Meet some of the Conference Speakers

Hebert Puchta, President of IATEFL

Professor of English at the Teacher Training University in Graz, Austria.

He has been a plenary speaker at a number of international conferences, and has conducted workshops and given seminars in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Croatia, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Paraguay, and Uruguay. He has also worked as a speaker for the British Council and has contributed to several British Council Specialist Seminars.

Herbert is a Master Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming. For almost two decades, he has carried out research into the practical application of findings from cognitive psychology to the teaching of English as a foreign language. Herbert has co-authored numerous course books for the teaching of English as a foreign language, as well as articles and resource books.

Rob Hill After graduating in English Language and Literature from Oxford University, Robert Hill taught English in Spain, Greece and England. For the last 25 years has been based in Italy, where he taught for many years at the universities of Verona and Milan and has been involved in teacher training and project consultancy for the Italian Ministry of Education, regional educational authorities and the British Council. Currently a freelance teacher trainer, author and editor, he has spoken at IATEFL, TESOL and other conferences and held workshops all over the world. As writer and editor, he is particularly interested in reading skills.

Piotr Cap Piotr Cap is professor of linguistics at the University of Łódź and at the University of Economy in Bydgoszcz, Poland. His research interests are in pragmatics, (critical) discourse analysis, political linguistics, business communication, and intercultural aspects of academic education. His monographic and (co-)edited publications include Explorations in Political Discourse (Peter Lang, 2002), Pragmatics Today (Peter Lang, 2005), Legitimisation in Political Discourse (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2006/2008), New Approaches to Discourse and Business Communication (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), and Perspectives in Politics and Discourse (John Benjamins, 2010). He is Managing Editor of International Review of Pragmatics (Brill: Leiden/Boston) and member of editorial and advisory boards of several journals in pragmatics and discourse analysis. A Fulbright Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and Boston University, he has given over 80 lectures (including plenaries) at international conferences and congresses in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.

Paul Maglione

Paul Maglione is the Co-founder of English Attack! and brings 25 years of experience in news, television, videogames, web, and mobile to the world of EFL. A dual Italian and USA national, Paul holds a BA from Brown, an MBA from London Business School and a TEFL Certificate from Rutgers.

Dr Joanna Nijakowska University of Łódź, Poland

Educational accommodations towards learners with dyslexia

David Gray

After studying French and Spanish at university, David joined an NGO and went to teach English in Indonesia. He didn’t have any training and says that he made many mistakes at first. Now, 30 years later, he tries to help other teachers do a better job than he did when he started! Apart from teaching and teacher training, David has written a number of coursebooks for Richmond Publishing. These include Lighthouse for Primary, Can Do and Extreme for teenagers, and Tune In and Elevator for late teens and young adults. David lives in Spain and when he’s not working, he likes to hike in the mountains, read and take photographs.

Paul Seligson

Paul Seligson has been TEFLing worldwide for 30 years. An MATEFL, CELTA assessor and LCCI examiner, he has taught and trained teachers in more countries than he can remember! His many publications include Helping Students to Speak (Richmond), English File (OUP) and Richmond Essential English Course (Richmond). He works from Brighton as a freelance trainer. Contact: seligson04@yahoo.co.uk

Jeremy Day

Jeremy Day is Series Editor for Cambridge English for ..., a new series of ESP short courses. He has also written several Teacher's Books, including International Legal English. He writes business English lesson plans and other activities for Professional English Online (http://peo.cambridge.org/).  He has taught in Poland since 1996, and currently teaches mainly at the British Council in Warsaw.

Steve Oakes Steve Oakes is an experienced teacher, teacher trainer and trainer trainer who has worked in numerous countries around the world including the UK, the US, Japan and South Africa as well as various parts of Central Europe,.  He has been the Head of Teacher Training at International House, Budapest since 1997. Steve is also a co-author of Speakout, a new general adult course from Pearson Longman.

Vicky Hollett Vicki Hollett wrote her very first book for Pearson Longman back in 1982. Since then she has gone on to write many courses for other publishers, including a couple of first prize winners in the English Speaking Union competition. She has taught English in Japan, Algeria, the UK and the US, and worked for International House, EF Executive Centres, Bell Language Schools, and the University of Pennsylvania. She has conducted Business English teacher training syllabus development work for Cambridge ESOL and delivered workshops for teachers in Europe, the Far East and South America. Vicki is delighted to be coming back home to Pearson Longman for the publication of her next course.

Craig Huxley Craig Huxley is an international speaker and teacher trainer. After studying at the University of Wolverhampton his teaching career involved students of all ages and social backgrounds, including learners with learning difficulties. For several years he has been working for Express Publishing as an ELT Consultant, visiting schools, observing lessons and introducing the latest interactive whiteboard technology. He is also an oral examiner for the Cambridge ESOL upper suite examinations.

