Boat trip on the Danube

Friday, 7th October, 2011

20.30-22.00

Pecha Kucha Night

Saturday, 8th October, 2011

19.45-21.15

Raffle

Saturday, 8th October, 2011

21.15

Sunday, 9th October, 2011

13.00

Jamie Keddie

Jamie Keddie is a European-based teacher, teacher trainer, writer and presenter. He is the founder of Lessonstream, the site that was formerly known as TEFLclips, winner of a British Council ELTons award. His publications include Images in the Resource Books for Teachers series published by Oxford University Press. Jamie is an associate trainer at Norwich Institute for Language Education.

Teachers: actors or postmen?

What exactly do we expect to achieve with the materials that we take into the classroom? And how do we set out to do it? Well, perhaps it’s a question of delivery. In this talk, we will address two points: firstly, that one route to effective classroom practice lies in the teacher’s delivery technique and secondly, that mainstream beliefs may prevent such techniques form flourishing.

Michael Swan

Michael Swan is a writer specialising in English Language teaching and reference materials. His many publications include Practical English Usage (OUP), the Cambridge English Course series (with Catherine Walter), and, also with Catherine Walter, the new Oxford English Grammar Course. Michael’s interests include pedagogic grammar, mother-tongue influence in second language acquisition, and the relationship between applied linguistic theory and classroom language-teaching practice. He has had extensive experience with adult learners, and has worked with teachers in many countries.

What is happening in English, and how much does it matter?

Do you care about the threat to the apostrophe? How do you feel about ‘Between you and I'? Do you twitch at sentences like 'If you’d have asked me I’d have told you’? or 'Charles is understanding French a lot better since he went to France'? Would you burst into tears if somebody said 'He was like, well, I better go home now'?
English, like all languages, is in constant flux. The talk will consider:

• the meaning of 'correctness'
• changes in modern English, and the various reasons for them
• ways of keeping track of what is going on
• how much emphasis we should give to correctness in language teaching
• the importance (or not) of native-speaker models for learners.

Sheelagh Deller

Sheelagh Deller is a teacher, teacher trainer, trainer trainer and ELT author. She has worked for Pilgrims, the British Council, and many Ministries of Education running courses for teachers in Canterbury and throughout Europe, North America, North Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, covering wide ranges of experience, culture and teaching situations.
She has also been the plenary speaker at many conferences and was a speaker at IATEFL Hungary about ten years ago. Her latest book, Teaching Other Subjects Through English, was published by Oxford University Press in March 2007. Her first book, Lessons from the Learner, was published by Longman in 1990 and this still remains her favourite

Who Influences Who in the Learning Community

In education, as in very many other professions, there are conflicting interests and beliefs. This can have a negative effect. However, if we as teachers are able to teach effectively we need to acknowledge our constraints and those of others. We should be working together rather than against each other. I will consider why these conflicts exist and offer some solutions to our different and sometimes conflicting approaches and objectives in education.

Graham Stanley

Graham Stanley is coordinator of the IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG and works as a teacher and social media consultant for the British Council. He is particularly interested in emerging technologies and how they can be used for language learning and teaching. Current interests include using social networking for teacher development; teaching with computer games and virtual worlds; and learner-centred teaching with interactive whiteboards. He has an M.Ed. in ELT & Educational Technology (University of Manchester) and is co-author of the book 'Digital Play: Computer Games and Language Aims' (Delta Publishing Teacher Development)

Innovations in language learning spaces

The 21st century has brought a revolution in the way people can and want to teach and learn languages. Much of this has revolved around the spaces where people choose to learn.Starting with a light-hearted look at traditional classrooms and how they have hardly changed, we'll examine what the digital revolution is doing to these spaces, with computers in the classroom and interactive whiteboards heralding a move towards the normalisation of technology. Then we'll move outside the classroom and look at other ways that people are learning nowadays and will be learning languages in the future. This will start with new methodologies such as 'Crazy English' , which is popular in China and has classes in spaces such as football stadiums and involves learners meeting on street corners to practise English together by shouting. Then we will take a trip through learning languages in computer games and virtual worlds, where teachers have been finding out how best to exploit the advantages that these exciting new environments afford, and which has been gradually winning the attention of those involved in distance education. From there, we will turn our attention to mobile learning spaces. All indications seem to point at a growing importance of these spaces for future language learning. We'll look at the learning taking place in these spaces now and show how you can become involved.