STREAM: Curriculum & Materials Development
The Other Side of (Internationalisation): Intercultural Challenges Facing EFL in Japan (Paper)
A survey of over 400 Japanese university students found that more than 70 percent agreed with the statement that ‘Crime by foreigners is a serious problem in Japan.’ In fact, crime by non-Japanese nationals accounts for less than two percent of the overall total and figures for crime by foreigners run below the national average. For many Japanese students, their first experience of intercultural interaction is with the non-Japanese in their community who have been stereotyped as a ‘crime threat.’ This paper will attempt to explain why many Japanese university students view crime by foreigners as a serious problem and how we can encompass such issues in EFL teaching. Within the framework of interculturality developing from ‘reflection, analysis and action’ (Alred, Byram & Fleming, 2003), the presenter will suggest methods of challenging these stereotypical views in the EFL classroom.
Bridging the Secondary School Gap: An Experience-Based Writing Syllabus for University Classrooms (Paper)
After briefly explaining the process of teaching writing at Kanda University of International Studies, the primary goal of this paper will be to present conclusions of a quantitative survey taken in summer of 2006. This survey involved 277 Japanese first year university students and their perceptions of their senior high school writing experience. This survey investigated students’ transition to, and difficulties encountered in, a university basic writing course. After interpreting the results of the survey, the secondary goal of the paper will be to explore the process of creating a curriculum based on students’ experience and in line with institutional needs. Implications of the survey will be explored and a recommended implementation procedure will be discussed that enables students to smoothly make the transition from the secondary classroom to a university level writing environment.
Materials Development (paper)
In language teaching and learning, materials are actively used to make language teaching and learning much easier and more effective. To improve the quality of their teaching, teachers have a responsibility to improve the quality of materials they are using with their students. Most people associate language learning materials with course books because that has been their experience. However, language learning materials include anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a language. Materials obviously include cassettes, videos, dictionaries and grammar books but they also include anything which is deliberately used to increase the learners’ knowledge/experience of the language. Keeping this pragmatic concept of materials in mind can help materials developers to utilise as many sources of input as possible and, even more importantly, can help teachers to realise that they are also materials developers and that they are ultimately responsible for the materials that their learners use.
Developing Elementary Skills with ‘Special English’ Materials (Workshop)
Prof Charles McHugh, Mr Terence James McDonough & Prof Bradley Grindstaff
The purpose of this workshop is to introduce ‘Special English’ scripts and audio files and show how they can be adapted for classroom use. The three presenters offer various ideas to foster improved skills in writing, reading, listening and speaking English. The first presenter introduces the concept of Special English materials, typically a script of 500 words. He then suggests six ways to utilise this script in writing courses, such as rewriting it as an interview or replacing basic vocabulary with more advanced words. The second presenter offers ideas on using the materials to develop comprehension skills through intensive and extensive reading, general and specific understanding, using time limits and reading along while listening. The final presenter explains techniques and resources for applying the materials to listening and speaking objectives. These include vocabulary and concept development in listening and several oral English techniques applicable for all levels.
Make the Most of a Newspaper (Workshop)
This workshop will demonstrate two important aspects in using newspapers in EFL classrooms. One focuses on making use of different parts of newspapers such as a briefing section and an opinion section. Another involves the techniques in using newspapers in teaching the four macro skills along with grammar and vocabulary. The activities reflect the experience of the presenter with his intermediate level class. This includes incorporating newspapers in journal writing and reading newspapers as reading-habit-at-home activities. Participants will use authentic materials in the workshop to develop activities to be used in their classrooms.
The Teaching of EFL and Critical Thinking (Workshop)
Following a warm-up introduction to Critical Thinking (CT) and group brainstorming on participants’ CT needs, the facilitator will present a model curriculum for CT including sample exercises and lessons. Resources for further work in teaching CT will be shared.
A Year’s Worth of Teaching: The Topic-Task-Based Syllabus (Workshop)
English language teachers are sometimes in a position where they do not know what to teach or find that the course book that they are using is not stimulating or relevant to learners’ needs and interests. The use of a topic-task based syllabus designed by the teacher can provide an interesting set of lessons that develop all language skills in ways that are also relevant to learners’ needs and interests. This presentation briefly looks at a topic-task based syllabus and the individual lessons for such a syllabus. It will use group and pair work to focus on what is involved in preparing each lesson step by step in order to enhance participants’ mindfulness about and understanding of how to prepare a lesson for this kind of syllabus.
Guidelines for Creating and Using Tasks and Activities in the English Language Classroom (Workshop)
The use of tasks and activities is common practice in English teaching and it is not unusual in any English language centre to see teachers scrambling before class for something for their learners to do. Unfortunately, well intentioned and dedicated teachers of English sometimes just seek out an activity without thinking more closely about their objectives or the criteria to apply in selecting and using such an activity. In any field of endeavour, we tend to be more skillful in pursuing our objectives if we have and fully understand a set of criteria that guides and shapes our action. This short workshop reviews some guidelines for creating and using tasks and activities in the English language classroom.
Using Graphics in the English Language Classroom (Workshop)
Our main aim in teaching English is often to develop the speaking and listening skills of the learners who attend our classes. Both learners and teacher feel a sense of satisfaction and achievement in English language development sessions where these skills are used and developed in a meaningful and enjoyable manner. The use of pictures has long been recognised as an effective tool for developing these skills in addition to providing necessary vocabulary and grammar for learners to work with. Other graphics can be equally effective and do not require a lot of time in preparation or extensive photocopying. They also can be adapted to suit learners’ English language ability, needs and interests and the amount of time available for teaching. This workshop seeks to impart knowledge of how to use a variety of graphics to develop English language skills in individual lessons or as part of a broader curriculum.