Andrew Walkley

Andrew Walkley teaches general English at the University of Westminster, London. Over the last few years he's been writing the coursebook series Innovations with Hugh Dellar and trialling the material in his classes. In the summer he runs a teacher training programme at the university and has been involved in developing a new "Intensive Speaking" course, also at Westminster.

David A Hill

David A. Hill is a teacher, teacher trainer and educational materials writer working out of Budapest. He has worked in all sectors of education and at all language levels for 40 years. H e spent 18 years working full time for the British Council, worked for 12 summers for Pilgrims, Canterbury and 13 summers teacher training for NILE, Norwich. He has had a long involvement with IATEFL, and is currently the Coordinator of the Literature, Media & Cultural Studies SIG. He works in around 12 different countries every year. He is a regular visitor to Poland, and has co-written Smart (Macmillan) and English Explorer (Heinle/NowaEra) specifically for Poland. He has also written country/region-specific teaching materials for Kazakhstan, Egypt, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, the Middle East, Morocco, Singapore, China and the UK. He has written a number of original readers and adapted several classics for the international market, as well as teacher resource books and a grammar. When not involved in ELT, David is a published poet, an expert on Art Nouveau, an experienced naturalist and a semi-professional blues musician.

John Hughes

John Hughes has taught and worked for over 15 years in Poland, Italy, Austria, Malta, the UK and the USA. He is a well-known ELT resource writer and is author of various coursebooks for students including the areas of exam preparation and business English.

Nick Sheard

Nick Sheard has been involved in English language teaching, teacher training, materials writing and publishing since 1990.

Nick taught English in France, China, Colombia and the UK from 1990 – 1998. Nick also worked as an author and he contributed material to several well-known series, including International Express (OUP), In Company (Macmillan) and Inside Out (Macmillan). During this time Nick also visited Brazil, Kazakhstan, Italy, Slovenia and Russia to give presentations and lead teacher training workshops.

In 2005 Nick left teaching and joined Macmillan Education as a full time editor. Since 2009 Nick has been working for Heinle ELT as Publisher for Poland.

Nick currently lives in a village near Oxford with his wife Hanne and sons Finn and Noah.

Lindsay Clandfield

Lindsay Clandfield is a teacher, teacher trainer and international author from Canada. He is the main author of Macmillan’s new adult course Global (2010) and was a part of the author team for the popular Straightforward Series. Lindsay has won prestigious recognition for his writing, most notably for Dealing with Difficulties (Delta Publishing, with co-author Luke Prodromou) which earned him a visit to Buckingham Palace to receive an award from the Duke of Edinburgh.

After teaching in Mexico, Spain and the UK Lindsay began his writing career with the website Onestopenglish. He became a regular after winning the Lesson Share competition three times in a row. He has participated on numerous projects with Onestop, and has written something for that site almost every month for the past five years.

Lindsay has addressed teachers and given workshops in more than 20 countries. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals relating to ELT and he has written a column on language teaching for the Guardian Weekly newspaper. He is the founder of Pecha Kucha ELT (a form of short presentation) and writes a popular blog for teachers www.sixthings.net, a collection of miscellany from the world of English Language Teaching.

Lindsay still teaches in the small town of Elche in southern Spain, where he lives with his wife and two sons.

Grzegorz Śpiewak

Grzegorz Śpiewak holds a double MA in English & Linguistics (University of Essex, UK and University of Warsaw) and a PhD in Linguistics (University of Warsaw 2000). He has been a lecturer at the institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw since 1992, Head ELT Consultant for Macmillan Polska, teacher trainer, methodology adviser, ELT materials' writer, former president of IATEFL-Poland, founder and president of DOS-Teacher Training Solutions.

His chief professional interests are teacher development (incl. applications of new media and new technologies), syllabus design (incl. classroom implications of CEFR), education towards plurilingualism (incl. ELF-related issues, re-defining pedagogical objectives, maintaining standards of excellence).

Marta Rosińska

Marta Rosińska is a graduate of Łódź University where she specialized in modern British drama. She also completed Advanced Diploma in Language Teaching Management. Since the graduation, she has been working for the English Language Centre in Łódź as a teacher, teacher mentor, teacher trainer and, since 2005, the school’s Director of Studies. Marta loves teaching, inventing new class activities and preparing ELT materials. She runs workshops across Poland and is a regular speaker at the international conferences. She is an experienced ESOL examiner of FCE, CAE and CPE and an exam supervisor.