What would you like to talk about on Wednesday April 6 2011
This week, many of the teachers participating in #ELTchat are attending the ISTEK Schools 2nd Annual Conference.
These very lines are being written inside the auditorium while listening to Professor Jack Richard’s excellent talk on key competencies and skills for English Language teachers – seated beween Scott Thornbury who will be giving the closing Plenary talk this evening on “Six Big Ideas and One Little One” and Luke Meddings who delivered his keynote yesterday with the title “Six Sketches for ISTEK”
The plenaries and keynotes are streamed live so so spend a little time following and follow our tweets with the #istek hashtag and may be you will be inspired to suggest some great topics inspired by this fantastic conference !
Propose topics for our next #ELTchat
Please post your topics for our next #ELTchat on Wednesday, March 30.
Top choice will be discussed at 12:00 PM. GMT & 2nd choice at 21:00 PM. GMT
Each week we alternate top and second choice.
Find your own local time for each chat here for 12:00 London timeand here for 21:00 London time.
Please, include topics which
- have not been covered already in previous #ELTchats
- are relevant to ELT teachers and teaching foreign languages
- are not targeted attacks on individuals or institutions
- are simply and clearly expressed.
The #ELTchat moderators reserve the right not to post comments or to include them in the poll if they do not follow the above guidelines.
#ELTchat – Two new discussion topics every Wednesday!
11 Responses
Do you believe in a teacher’s kit, something that you use when all fails?
At the ISTEK ELT conference this weekend, Rod Bolitho talked about the value and potential of reflection in learning & teaching and suggested that not everyone is naturally reflective. So, how do you encourage learners and trainees to reflect on their learning and practice? (The discussion could include the suggestions from Rod because I couldn’t see these activities 🙂
‘You’d investigate an educational institution’s reputation before even applying for a job there. Do you apply the same criteria to attending/presenting at conferences or other such events? Do we have a moral blind spot when it comes to networking and professional development?’
Sorry, just blogged about this and can’t get it out of my head. This could be a controversial topic so PLEASE take the easy option vote for one of the touchy feely friendly alternatives.
The role of controlled practice/RU activities in lang. teaching and ways of making them engaging (re Jamie’s talk at #ISTEK)
I believe the points above tend to be rather neglected in the mis-interpreted “communicative-approach” world :-).
I’d also like Carol’s idea, that would be a great one.
Re Rakesh’s interview I saw on the #ISTEK blog: Ways of developing critical thinking using the given coursebook material. E.g. how to make use of what is in the book and what is NOT to educate as part of the language teaching. (Sorry, can’t think of a more succint way of phrasing it at the moment…)
Given that conferences seem to be coming back as powerful, useful, well-attended events, after a lull and probably at least partially because of twitter and online participation/anticipation, how can participants best ensure that what they learnt, what they absorbed perhaps, lives on and spreads, either in their classroom practice, their staffroom or further?
A bit long, hey?!
Moving towards a more theoretical ground…
How about ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) / EIL (as an International Language) ?
I was just reading the thread of comments to Scott Thornbury’s blog entry “E is for ELF” and there seem to be 2 very different -yet both interesting- points of view. How do you feel about the idea of teaching a standardized English? Do you believe that approaching Englisha s a Lingua Franca is dumbing it down?
Sorry, forgot to attach the link (just in case)
http://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/e-is-for-elf/
Hi everyone, new to the site but hoping to be a regular. I like Erika’s topic – “The role of controlled practice/RU activities in lang. teaching and ways of making them engaging.” I certainly am a great believer in the communicative approach, but turning our backs on more controlled activities, maybe we through the baby out with the bath water. Cetrtainly would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on that.
Spelling again 😉 Is spelling important? And if it is, how should we teach it?
Erika’s proposal sounds interesting, but maybe hard to tackle on Twitter. Anyway, I’m a first timer, so I can only figure out how it works.
Nice range of questions some of them inspired by ISTEK conference, a fantastic event! I am hopeful that more topics for discussion will arise out of this unique experience and the many talks which were streamed and which are now available for viewing.
@Carol, Rod Bolitho has sent me his powerpoint slides and I will ask him if they could be shared before the #ELTchat if this is one of the top voted topics. I think it was a great talk and I would personally love to pursue this conversation!
@Fiona – your question is a great one, expecially useful to talk through – what should we do after the initial buzz has wonr off – how can we disseminate and assimilate this information
@Adam -I hope you did not mean this in a serious way – #ELTchat followers are free to vote for whichever topics they see relevant to them and there should be no judgemental comments if they don’t vote for the topic you suggested!
See you all online tomorrow!
Marisa
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