Writing and Using Short Plays in the English Language Classroom (Workshop)
Teachers need to have English language lessons that involve and interest the learners while also exposing them to language that is relevant to their needs. In writing and using short plays in the English language classroom, teachers and learners are involved in an experience that allows them to use language in a natural and informal manner and produce language themselves instead of following what the teacher or course book gives them. In addition, such an activity gives the learners an opportunity to develop and use their own creative abilities and allows them to work to a meaningful and enjoyable objective, that being the performance of the play. This session looks at some things to remember in writing such a play, with the objective being that the teachers who attend will leave it with an interest in trying such an activity with their class.
Developing a Student- and Teacher-Friendly Reading and Writing Skills Course (Workshop)
This workshop explores the ‘how to’ and ‘what’ of developing and implementing a student- and teacher-friendly reading and writing skills course aimed at students who need to improve pre-intermediate to intermediate level reading and writing skills. This is an active curriculum model with proven success. The focus of the reading skills is on building vocabulary skills such as guessing meaning from context, improving reading speed, scanning text for answers and developing a useful vocabulary. The focus of the writings skills is on building solid, accurate sentences and paragraphs through the exploration of sentence structure for simple and compound sentences, linking words, capitalisation and punctuation, subject-verb agreement, coherence etc. Students view sample writings according to the appropriate writing genres of description (person and place) and narrative, as well as discover the format and use of formal and informal letters.
How to Internationalise ELT in Cambodia (Paper)
There have been many challenges for Cambodian students studying English in Cambodia in international programs using international textbooks. Additionally, due to a variety of factors, students think English taught in state schools is inferior at the tertiary level. In a global context, internationalising ELT in Cambodia is critical for improving the quality of English teaching and learning at all schools. The presenter will discuss a variety of suggestions for doing this, including changes in materials and activities; and changes in the curriculum at the secondary level.
Project-Based Language Learning (Workshop)
Project-based learning has proved successful in elementary and high school content classes. More recently it is beginning to influence second language learning curriculums. This presentation will provide teachers with a framework to implement project-based learning in their own language classroom. The presenter will begin with a brief introduction of the benefits of project-based learning. Next, a project design structure will be introduced with ideas on how to present problems, stimulate collaboration, generate language, identify problems and evaluate learning. Example lessons developed for a science English class will be demonstrated. The example lessons include four units of an environmental science class developed for students who are studying English at a technical university. The activities include student-developed media presentations, measurement and estimation, data collection and renewable energy experiments. Participants will be able to adapt and use the example projects in their own classroom using the activity templates designed by the presenter.
Story Telling: Developing Participatory Language Skills (Workshop)
This session begins with the presenter telling a simple story. He will use a poster that includes a drawing and keywords to help him tell the story. The audience will listen to the story the first time. The presenter will introduce some basic aspects of the story and describe the poster construction. The audience will hear the story again and fill in a graphic organiser and this will be discussed. Then the presenter will describe other fluency activities that build upon this initial story telling activity, such as a structured, paired conversation about the story. Scaffolding will be defined, along with ways in which scaffolding is used to support these activities. Language gambits that help the listener become more actively involved in understanding and practical active listening strategies that help the listener to negotiate meaning will be reviewed.
STREAM: EAP & ESP
Beyond IELTS 6.5:The Obstacles for ESL Students in English-Medium Education (Paper)
Tertiary education demands its own literacy credentials, which include critical and statistical analysis, academic writing, computer literacy and knowledge of professional practices. The ESL industry is now seeing rapid expansion into tertiary education, with more and more students opting to undertake an English-medium tertiary qualification in their own country or abroad. The expectations and tertiary literacy requirements existing in different countries, different institutions and particularly in different languages, vary greatly. As ESL educators, what consideration of tertiary literacy requirements do we have when designing, preparing and teaching English for Academic Purposes? How much do we, or should we, consider cultural differences when both teaching and assessing tertiary literacy skills and requirements? In order to prepare our students for English-language tertiary study, it is essential that the English preparation we provide go beyond linguistic competency and address the next level of literacy, a great deal of which will be culturally specific.
Genre-Based Report Writing (Workshop)
A genre-based approach to writing tasks either in the academic domain or in the domain of commerce and industry provides valuable assistance to those who find certain writing tasks in English difficult. This approach has proven successful with students in the Faculty of Business, Economics and Policy Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam when dealing with their research reports. The workshop will begin by identifying types of reports and their characteristic features. Participants will complete a series of tasks designed to highlight these genre features. Participants will then produce parallel tasks for report writing relevant to their needs and display these for discussion and further development. The aim of the workshop is to provide teachers/learners with a sound framework for their own current and future report writing needs. This workshop would be most relevant to teachers of adult learners and tertiary level students in academic, governance and business domains.
STREAM: Independent Learning
Using Vocabulary Notebooks Effectively (Paper)
Encouraging students to record words they want to remember in vocabulary notebooks is a standard vocabulary teaching method. However, there has been a lack of rigorous investigation into the vocabulary notebooks kept by foreign language learners. This paper discusses the results of a research study that examined vocabulary notebooks kept by 124 EFL university students. This study’s research questions were (1) Do student perceptions of word frequency influence the words they choose for their vocabulary notebooks? (2) Do students choose high frequency, useful words? (3) From what sources do students choose words? (4) Why do students select the words they want to learn? This presentation will provide teachers with new information about vocabulary notebooks and will discuss how teachers can help students use vocabulary notebooks more effectively both in and outside of the classroom.
The Guided Individual Learning Centre: A Non-Classroom Learning Environment (Paper)
Ms Ly Sonita, Mr Chea Theara & Mr Sou Visal
This paper will demonstrate basic concepts and practical experiences regarding shifting a traditional library, where students are left to study whatever they think they should, to a Guided Individual Learning Centre (GILC) where students are guided to become autonomous learners using effective learning strategies and useful learning tools. The presentation will also point out some difficulties that teachers encountered at the GILC at the Australian Centre for Education (ACE) during the implementation process of transforming students’ traditional psychological patterns of thought on a learning centre into newly proactive learning attitudes that are needed for modernising societies.
