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).

 Innovation and Quality 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 look at the role quality can play.

Jamie Keddie

Jamie Keddie is a European-based teacher, teacher trainer and writer. In 2008, he founded TEFLclips.com, a site dedicated to the possibilities for online video-sharing in the classroom. For this, he received a British Council Innovations award in 2009. He is the author of Images in the Resource Books for Teachers series published by Oxford University Press. He is also a teacher trainer at Norwich Institute for Language Education.

JJ Wilson

GREAT SPEAKERS NEED GREAT LISTENERS
Plenary

This presentation focuses on active listening. Taking the notion of ‘the good listener’ as our model, we will first look at several strategies that help students to listen effectively. Then we will move on to a number of innovative tasks. These will include enjoyable micro-listening exercises, pre-, while- and post-listening activities, and collaborative tasks. All will focus on students working actively – sometimes physically – to get to grips with the input. Finally, we will look at some action-learning projects that are based on listening but which involve the other skills: reading, writing and speaking.

Bio data
JJ Wilson has taught in Egypt, Lesotho, Colombia, the U.K., Italy and the U.S., where he is currently a faculty member of the School of Education at Western New Mexico University. He has co-authored several ELT courses, including Language to Go, Worldview, and Total English, and was Series Editor on the second edition of Postcards (all Pearson). His methodology book, How to Teach Listening, won an English Speaking Union prize for the Best Book for Teachers of 2008. His short fiction has been anthologised by Penguin and Pulp Faction, among others. JJ’s most recent ELT course is Speakout, Pearson’s new series for adults.

Michael McCarthy

Michael McCarthy is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is also Adjunct Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University and at the University of Limerick, Ireland.

He is the author of many titles of interest to teachers, including Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics. Well known as an expert on the teaching and learning of vocabulary, he is a co-author of the basic and upper-intermediate levels of Vocabulary in Use, and is also Academic Consultant to the Cambridge International Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs and the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms. He is co-author of the 2 latest successful corpus-informed publications by Cambridge University Press: Touchstone and Cambridge Grammar of English.

Steve Oakes

THE POWER OF THE REAL: MAKING AUTHENTIC MATERIAL ACCESSIBLE TO LOW LEVEL LEARNERS
Plenary

There’s no question about the value of authentic material. It stimulates, motivates and challenges our learners. There can be, however, resistance to using authentic material with lower levels. Using examples from the Pearson course Speakout, we will look at why it’s important for both teachers and students to overcome such resistance, and how well-chosen material and good teaching technique can work together to open the world of authentic material to learners of all levels.

THINK BEFORE YOU TALK: STIMULATING MEANINGFUL SPEAKING
Talk

Speaking remains central to classroom activity and to many learners’ goals, and the teacher is forever challenged to create and execute speaking activities that not only get students speaking, but get them expressing their own meanings, thoughts and feelings. In this session we’ll look at some key factors that make speaking activities work, and some basic principles that ’trigger’ meaningful use of language. We’ll see how an understanding of these principles can help teachers more effectively use speaking activities in published material, create their own activities, and save planning time.

Bio data
Steve Oakes is an experienced teacher and teacher trainer who has worked in numerous countries around the world including the UK, the US, Japan and Hungary. 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.

Piotr Steinbrich

IS THERE A WAY FORWARD? ELT PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Plenary

Teaching English as a foreign language dates back to the 16th Century and since then we have witnessed the rise and fall of a good deal of approaches, methods and techniques. In this talk we will look at where ELT is now (and where it is heading) and to what extent it draws on its past experiences.

Bio data
Piotr Steinbrich zajmuje się nauczaniem języka angielskiego od ponad 15 lat. Kształci studentów Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego oraz nauczycieli w ramach programów organizowanych przez INSETT i British Council. Współpracuje z wydawnictwem Pearson Longman, prowadząc sesje szkoleniowe w Polsce i Europie. Publikuje artykuły naukowe dotyczące językoznawstwa stosowanego oraz praktyczne materiały dydaktyczne. 

Marek Jędryka

STUDENTS‘ RESULTS HIDDEN IN THE CLOUDS
Talk

Even digital immigrants know that today the computer can not only remind students of their homework but also check their results, provide feedback and prepare progress reports. For the teacher, however it is more important to know how the use of online applications actually effects teaching both in terms of what happens in the classroom and in terms of how homework is organised and monitored. To what extent do online applications affect the philosophy of language teaching today and do they have any influence on students’ results? Do computer programmes, ‘suspended in the clouds’ really facilitate language learning and teaching?

