years, I have actually taught the children of the children I taught and seeing these children speaking English - this is satisfactory in particular. One child who I taught when she was in  third-fourth grade who grew, became very fluent in English, she didn't actually visit an English-speaking country, but she was very fluent from my teaching, from other people's teaching when she went on to high school, and became an English teacher herself, and now she is a colleague, and this is really a wonderful feeling.

T.I. You have written so many books. You teach a lot and you go to conferences. You have a  family. Do you have problems trying to combine all these?

P.U. Yes, a lot of problems. People always ask me, how do you manage to teach and write and  teacher-train and I have four children and a husband, of course. When the children were smaller, I did less, I didn't do so much travelling, now I do a lot of travelling, as the children are grown up. One thing which helped me a lot was the fact that I live in a kibbutz which is a very supportive environment. The children are looked after during the day, so during my working day I didn't have to worry about the children when they were small and also I suppose the fact that  both my husband and my children are so very supportive, very tolerant of my teaching, of my taking time off to travel and then it's a matter of personal time organisation, working when you have time to do things, using every moment of  time you can  and I just like it, I love it, I love writing, I love teaching, so I make the time.

T.I. Your books are admired by many people. Which is "the favourite child" of the books you have written?

P.U. It is interesting that you said child, because there is a lot in common in writing a book and having a child. The one I am proudest of is my latest one, it is  "The course in language teaching", which is the culmi-nation of an enormous number of years work, I think that's one I am proudest of . If you ask, which is my favourite, which one I like best, and I what I use most myself, it is "Grammar practice activities", which I continue to use and continue to enjoy.

T.I. The next question may seem strange. Do you yourself use the exercises included in your book, already published, or create new ones?

P.U. I carry on using them, that is why I wrote the book, I needed it, I needed the exercises there, grammar practice activities, for example, or Discussions that Work activities, I use these activities in my own classrooms, but at the same time, one moves on and I am creating new stuff. If I have to write these books again today, I'll put in a lot of new stuff, because you keep thinking of  new things.

T.I. What are your plans?

P.U. This year I am on sabbatical and my plans are more to learn than to write. I have done an enormous amount of writing and lecturing in the last few years and I feel the need to recharge my batteries to learn, sit in libraries, read, catch up on what other people have researched and then I'll think about may be writing another book.

T.I. We'll look forward to it. Thank you very much indeed.