A ‘Real-World’ English Resource for Higher Level Students (Workshop)
Course books provide idealised entry points for language study but in order to progress to higher levels students need to start using additional ‘real-world’ references. This presentation will indicate how The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary supports this kind of extended learning both inside and beyond the classroom.
Using a Checklist to Raise Language Awareness: A Case Study (Paper)
Ms Wilaksana Srimavin and Ms Punjaporn Pojanapunya top
This paper presents a case study which investigated whether students’ language awareness (LA) of tense use can be raised through the use of a checklist in writing tasks. The research instruments used in this study were the subject’s essays, a checklist and the researcher’s diary. The results showed that the subject’s writing accuracy is likely to have improved. Moreover, working through four sub-activities of comparing, problem identifying, evaluating and changing helped the subject think more about the language and remind himself about four tenses while and after doing the writing task, after only one use of the checklist. This may reveal that the subject gained LA from this activity. This would suggest that teachers should provide learners with varieties of LA raising activities in order to encourage learners to think more and be conscious of language use.
STREAM: Methodology
Speaking Activities for a Communicative Classroom (Workshop)
It has been my experience that English teachers in many parts of Asia have mostly been taught by and have used teacher-centred methods in their English classrooms. By understanding Communicative Method and using communicative activities teachers can create a more learner-centred classroom. Activities will be more task based, students will be more productive and their motivation will improve. This workshop will focus on the basic principles of Communicative Method and communicative activities that can be used in the classroom. A brief overview of this method will be given and participants will practise various activities and discuss how these can be implemented in their own classrooms.
Using Biography to Explore the English Speaking World (Paper)
This presentation will examine the practice and principles of using biography as a teaching tool for intermediate to advanced English language learners. Students, through this course, are able to explore new ideas, issues and concepts through the biographies of people who have impacted our world. This allows students to also question the direction of their own lives and explore how they, using English, plan to be productive members of the international community. I will present on the course; its highlights, successes, problems and pitfalls and discuss my experiences using biography as a means to develop the four core skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking in English language learning. Although developed in Japan, the concept of this course can be applied to language learners in Cambodia and throughout the world.
Primary Lesson Stages and Classroom Activities (Workshop)
A good class and a good course book should both provide not only a clear framework and structure, but also flexibility and fun through a variety of student centred activities. This presentation looks at some standard but adaptable lesson stages and classroom activities based on the top-selling Let’s Go children’s series.
Guidelines for Dealing with Learner Errors (Workshop)
English language teaching is challenging for new teachers if they are mindful about the number of roles required of them in the English language classroom and perform them skillfully. One of the major roles of any English language teacher is to correct learners’ mistakes. This presentation briefly examines what a teacher should keep in mind when correcting learners’ mistakes.
Using a Poem – ‘The World is a Box’ – to Teach Nouns (Workshop)
This workshop will provide the participants with an interesting way of integrating literary texts (poems) into the teaching of grammar items in terms of practising nouns – proper nouns, common nouns, abstract nouns and collective nouns. Participants will be actively involved in various activities prepared in this workshop. The workshop also provides participants with opportunities to discuss literature review, advantages, disadvantages and the practicality of using poems to teach grammar items in a Cambodian EFL learning setting.
Speaking with Purpose: The Jigsaw Strategy (Workshop)
The ‘Jigsaw’ strategy is an internationally used, interactive and engaging teaching tool. The strategy is a simple, yet powerful method to facilitate purposeful language use in communicative classrooms. In this workshop, participants will experience how the Jigsaw strategy can be used to get their students speaking and listening to each other and so is especially useful in conversation and discussion based classes. Jigsaw also provides an effective means to promote meaningful and purposeful reading discussions, thereby also potentially motivating students to do their reading homework. The teaching strategy is most popularly known in the context of ‘Jigsaw Listening’ and the workshop will engage participants in creative possibilities for using it as part of instruction in this skill. Finally, workshop participants will explore some applications of Jigsaw to learning grammar and practising language forms. The adaptability and flexibility of Jigsaw creates many possibilities for teachers.
Prescriptions for Instructional Strategies (Workshop)
This workshop will present different teaching strategies for different types of objectives. It will begin with an illustration of the Expanded Performance-Content Matrix, in which instructional objectives are classified and explained. Next, four kinds of generative strategies will be elaborated and instructional strategies for different types of objectives will be “prescribed”. Each prescription consists of an initial presentation and a generative strategy. To elaborate, examples will be given. Finally, participants will have an opportunity to design a lesson plan that includes real objectives, initial presentations and generative strategies.
Factors for Effective ELT in Cambodia (Paper)
There are many factors that can make for effective language teaching in Cambodia. This paper will focus on three main issues that can enhance successful ELT. The presenter will discuss the importance of good lesson planning, positive teacher characteristics and the value of understanding students’ multiple intelligences. High quality lesson planning incorporates methods to increase positive teacher attitudes and enhance understanding of how students learn. Detailed suggestions will be offered on how to strengthen these three skills in the classroom.
Do We All Use the Same Tools for Perception and Memory? (Paper)
After several years of teaching in Asia I have on more than one occasion been surprised at how badly my carefully planned lessons have worked. At times students seem to find it difficult to retain vocabulary. This made me realise that what I had learned about methodology in Europe could not be unpacked and used without adjustments with Asian students. Most textbooks on the market centre on grouping words in lessons taxonomically, but do we all use the same tools to remember what we learn? This presentation attempts to point out possible differences and look at ways to overcome them.
An Investigation into the Acquisition of English Articles by Cambodian Students (Paper)
One of the most difficult problems facing Cambodian learners of English is the use of indefinite and definite articles. This paper presents an analysis of test performance of a group of students at Human Resources University, Cambodia. The study had two main objectives (1) to identify the errors that learners make and their potential sources and (2) to identify the most difficult aspects of article usage for learners. The presentation will suggest some strategies for teaching English articles in Cambodian classrooms.