Bio data
Marek Jędryka jest nauczycielem i trenerem z ponad 15-letnim stażem. Wykłada w Nauczycielskim Kolegium Języków Obcych w Bydgoszczy i jest właścicielem Szkoły Języków Obcych Westgate. Prowadził liczne szkolenia i warsztaty dla nauczycieli w ramach programu INSETT. Marek zajmuje się również komputerowym i internetowym wspomaganiem nauczania języka angielskiego i współpracuje w tym zakresie z twórcami oprogramowania wykorzystywanego w e-learningu. Obecnie współpracuje z wydawnictwem Pearson Longman, prowadząc warsztaty szkoleniowe dotyczące m.in. wykorzystania nowoczesnych technologii.

Daniel Brayshaw

GETTING WRITING RIGHT
Talk

It is not uncommon for students (and sometimes teachers) to view writing in English as a challenging, solitary and laborious activity. As a result, the skill is often neglected in the classroom and relegated to a ‘homework only’ task. Too frequently the purpose of writing then becomes solely to demonstrate the author’s language proficiency rather than to communicate any real message. Today’s session offers practical ideas for developing students’ written competency by engaging them in the process of writing, working collaboratively in class and setting communicative tasks that reflect real-world writing. The session will be illustrated with examples from New Total English.

Bio data
Daniel Brayshaw posiada 10-letnie doświadczenie w nauczaniu języka angielskiego. Przed przyjazdem do Polski pracował w Tajlandii i Wielkiej Brytanii jako trener i nauczyciel. Obecnie współpracuje z International House we Wrocławiu jako trener i lektor oraz z wydawnictwem Pearson Longman.

Jim Scrivener is currently Head of Teacher Development for Bell International. Previously he has been Head of Teacher Training for International House, Hastings and Director of Education for IH Budapest

His publications include Learning Teaching (Macmillan ELT) which won the ARELS Frank Bell Prize 1995, Oxford Basics: Teaching Grammar, Teachers' Books and Portfolios for Straightforward, two business coursebooks for OUP and he has many articles on onestopenglish.com. His most recent book, Teaching English Grammar (Macmillan ELT) won the HRH Duke of Edinburgh English Speaking Union 2010 award as “Best Entry for Teachers”.

Jim has worked in many different countries over the years, including two years in Kenya, three in the USSR and seven in Hungary. He is a frequent conference presenter and course leader around the world. He was head of the team that designed the Euro exams, now widely taken in Central Europe and has been actively involved with Cambridge ESOL exams including design of their online teacher portfolio. He recently designed and implemented the first Online Delta course.

Hyperlink Heroin – The New Science and Skills of Reading

Summary

Reading is evolving dramatically away from a reflective “listening to the dead with our eyes”. Is it getting harder to read a book? Are our brains rewiring for dynamic online reading? This session reviews the latest scientific thinking on what reading is and asks whether ELT’s description of skills is still relevant on iPads or in your classroom.

Full Description

Reading is changing – and so are our brains.

The average office worker checks email 35 times an hour. Teenagers send and receive 2,272 texts a month. 

This session draws on some books published within the last three years to present an exciting and potentially shocking picture of how reading works – and how it is changing in the era of Twitter and Google. I will introduce ideas from:

• Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene (2010)
• The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton (2009)
• The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (2010)
• Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf (2008)

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).

His track record in ELT publishing consists in numerous articles, reviews and a few minor pieces, including a series of grammar contrast boxes and grammar summaries for the ForMat course series, grammar sections for L!VE 2 and L!VE 3 (all published by Macmillan Polska) and a section on Polish in Learner English edited by M. Swan & B. Smith, CUP. As a consultant he has also contributed to Macmillan’s Revise ForMatura Repetytorium. His most recent publication is a new edition of Egzamin Gimnzajalny. Repetytorium z testami (co-author: Marta Rosińska, Macmillan 2011).

Critical thinking makes sense

Summary

We are living in an age of information and are being bombarded with all kinds of text: verbal and non-verbal, static and dynamic. It takes time, effort and skill to cope with so much data. That’s where critical thinking comes in – arguably, a vital skill for the 21^st global citizen.

During this session we’ll introduce the concept of critical thinking skills and explore its potential in the modern ELT classroom.

Some of the materials will come from Global, a flagship general English course series published by Macmillan.

Hugh Dellar is a teacher and teacher trainer at the University of Westminster. He has been teaching since 1993, predominantly in London, but he also spent three years working in Jakarta, Indonesia. He has given teacher training and development talks all over the world. He is the co-author of Outcomes as well as the Innovations series and the online teacher development course, Teaching Lexically, all written with Andrew Walkley.

Memories
Plenary

Summary

The role of memory in language learning has remained sadly neglected for far too long. In this provocative talk, I will be exploring why the activation of memory is so central and, with the use of classroom videos, exploring four key ways in which teachers can encourage students to perform memorization.

