AVEALMEC

AVEALMEC ( Asociación Venezolana para la Enseñanza y Aprendizaje de Lenguas Mediados por el Computador) is an educational association which started as an idea on March 14th 2007 in a national forum entitled "What's next? The Future of English in Venezuela" at the British Council . During the concluding session, a group of teachers from different universities agreed on setting this association up (You can download the summary of this ELT forum in the 579 message in VENELT).

After this event, these teachers started holding meetings via chat and Skype to:

1. name the association

2. name the members of the board of directors, vocal and acting members

3. identify the mission, objectives and vision of the association

4. design a logo for the association

5. write the association constitution document with the British Council legal consultantship

6. write the statutes (we are currently working on them)

7. organize the first AVEALMEC event along with the British Council

We became a legal association on August 6^th, 2007 when we received the constitution document at the registrar.

We are 13 founding members and we expect to have new active members after the November event, the Web 2.0 for ELT teachers:Podcasts, Blogs, Wikis, Virtual Worlds and Digital Games. This event will be an opportunity to promote the association among the seminar participants who in turn, we hope, will spread the words on the benefits teachers can get out of the association.

The AVEALMEC members are:

President: Teadira Pérez (ULA) . *Acting member: Dafne González (USB)

Vice president: Liliana Buitrago (UNEFM). Acting member: Nahir Aparicio (UPEL-Caracas)

Secretary: Miguel Mendoza (UCV-British Council). Acting member: Evelyn Izquierdo (UCV)

Treasurer: Víctor Ojeda (Colegio Emil Friedman). Acting member: Benicio Galavís (CUFM)

Vocal member: Yuraimig Rivero (UPEL-Maturin). Acting member: Elvina Castillo (UNEFM)

The rest of the founding members are: José Luis Gómez (UDO), Mary Pinto (UC) and Lisbeth Jiménez (UPEL-Barquisimeto)

The main objective of the association is to promote the integration of ICT in the language classroom and educational curricula. We also aim at promoting the use, pedagogical practice and design of ICT/CALL materials in ELT.

Working together and having the support of the British Council have made the setting up of the association smooth. There's still a long way to go but its current members are working hard to turn AVEALMEC into a leading association in the promotion of ICT in ELT in Venezuela.

ULA (Universidad de los Andes); USB (Universidad Simón Bolívar); UNEFM (Universidad Nacional Experimental Francisco de Miranda); UPEL (Universidad Pedagógica Experimental Libertador); UCV (Universidad Central de Venezuela); CUFM (Colegio Universitario Francisco de Miranda); UDO (Universidad de Oriente); UC (Universidad de Carabobo)