English through Translation: Meaning-Based or Form-Based? (Workshop)
Translation is still a challenging issue in the teaching and learning of English. Some teachers and students who attempt to teach or learn English using translation as a means, for some reason, pay greater attention to the form of the source language than to the meaning of the target language. The result is therefore a kind of translation that makes little sense in English or Khmer or any other receptor languages. It is true that in translation the form of the source language is replaced by the form of the receptor language. However, there are questions as to how this change is accomplished and what determines the choices of form in translation. This workshop will pinpoint the distinction between form-based translation and meaning-based translation and provide participants with some fundamental principles and applications regarding idiomatic translation or meaning-based translation so that they can carry out effective translation in their teaching and learning of English.
Poetry for the Classroom (Workshop)
Some people think poetry has to be complicated, difficult and serious. Not so. This workshop will explore how to integrate poetry into the classroom in ways that are simple and fun, and help students improve their English. The presenter will share a variety of pattern poems that he uses in his class to encourage students to explore topics and issues, be creative and practise English, including grammar. The presenter will model how he introduces and works with his students to write simple, yet meaningful poems. There will be opportunities to apply strategies and a handout containing 13 pattern poems will be distributed.
Steps towards an Effective Teaching Methodology for Cambodia (Workshop)
Mr Paul Brown & Mr Lance Jackson
This interactive session offers Cambodian teachers practical insights, tips and techniques, each of which is based on sound theoretical and practical components drawn from the fields of Applied Linguistics, Education and the CELTA training program. Especially useful will be the ideas on teaching grammar and speaking. Participants will gain practical understandings and specific classroom strategies relating to cooperative learning methodology, pragmatic approaches to grammar and lexical instruction, integrated skills based teaching, student-centred learning, NLP and genre based instruction. By using these ideas and strategies, participants will become more confident and effective practitioners in the Cambodian ESL context.
Teaching a Construction Grammar: From Theory to Practice (Workshop)
A construction grammar (Lakoff 1987, Croft 2004, Goldberg 2006) proposes that a grammar is not stored as a separate system of rules from which the meanings of lexical strings are computed but as a series of prototypical constructions. These constructions range from the highly generalisable or schematic to the almost completely unproductive. Although the concept of a construction has already begun to appear in language teaching under the term ‘lexical phrase’ (Nattinger and DeCarrico 1992), this concept did not make the link between such lexical combinations and the larger control of a grammar that some cognitivist theories now imply. This workshop will propose a model that will help academic writing students learn and use the grammar their genres require, showing the larger relevance of an approach that actually teaches the forms and associated principles through which native speakers control language.
Motivating Adult Learners Using Children’s Storybooks (Paper)
This presentation will report on how English children’s storybooks have successfully been incorporated in a university course to trigger and enhance students’ interest in the language and to motivate them into developing their language skills. Throughout the course, students are introduced to various English language features, such as rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia, articles and narratives, using different storybooks. The engaging activities involve students in the process of the four skills. By using children’s storybooks as a framework, students can easily begin to enjoy using and playing with the language they encounter. The final project, an individual storybook creation and presentation, inspires students not only to examine the language, but also to think for themselves in creative and flexible ways. Each stage of the course has created a classroom environment conducive to successful language acquisition. Participants will be shown examples of student work and will leave with ideas for promoting an enjoyable approach to attract students into language learning.
Using Audio Short Stories in the Reading/Writing/Listening Classroom (Workshop)
Listening to professionally recorded readings of classic short stories, while simultaneously reading the stories, raises interest level for students and increases comprehensibility of texts. The theoretical underpinning is Krashen’s theory of comprehensible input: language acquisition occurs when input is a little beyond students’ current level (‘i + 1’) and rendered comprehensible by extra-linguistic cues, in this case the dramatic nature of the reading, with the written and aural input complementing each other. Students will understand the story despite some difficult vocabulary and/or structure. The listening/reading is followed by vocabulary building, comprehension and discussion activities. In writing classes, free writing activities follow and essay topics are generated. The presentation will demonstrate the activity, using an entertaining story by an American author. This literary material is best suited for advanced learners, while in their own classes instructors may choose more elementary material, applying the same principles. The activity can be adapted to classes focusing on reading, writing, listening or literature.
Improving Communicative Opportunities through Pair, Group and Project Work (Workshop)
One focus of student-centred language instruction is to increase the communicative opportunities students have during any class session, particularly in large classes, through the use of pair and group work. Additionally, teachers can engage students throughout a course by using project work with groups, based on topics or issues of interest to students. This workshop presents ideas for pair and group work and how to incorporate these activities into group projects for students in educational settings with limited resources. Participants will receive numerous materials and ideas on how to encourage communicative opportunities in their language learning classes.
Teaching Culture in the ESL Classroom (Workshop)
Teaching or speaking a foreign language is not independent of the culture of the target language. Increasing cultural understanding in the language classroom not only increases students’ interest and motivation but also assists students in becoming internationally competent communicators. However, because the scope of culture is all encompassing, it is sometimes difficult to contextualise and discuss unique aspects of specific cultures. A framework which has been used with students and in teacher training activities for analysing features of different cultures will be presented and demonstrated. Through the use of this framework, students can first develop a greater understanding of their own cultural backgrounds, leading secondly to a greater ability to objectively examine and understand the culture of others. For teachers, this framework provides an effective means by which to present, explain and teach culture and cultural differences in the foreign language classroom.
English for Life: Communication Reading Skills (Paper)
This paper examines English as a ‘life skill’ and takes as its starting point the fact that knowledge imparted in classrooms is not automatically applied in the ‘real’ world. ‘Life skills’ are necessary because information by itself does not guarantee action. A teaching methodology needs to be developed, therefore, that takes as its starting point the ‘life skills’ required in the ‘real’ world. This paper shows how students, while learning a language, should also be learning ‘life skills’. How ‘life skills’ can be identified and applied to teaching is illustrated in this paper through an examination of a communicative reading methodology.
