IATEFL is in full swing in Birmingham and for those of us unable to attend, there are LOADS of resources available online so we won’t feel like we’re missing out (except on all the socialising!). In association with the British Council, you can check out a lot of live coverage here and many talks will also be recorded and available at a later date. A number of publishers also live-stream or record sessions which can be viewed from their own sites.
ACEIA Conference 2016
ACEIA are now accepting proposals for their next annual conference, which will be held on Saturday 12th November in Sevilla. You can find more details on how to submit a proposal here and remember that if you’re a member of TEFL del Sur, you could win the First-Time Speaker Grant if your talk is accepted.
TEFL del Sur
A few years ago, Morgan recorded one of TEFL del Sur’s mini-conferences. If anyone would like to listen to the recordings, check them out:
Gameshow Games
Guided Visualisations
Last-Minute Lessons
ACEIA feedback
Another successful day out at ACEIA earlier in the month. With so many talks and speakers to choose from, it’s sometimes hard to know who to see and who to avoid. Here are some of the things this year’s attendees enjoyed:
Karen Muckey’s I am the Kid Whisperer!
Angel Anderson’s Use of English (and sample activities)
Robin Walker’s Make No Mistake
Hugh Dellar’s Bottom-Up Approach to Grammar
You can download a number of the speakers’ handouts from the ACEIA website.
Chat to Nico or Kate for some ideas on how to use photos from The X-Factor session, including giving learners a 60-second limit to describe a photo for realistic exam practice or flashing up a photos for just three seconds and see what they saw. Nico also went to Stuart Vinnie’s session in which he used photos as a starting point for more activities, such as a gapfill or a writing. Photos were again a hot topic in Hugh Dellar’s talk Can a Picture Tell a Thousand Words?, which Lucy and Katie went to see.
For young learners, chat to Lucy or Katie about Name the Steps which aimed to provide more structure to lessons and encourage learner autonomy – they said that it was perhaps a little militant, but showed the usefulness of breaking down aims into smaller steps. One of Kate’s ideas from the What’s trending with YLs? session was on using their own interests in grammar practice activities, e.g. if they like Star Wars, what’s Chewbacca doing? Natalie got some good ideas from this session too, such as using Top Trump cards or Disney songs which they are more motivated by. You could also ask Nat (and Edel or Chris) about Mick Lawson’s Keeping it Real session – it seems that too long was spent on the theory behind using authentic materials at the start, but they can point you in the direction of some nice videos to use in class or sites to find articles.
From Chris Roland’s Structuring the Madness session, Natalie liked his idea about giving challenging students two graded paragraphs early on and giving them the responsibility to change their behaviour in order to get the better of the two come report time.
Chat to JG at the beginning of next year about the Teen Building session which he said had some great ideas for establishing classroom environments at the start of the course. He and Edel also enjoyed Angel Anderson’s talk called What’s the Use of English? and can talk you through the ideas on the handout and powerpoint above if they don’t make sense.
Katie went to see the two Puro Teatro sessions which were in Spanish and so made her appreciate how our learners can sometimes feel in the classroom – chat to her for some ideas on using drama in the classroom.
The opening plenary by JJ Wilson seemed popular with almost everyone and Chris has some great advice from the session: “If presenting something dull, get balloons!”
IATEFL TEASIG
Following on from the PDM on assessment and levels, Simon P posted a link to the IATEFL TEASIG (Testing, Evaluation and Assessment Special Interest Group) where they post news of upcoming events and articles related to this area of EFL.
There’s a webinar on 2nd December which sounds quite interesting too: Teaching for Exams – a learning opportunity for teachers and examiners. For more details on how to sign up, check out their website.
Professional Development Opportunities
There are a wide variety of options to help us expand and develop both within our centres and elsewhere. You can find some links in the *professional development menu and there are also a number of teaching organisations who are often on the look out for new faces and ideas:
The British Council are currently looking for speakers at their teacher development sessions in the UK, as well as speakers for webinars and writers of blogposts. If you’re interested, you can find more information here.
OUP are also looking for bloggers – more details here.
If you’re on Twitter, it’s worth checking out the weekly Wednesday #eltchat . And if you aren’t on Twitter, you can keep up with what’s been happening by checking out the summary here.
How do we develop?
Thanks to everyone for Friday’s brainstorm on how we develop. Remember if you’re interested in following any of the routes, feel free to chat to me or anyone else about your options.
Effective Grammar Teaching
Here are some details about an online session for next Wednesday, organised by TESOL. Unfortunately it falls slap-bang in the middle of the afternoon, at 4.30; however, often they make the webinars available afterwards.
Authentic Listening – a webinar
Here’s an opportunity to see one of the pronunciation greats, Mark Hancock, in action. Delta make the majority of their webinars available afterwards so even if you’re in class you can catch up on it later.
Authentic Listening – Pronunciation for Listeners
Wednesday 12th November 2014 16.00 (UK time)
In this talk, Mark Hancock will look at some aspects of pronunciation that can jeopardize comprehension. He will also look at a few ideas and materials that can be used to raise learners’ awareness of these aspects and help learners ‘hear beyond’ them.
All you need is a computer and an internet connection! Register here.
Thanks to Jill for the link!