Abstracts - Plenary Sessions
The 2006 conference had two plenary speakers. Professor Denise Murray delivered the opening address on the subject of language school management. The closing address was delivered by Dr Betty Leaver. Dr Betty Leaver focused on content-based curricula.
"Assuring quality through effective leadership"
ELT organisations have a variety of stakeholders with often competing goals and expectations. To respond to all stakeholders while maintaining a focus on quality educational outcomes for students requires leadership and effective processes and procedures for program development. This presentation will present a framework for effective leadership and management for ELT organisations. The framework’s underlying assumptions are that
- language programs are best evaluated through measurable performance
- language education is competitive enterprise
- each language education organisation seeks to find its own niche within this competitive environment
- effective leadership can be learned
The staged processes and analytical tools used for effective program development include
- deciding who should be involved in the process
- developing vision, mission and values
- analysing the external situation
- analysing the internal capability of the organisation
- stakeholder analysis
- comparing the organisation with its competitors
- developing strategic priorities and objectives based on those priorities
- determining projects to meet the objectives
The presentation will conclude with insights into the qualities of effective leaders who can manage such program development.
Click here to download Denise Murray's presentation file
“Task-based language teaching in a content-based mold”
Both Content-Based Instruction (CBI) and Task-Based Language Teaching/ Tasked-Based Instruction (TBI) use contemporary principles of communicative language teaching, such as authenticity, situated cognition, and communicative competence, to achieve higher levels of foreign-language proficiency than have typically been achieved in the past. The combination of CBI-TBI brings together a powerful syllabus design with a powerful teaching method to create classrooms that are not only communicative but that are also useful, fun, and lasting. This presentation will demonstrate how to combine CBI and TBI in designing proficiency-oriented language learning programs.
Click here to download Betty Leaver's presentation file