What is a ‘Task’ in a Task-Based Approach? (Paper)
This paper presents key issues that arose from a study of task-based methods in an upper-intermediate ESL class in Sydney, Australia. Motivated by the positive literature on task-based methods and her own experience, the presenter believed it was important to pinpoint issues and concerns to inform future studies and practice using a task-based approach. To undertake the study, the presenter observed one ESL class for a week (14 hours) and interviewed the two ESL teachers who team-taught the class. As a result of the study, two key issues were identified: a mismatch of the notion of task in a task-based approach as defined by the teachers and in the literature; and problems related to three types of tasks: problem solving, presentation and discussion.
Increasing Language Performance through Engagement in Language Experience (Workshop)
This workshop offers hands-on practice in activities that help English (and any other) language learners of all ages and skill levels to acquire and express integrated reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Participants will learn how to use motor activities, video, graphic art works and artifacts of ordinary life to develop and elicit language with an emphasis on clarity of situation-specific communication. By learning how to supplement existing curricular tools with readily available materials, participants will leave with ideas and activities that they can implement immediately in their classrooms with minimal preparation. These activities will increase both the level of engagement of students in learning tasks and their subsequent language performance. Teachers will also learn how to adapt these techniques for assessing performance.
Learners’ Attitudes to Literature Teaching at IFL: Cambodian EFL Classrooms (Paper)
Mr Tith Mab & Mr Keuk Chan Narith
Literature Studies is one of the core subjects for English language teaching and learning at the Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL), Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP). In this paper, the authors will point out how literature is taught in the Cambodian EFL context by examining and analysing materials prepared by EFL teachers of English at the Institute. The authors will also demonstrate students’ attitudes toward literature through questionnaires, reflections and observations in the classroom. The authors will finally suggest some strategies for teaching literature in the EFL context in Cambodia.
Teaching Second Language Listening Skills for Social Mobility (Workshop)
For second language learners, acquiring
effective listening behaviour is one of the most difficult skills and one which
is often overlooked by teachers. This presentation is based on evidence from my
research on ‘back channels in cross-cultural communication’, where female
speakers were video recorded in several conversations, firstly using their first
language and secondly using their second language. All speakers had been
studying their second language for ten years. Results showed that although
speakers did accommodate each other, they strongly maintained their personal
listening styles from their first language and transferred these to their second
language. The implications are that teachers need to make learners aware of
different listening behaviours across cultures. If students can learn how to
react appropriately during conversation, they will more often be perceived as
good communicators in their second language. Teaching strategies and activities
will be discussed according to my personal experience teaching at universities.
STREAM: Motivation
Drama Techniques for Classroom Motivation (Workshop)
The motivational incentives that in-class drama techniques can offer the learner of English are enormous; it can enable the learner to overcome language anxiety. Because the learner is self motivated through their own individual power of visualisation and desire to communicate, drama techniques are of particular benefit for teachers in a monolingual situation. Methods of accuracy based teaching can also be incorporated into the more fluency focused drama techniques, allowing the learner to develop comprehension on an affective level, thus ensuring more pragmatic competence orally in the target language. Drama techniques also provide the learner a way of overcoming problems of acculturation, unwritten rules and meaning behind language, allowing the second language learner to develop vital skills of language socialisation and cultural awareness in that language. Hence, through the target language, the learner can both tacitly and knowingly discover the subtleties, rules and meaning behind that language through the use of drama techniques.
Helping Students to Communicate Using New Vocabulary (Workshop)
Effective vocabulary teaching means that students are able to use the words correctly and fluently. This requires creativity from the teacher. This workshop will review techniques for presenting new vocabulary and demonstrate how to teach new words so that students can use them by the end of the lesson. Participants will learn many activities that motivate students to communicate using new vocabulary. Workshop attendees will also review the teaching process and produce the 3Ps model lesson plan in order to apply it to English teaching.
STREAM: Professional Development
Interviewing Students and Teachers for Program Evaluation (Paper)
While general, quantitative surveys provide a quick and easy method to collect data, the development of open ended interviews combines both the art and science of qualitative research. This presentation will focus on techniques for writing appropriate questions, conducting interviews and analysing the information received. The presenter is currently involved in carrying out a series of qualitative interviews of students and faculty at a language school in Phnom Penh to determine the effectiveness of using statistical data in making program improvements.
Are You Ready to Re-invent Yourself? (Workshop)
Are you ready to re-invent yourself? Are you ready to sit through a talk in which the speaker offers no answers? Are you willing to listen to someone ask about yourself as a person and as a professional? Are you prepared to think about what you do or don’t do and why you do it or don’t? Do you want to spend some time looking into yourself and perhaps finding at least one question which might help you change the rest of your personal and professional life? Are you also willing to listen with the knowledge that this might not happen? By the end of this presentation, each participant will carry away at lease one question to ask him/herself about what he/she does and why.
Taking Responsibility for One's Own Professional Development (Workshop)
Following an introduction focusing on the rationale and motivation for professional development (PD), the facilitator will lead workshop participants through different areas they might consider for further PD work and possible useful tools to do so. Time permitting, the facilitator will outline a strategy plan that participants might consider adopting.
Basic Guidelines for Successful Lesson Planning (Workshop)
Successful English language classes and courses have one common characteristic – that the teacher has spent some time thinking about and preparing the class or course beforehand. However, even though preparation is understood as being one of the most important aspects of English language teaching, a number of teachers lack mindfulness and skilfulness in lesson preparation. This workshop seeks to impart some knowledge about the practice of lesson planning through both group participation and lecture.
Teaching the Teachers: Parallel Inservice (Workshop)
CfBT Education Malaysia works with the Malaysian Ministry of Education to raise English standards in mainly rural areas through inservice training of teachers to upgrade language skills and methodology. Models and content of Professional Development are shaped by both Ministry of Education imperatives and local needs. This workshop explores the rationale and application of one professional development model to support teachers of years 1-3 ESL in their classroom practice.
