Sketchnotes from IATEFL 2025

The IATEFL conference has become an annual opportunity for me to catch up in real life with some of my favourite ELT humans and to get inspired by new ideas.

This year, I also had the chance to see my new book, Impact for National Geographic Learning, in all its printed glory:

To launch the new edition of Impact, I spoke about Real Role Models: Authentic Voices that make an Impact. I shared the work of inspiring humans such as Roza Salih and various National Geographic Explorers, such as Andrés Ruzo on the Boiling River and Qiyun Woo's incredible visuals on climate change.

I was honoured to welcome on stage Ali Waters, my youngest role model. At just 11 years old, she has managed to inspire people around the world to collect over 1 Million Pieces of litter for Kids Against Plastic. She spoke about her plans to keep picking to 2 Million and beyond. Her incredible work is the perfect example of a young changemaker using their voice to make an impact.

After warming up as a special guest in my workshop, Ali went on to deliver a closing plenary that will stick in delegate's minds forever! She grilled her father, Harry Waters, with five burning questions. The session was so fast paced, my magic pen couldn't keep up, and I ran out of space.

Here is a very brief summary of just a handful of the important questions and answers:

Helen's workshops are always well-researched, inclusive and delivered with enthusiasm. This particular session shared three coaching practices to empower autonomous learners and teachers. It covered the GROW model, SMART goals and contracting. Here is a visual summary:

Jade has long been one of my Visual Thinking in ELT heroes. A fellow advocate of doodling in the classroom, she is an expert in visual literacy. Her session explored the wonderful world of visual information processing and its infinite benefits to learning and teaching. Here is my sketchnote from her session:

The ability to question the authenticity of information online is becoming ever more challenging and thus more crucial than ever. Dr Armanda's session offered top tips and teaching ideas to incorporate it into the English language classroom. Here is a quick sketchnote as summary:

There is more to literacy than simply reading and writing. This session explored the importance of visual, social, media, global and textual literacy in the English language classroom. It also offered teaching ideas, tips and tools. Here is my visual summary, on National Geographic Learning branded paper.

John Hughes explored the inclusion of sustainability topics in the English language classroom. More than ever sustainable development goals are embedded into curriculums, with the majority of teachers seeing this as a crucial part of their roles. This sketchnote summaries some of the teaching ideas and statistics from the session.

My favourite thing about IATEFL is catching up with long time friends, making new ones and meeting online contacts in real life. This year I got to see lots of my writing and editing colleagues from National Geographic Learning as well as my teacher training