Moderating a teaching association Facebook Group – Introduction

Back in 2011, I started volunteering for IATEFL. My job: moderating the IATEFL Facebook Group. This is the first in a series about the experience.

IATEFL took place that year in Brighton, and it was actually the first time that I’d ever been to the conference. My chief involvement in the event that year was as one of a group of four presenters for the British Council at the ESOL Special Interest Group PCE. This Pre-Conference Event took place the day before the main conference, so after completing presentation duties with Phil, Callie and Amanda, I spent the four days rushing around to see all I could see. It was a great, if exhausting first involvement with the association event. But more interesting things would follow: I had recently joined the newly formed IATEFL Electronic Communications Committee.

Subsequently monikered ElCom, this committee was formed by Gavin Dudeney (the inaugural Chair), Eric Baber (then the incoming IATEFL President), Sara Hannam (formerly Associates Representative) and myself. Our task was to look at how the association communicated with its members, with a focus on electronic (what now is usually referred to as digital) media. This included looking at the IATEFL website (as it was) and the Partners and Associates List (though I think that is now more or less discontinued), but the biggest issue was looking at social media: how IATEFL communicated via sites and services like Twitter and Facebook.

This series will look at some of the reasons why we chose to work with Facebook as the platform for IATEFL’s social media activity and offer you some tips if you are looking to get social with your own teaching association.