Whither CamTESOL? (Workshop)
Mr Paul Mahony & CamTESOL Steering Committee
This new conference series has attracted many participants in its first three years, so it is clearly meeting a community need. How can the conference develop and improve? What mechanisms should be employed to maximise institutional and individual input to the development of the conference series? What should be done specifically for the 2008 conference? How can you contribute? Come to this session, meet members of the CamTESOL committees and have your say.
Teacher Training Video Series Introduction: Shaping the Way We Teach English (Workshop)
This presentation gives hands-on training in using the new video for teacher training: Shaping the Way We Teach English: Successful Practices around the World. The presenters will show two of the 14 modules, allowing participants to observe other English teachers, discuss classroom issues that arise, reflect on their own practices and adapt the material to fit their own contexts. The basic goal is to improve classroom practices and build a pedagogical foundation for language teaching. The workshop will be delivered according to the following format: pre-viewing discussion of the topic, viewing of the video, follow-up discussion and activities. Participants are encouraged to reflect on their own approach to teaching and to think creatively as they participate in the activities.
Learner and Teacher Responses to a Self-Access Learning Project within a Traditional EAP Course (Paper)
The presenter will document and analyse the responses of instructors and learners to the introduction of a self-access learning project within an English for Academic Purposes course for final year engineering students at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The self-access learning project has proved to be popular with students, many of whom have said that it was the first time they had been given the opportunity to exercise any freedom of choice in their language learning. Language instructors have, however, been less enthusiastic and try to avoid teaching on this course. This presentation will investigate why instructors might be resistant to working with students on a self-access learning project, even when the students themselves welcome this approach.
Teaching, Testing and Researching: ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ Dimensions of ELT? (Paper)
This paper explores the relationships between and among English language teaching, testing and researching. Teaching is often viewed as the ‘fun’ part of ELT; testing as a ‘necessary burden’. Researching, on the other hand, is usually seen as beyond the teacher’s domain and, therefore, an ‘unwelcome intrusion’ in the classroom. Good teaching nurtures learning and good testing provides useful feedback on that learning. Good researching improves both teaching and testing. Thus good teaching, testing and researching are inextricably linked. This paper probes the discontent that many teachers feel about language testing and research, and argues that lack of interest in either domain can have detrimental consequences for language learning. Testing that generates positive washback and classroom-based action research that leads to informed teacher intervention are seen as two critical links in the teaching, testing and researching model and, indeed, as ‘good practice’ in ELT whatever the international setting..
A Happy Worker is a Good Worker: Investigating Morale and Job Satisfaction of Foreign Teachers of English in Thailand (Paper)
There are many thousands of foreign teachers of English working in Thailand at present. They represent an important element of the government’s strategy to increase Thailand’s international competitiveness by increasing the number and fluency of those speaking English. It is an axiom of industrial psychology that a happy worker is a good worker. But given the wide disparities in working situations and conditions, little is known, except anecdotally, about how English teachers in general feel about the work they are doing and about the state of their morale and job satisfaction. This paper, therefore, discusses some methodological issues arising out of the development of a research proposal for a study to investigate levels of job satisfaction and morale amongst foreign teachers of English in Thailand. Participant teachers will be invited to complete and critique a trial questionnaire.
STREAM: Program Management
Effective ESL Management Meetings (Paper)
Good communication is an essential part of the success of any organisation and language schools are no exception. As part of an Australian Government-funded project into improving teaching and learning outcomes in Australian-owned offshore language schools, the presenter undertook a discourse analysis based study of the of the regular management meetings of the Australian Centre for Education (ACE) in Phnom Penh. A focus of the study was the way in which the meeting forum requested information, discussed and analysed the information presented and reached decisions about the school’s learning programs, which were subsequently implemented and re-evaluated. Consideration was given both to the ways individual members contributed to the meetings and interacted with each other, as well as to the group dynamic and decision making processes. This paper will present the findings of the study and will make some tentative suggestions towards a model of management meetings that can provide effective and change-responsive decisions targeted at optimising teaching and learning outcomes.
Program Revision and Creation (Workshop)
Do you need to redesign your language program? Do you need to develop a completely new program? Are you at a loss about how to begin and proceed? Here’s a model for creating or redesigning a language program to help you with the process. We’ll look at four main areas of concern for the program: environment, resources, objectives and implementation. We will also touch on program maintenance. The model was developed to answer a perceived lack of emphasis on the management of language program definition, development, implementation and maintenance. It is based on ideas and concepts from organisational development, quality control and creativity enhancement. The developer relied on a career as a language teacher and many years of consulting in organisational development to define a model which should prove a useful guide to the process of developing a new program at your institute.
Raising the Bar (Paper)
This paper will go through the process which the Australian Centre for Education (ACE) used to successfully increase the required graduating score for the General English Program from 4.5 overall with no macroskill less than 4 on the Academic Module of the IELTS test to 5 overall with no macroskill less than 4. It will also show what ACE is doing to prepare for the proposed further increase from 5 to 5.5 as the overall graduating score. Some time will be given to discussion.
When You Fail to Call a Spade a Spade (Paper)
Prof Peregrine W.F. Whalley, Prof Tomas Patrick Hoy & Prof Peter John Hall top
Mahidol University, Bangkok requires its postgraduate students to write their theses in English and offers various programs to support them. In considering some of these programs and their effectiveness, this paper focuses particularly on the compulsory remedial English programs. These programs attempt to overcome students’ basic English language problems but also purport to give students sophisticated and advanced skills in academic writing and speaking. They are taken seriously by the Administration but tend not to be taken seriously by the students. To a cynical observer, such programs might appear to be largely cosmetic: the discussion is about English language proficiency but the reality is about something else. This paper considers the implications of this contradiction between policy and implementation. In relating it to a wider discourse on prevailing levels of English language skills within the wider Thai community, it considers how this contradiction might be resolved to the mutual benefit of all stakeholders.
