The PH Vienna’s Biennial English Teachers’ Day has proven to be a valuable get-together that English teachers all over Austria cannot and will not miss. It is an opportunity for the whole community to come together in order to exchange ideas, learn from one another and return to the classrooms the next day with new ideas and motivation.

This year was the ETD’s second online edition due to COVID. The participants could enjoy the parts that together constitute the English Teachers’ Day from their warm and comfy home:

• the choice of a variety of different workshops
• national and international experts providing input on English teaching and learning
• the beloved book fair that allows participants to browse the most recent offers supporting their teaching, ranging from books, films and travels to theatre shows: https://padlet.com/EnglishTeachersDay/2022bookfair
• and finally, the raffle for which the ETD’s sponsors kindly provided a number of various prizes

A warm welcome was extended to all the participants by the PH Vienna’s vice dean, Mag.^a Dr.ⁱⁿ Evelyn Süss-Stepancik (Vizerektorin für Lehre und Studieren) before this year’s keynote speaker, Jane Revell, offered some inspiring insights into positive psychology and mindfulness. Having qualifications in psychotherapy, stress management, educational kinesiology, and personal fitness, alongside with being a Master Practitioner and Certified Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming, Jane argued that we have all the resources we need to cope with whatever comes our way. We just need to be aware of them and stop to actively profit from those resources. She invited the participants to revisit some simple tried and trusted strategies we all can use on a daily basis to help ourselves feel more resourceful – and help our students to do the same!

Valuable input, ideas and strategies to be used in the classroom could also be taken away from the 14 workshops that participants could choose to attend. Some of them elaborated on the concept of teaching English while at the same time developing the learners’ media literacy. Others focused on how language teaching can successfully be linked to the fields of art or music. This year’s English Teachers’ Day also gave everyone the opportunity to discuss their thoughts if they have ever wondered which of the many “Englishes” in the world to teach, whether teaching pronunciation is worth it or how to create non-discriminatory lessons with regards to LGBTQIA+. At the end of the day everyone came back together to share a moment of thrill during the online raffle.

THANK YOU to the organisational team, the speakers, the sponsors and the participants for your time and passion!