Bridging the culture gap in the classroom
Workshop

Summary

Culture in the classroom causes more confusion and conflict that almost anything else. What should we be teaching students about culture? And whose culture should we be focusing on? What does intercultural competence mean? And how do we teach it? I am to answer all these questions and more!

Colin McIntosh is a lexicographer and publisher for Cambridge University Press. With a background in English language teaching and applied linguistics, he has 18 years’ experience of publishing dictionaries and language-learning material for Cambridge and other publishers. He has taught in France, Italy, and the UK, while also researching second language acquisition and learners’ errors. His publishing includes bilingual dictionaries for Italy, Brazil, France, and Poland, as well as dictionaries of phrasal verbs, collocations, and pronunciation.

Michael Swan is a writer specialising in English Language teaching and reference materials. His OUP publications include Practical English Usage and, with Catherine Walter, How English Works and The Good Grammar Book. He is also co-author, with Catherine Walter, of the Cambridge English Course series. His most recent books are Grammar (in the 'Oxford Introductions to Language Study' series) and Grammar Scan (OUP 2008), a collection of diagnostic language tests written in collaboration with David Baker. 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.

Robin Walker is a freelance ELT consultant, language teacher educator, and materials writer. He has been involved in English language teaching since moving to Spain in 1981. In this time, he worked principally as a lecturer in English at the Escueal Universitaria de Turismo de Asturias. He has also worked extensively in collaboration with many of Spain’s state Teacher Training Centres, with the University of Oviedo, and with OUP España. Robin is co-author of Tourism 1 (Provision), Tourism 2 (Encounters) and Tourism3 (Management) in OUP’s Oxford English for Careers series, and is currently preparing Teaching the Pronunciation of English as a lingua franca for the OUP teacher’s handbook series. A former Vice-president of TESOL-SPAIN, he is the Newsletter editor of the IATEFL Pronunciation Special Interest Group.

Evan Frendo

Challenges in business English teaching

Business English teachers face some tricky challenges when it comes to deciding what and how to teach. This is especially true when we look at recent research into how people interact in business contexts, which is questioning a lot of what teachers have been taking for granted. For example, how do we teach English if we don't have a standard model to follow? How can we take advantage of learning in other ways, such as via communities of practice within organisations? How do we deal with soft skills and intercultural training? How should we approach specific lexis and genres? And how do we test our learners, if at all? This talk will look at these and similar questions, and discuss possible options.

Bio

Evan Frendo has worked in business English teaching and ESP for nearly twenty years, mostly in Europe and Asia. As a consultant he has been involved in various projects, most recently the development of EDI's LCCI English for Accounting test. He also instructs part-time on the ESP module of the New School MA TESOL. Evan has written several coursebooks for publishers such as Pearson, Heinle and Cornelsen, as well as "How to teach Business English", a methodology book used in business English teacher training all over the world. He is a past secretary of IATEFL and an ex-coordinator of BESIG. His blog English for the workplace is aimed at anyone working in the fields of business English and ESP. This talk is sponsored by EDI.

Małgorzata Śmigielska - since 2007 has worked as a manager and a methodologist in the online school with a tutor within the SuperMemo World - a company which strives continuously to improve the effectiveness of learning, at the same time searching for successful and up-to-date methods of training. Already for a decade has the company been organising e-learning training sessions, and in 2007 introduced blended learning - a combination of self-studying via the supermemo.net website and learning with a tutor using an internet communicator. Another main area of focus of the company is the production and sale of multimedia language courses on CD and DVD-ROMs with accompanying textbooks. The distinctive feature of SuperMemo World products has always been the SuperMemo method, which maximises the effectiveness of memorising new material through optimum spacing of repetitions.

Mary J. Pitoniak is a Strategic Advisor in the Research and Development division at Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, NJ, USA. She earned a B.A. (summa cum laude, highest honors) in psychology from Smith College and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in psychometric methods and educational psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Pitoniak serves as the Associate Project Director for Research and Development for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). She works with the US Department of Education to define research priorities for NAEP, coordinates the research activities of the multiple NAEP contractors, and conducts her own research. She also directs the activities of the NAEP technical advisory committee. Pitoniak is an internationally known-expert in standard setting, having published, conducted research, and provided training in this area both in the United States and worldwide. She has also done work in the area of testing accommodations for students with disabilities and English language learners.

Catherine Walter began her career in Paris, teaching English and educating English language teachers. She then started writing teaching materials with Michael Swan: the latest Swan-Walter collaboration is The Oxford English Grammar Course. In the 1990s, as President of global IATEFL, Catherine helped foster the new IATEFL Poland association. Later she gained a PhD and began a university career in applied linguistics.  She now lectures at the University of Oxford, and her latest enterprise there is a distance Diploma in Teaching English Language in University Settings. Catherine’s main research interests are in reading comprehension, teacher education and the teaching and learning of grammar.