Outside the Egg Carton: Facilitating High School Teacher Collaboration (Paper)
Many high school English teachers in Japan admit that, for a variety of reasons, they seldom or never meet with each other to set communication goals, plan lessons or collaborate on materials. Tokai University’s year-long, inservice teacher development program has been advising and supporting teachers in high schools around the country for nine years. Many former participants, however, report that their colleagues are resistant to new educational perspectives they have gained in the program. To help teachers explore ways to improve teamwork within their English departments, a new collaboration component has been introduced into the program. The presenter will outline the contents and organisation of this new component and discuss how it is helping teachers understand the nature and benefits of collaboration. Reflections by current participants will also be shared on how collaboration is advancing their leadership skills, promoting their English fluency and influencing their English departments.
Building and Organising English Language Camps (Workshop)
Mr Te Mana Potaka-Dewes, Mr Steve Engler & Mr William Crawford
This workshop describes an annual one-week EFL immersion camp conducted for Japanese university students in Japan. The camp was based on the model of language revitalisation camps, which attempt to re-establish dying languages in their respective speech communities (Hinton & Hale, 2001). It is hoped that this English language camp model will be useful for Cambodian teachers to adopt and use in their own situation. Everyone is most welcome to attend. The presenters will begin by explaining the theoretical framework of the English summer camp. A description of the activities included in the camp will follow. Participants will be divided into groups where they will experience first hand some of these English learning activities. The presenters will first demonstrate and then ask participants to practise these English activities in a non-threatening, fun environment. Take home English learning materials will be provided. Next there will be discussion and suggestions for organising successful English language camps in Cambodia.
Teaching English through International Collaboration (Paper)
This session reports on results of a unique four year collaboration between Taiwan and the United States to enhance English teaching in Yilan County, a region of Taiwan southeast of Taipei. For the past three years, under the auspices of the US Fulbright Program, 12 recent US college graduates have travelled to Taiwan to serve as co-teachers in Taiwanese grade 1-6 English classrooms. Working one-on-one with local Taiwanese teachers, the American co-teachers share teaching and administrative duties with their Taiwanese counterparts, organise school-wide special events, and much more. Results show enhanced learning for children in Yilan, as well as enduring ties between individuals from both locations. In this session, participants will learn about the history of the Fulbright Yilan Program and its organisation. Participants will leave with ideas on ways they can use this and other kinds of international partnerships to enhance English language learning.
STREAM: Teaching Speaking
Warming up Lessons with Pronunciation (Paper)
The speaker will present some ideas on how to start classes with ‘warmers’ that are aimed at assisting Cambodian students perfect their pronunciation of sounds which are used in spoken English and which are not found in the Cambodian language. To this end the use of ‘minimal pairs’ will be presented and demonstrated. The use of ‘jazz chants’ will be presented and demonstrated as a tool that can be used to help students become aware of the part that stress and intonation play in fluently speaking English.
From Listening to Speaking: Activating Learners! (Workshop)
Are you looking for a variety of listening and speaking activities – for pair work, group work, even large classes – that really help learners to communicate in international English, and all tested in Asia? This workshop offers an assortment of enjoyable listening and speaking tasks that can easily increase learners’ listening comprehension while improving their basic speaking skills. These skills-based activities, designed especially for lower level students, provide simple listening and speaking tasks but with sophisticated content that really works! The main focus of this workshop is on developing listening and speaking strategies (pre-listening ‘warm-ups’, listening and speaking tasks and group activities) that stimulate interactive communication and actively engage language learners in the classroom. Come join as learners and return to your schools with ideas to use in your classes and share with other teachers!
Organising Activities in a Speaking Class for Beginners (Workshop)
Dr Channarong Intaraprasert top
Communication is the ultimate goal of teaching a foreign language. To be able to communicate in the target language is not easy for language learners especially where the target language is not commonly used. However, it is not impossible at all if they are taught appropriately. It is the teacher’s job to organise classroom activities to enhance language learning. This workshop therefore aims at raising awareness of teachers of English who are teaching at the beginning level, be it primary or secondary, as to how to organise classroom activities for their students by taking different factors into consideration, such as: purpose of use (warm-up, lead-in, focus or revision); class size (small, optimum, large); or time available for each activity. A variety of speaking activities will be proposed by the presenter with an opportunity for participants to comment on each activity and how it might be used with their own students. Participants will also have an opportunity to learn how to adapt different activities to fit their own context.
Integrating Critical Thinking Skills into the EFL Classroom (Workshop)
Mr Daniel Sasaki, Mr Shinichi Jason Yamamoto & Ms Yukiko Ishikawa
Integrating critical thinking skills into the EFL classroom can help further develop students’ communicative abilities. In addition, the critical thinking skills acquired in the EFL classroom will be generalised to other content areas. Learning how to communicate in different situations requires the ability to analyse communicative situations and utilise specific language skills. Introducing critical thinking skills into the language learning context improves students’ analytical thinking and allows students to practise communicating in a variety of situations. EFL teachers can apply this concept in all contexts of learning without requiring extensive resources. In this workshop, participants will experience a demonstration of the integrated approach, will be presented with a model of its use and will be given an explanation of its possible application in the language classroom.
Designing Public Speaking Courses for Second Language Learners (Paper)
This presentation will discuss the design and implementation of a public speaking course at Mahidol University International College, Bangkok, Thailand. The original design was based on the need to offer advanced speaking skill courses and to teach debate at a university level. The course has since evolved to incorporate the use of basic psychology and audience analysis to increase the persuasiveness of speakers regarding questions of fact, policy and value. This presentation also discusses some of the problems associated with changes in course design and effectiveness of CD-ROM, DVD, video cameras and internet technologies as tools to demonstrate strong/weak presentation strategies.
Task Management Peer Talk (Workshop)
Ms Kwong Wing Yee & Mr Adrian Ting
Authentic peer communication within the classroom is an area of ESL that has not been fully addressed. Teachers tend to focus on the target language and students go straight into the task without a dialogue about how to organise the task. This missing piece of communication (peer task management talk) often results in students getting stuck mid-task and being unable to proceed without teacher intervention or recourse to students’ L1. Teaching the language of peer task management would therefore facilitate task completion, learner independence and the broader soft skills of team building, negotiation and compromise which curricula aim to develop. This workshop will offer practical advice on how to identify task management peer talk for different activities such as group performance of a poem, pair work activities, project discussion and peer correction. Participants will take away ideas that they will be able to use in their classroom.
Speaking Activities for the EFL Classroom (Workshop)
Teachers often struggle with getting students to speak English in class. To deal with this problem, the presenter will share a variety of speaking activities for the EFL classroom, including: information gap, find someone who, questionnaire, discussion, dialogue, role play, debate, presentation and running dictation. The presenter will demonstrate the above activities and provide opportunities to practise. This workshop will motivate and enable teachers to use different types of speaking activities with their students. A handout of activities will also be distributed.
Speaking Strategies for the EFL Classroom (Workshop)
Students often feel nervous and are afraid of making mistakes while speaking English. This workshop will present a variety of activities to help students overcome their fears about speaking English. The presenter will demonstrate the use of drilling, closed and open pairs, pronunciation correction and personalising textbook conversations and dialogues to encourage students to speak in English. A handout of activities will also be distributed.
Teaching Speaking through Stories to Second Language Learners (Workshop)
The ability to teach speaking through stories sometimes requires experienced teachers and can be time consuming. Because of the wealth of language learning opportunities stories offer, this is an area language teachers should consider exploiting in their lessons to help their students improve their communicative abilities. As the value of stories is attested by teachers and researchers alike, teaching speaking through stories can be used as a tool to promote learners’ linguistic development. The author will demonstrate speaking techniques by using stories and pictures with participants. The activities presented here are of use to teachers to prepare speaking activities for their students and can help students to take full advantage of opportunities to practise their oral communication skills.
Giving Feedback to Students: Correction and Praise (Paper)
This presentation will look at monitoring and giving feedback to students on their classroom oral performance. The presentation is based on the results of a survey of international students studying English in Australia. The survey asked students to consider their attitudes to the speaking activities they are asked to participate in and the amount and quality of the feedback they are given. The survey revealed that student attitudes to certain aspects of feedback do not always correspond to what teachers actually do in the classroom.
Speaking, Kept Seriously Simple (Workshop)
Recently, I had to teach speaking to new undergraduate students on a newly instigated English Intensive course at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT). Amongst other things, the experience of repeatedly teaching from the same activity base (five times over ten days) to students with low levels of English, allowed me to think more about how to keep some basic communicative activities ‘Seriously Simple’ and thereby reduce teacher explanation and maximise student talking time. In this workshop, we will have the opportunity to try some of these activities and to talk about others.
STREAM: Teaching Reading
Why Getting English Learners to Read is Difficult: Nine Ways to Get Students to Read (Paper)
Mr Chan Sophal & Mr Sok Say top
This paper looks at reading problems facing English language learners. The co-presenters recognise that EFL learners find reading difficult, time consuming and even boring. Therefore, students just do not want to pursue reading. The absence of a culture of reading slows down English language acquisition, making students poor communicators in English. The main thesis of our paper is that if EFL learners are to be linguistically competent, they must embrace reading in English as a daily habit. Achieving this is not easy as learners are lured by other things such as TV, the Internet, movie, dining and karaoke. In our experience, students we teach react noisily when we assign them English texts to read at home. We have tried numerous strategies that help generate reading habits and in our presentation, we will propose nine ways to get learners to read more.
Developing Students’ Critical Thinking Skills (Workshop)
Many teachers find critical thinking a difficult skill for students to master. This workshop will explore strategies to help students develop critical thinking skills through analysing ideas and concepts in texts, making inferences, synthesising information and applying learning to new contexts, among others. The presenter will share practical strategies for easy application in teachers’ own classrooms. Participants will also be encouraged to share their own experiences and ideas for teaching critical thinking. Additionally, a handout of strategies and activities will be distributed.
Story Reading (Workshop)
Everyone loves a good story! However, students are often bored and careless with reading stories – even with a good one – in their classrooms. This workshop will show participants some activities to motivate students to read stories with the most attention and interest. Additionally, this workshop will offer participants the opportunity to design activities for teaching story reading through group discussion.
Developing Learners’ Reading Skills in Mathematics, Science and Social Sciences (Paper)
In schools worldwide, ESL instruction is increasingly focused on reading in the academic content areas. In this session, we will explore reasons for this shift and examine specific techniques to help English language learners develop strong reading skills in all content areas, including mathematics, science and social sciences, using a science lesson as an example. The presenter will first examine reasons reading in the content areas is becoming increasingly important. Then he will present specific ways teachers can help learners improve their reading skills. Strategies include hands-on demonstrations, activating background knowledge, preloading content and general academic vocabulary, and using graphic organisers. The presenter will use a science lesson to illustrate the methods and techniques. In the third part of the session, participants will learn about ways to design and scaffold content-area instruction in all content areas – mathematics, science and social studies.
STREAM: Teaching Writing
Comparison, Collaboration, Competition: The Three C’s in the Writing Classroom (Workshop)
This workshop will focus on a range of practical strategies and techniques for improving student interest and involvement in the writing classroom. Specifically, the presentation will look first at some of the common difficulties that EFL/ESL writing teachers face with regard to student motivation and involvement in class. The presentation will then move on to introduce some practical ways that teachers can use competition, collaboration and comparison to improve the overall classroom environment and, in turn, speed student learning. The presentation will primarily emphasise versatile techniques that can be used in a wide range of settings and with varied student ability levels. As various interactive writing activities are introduced throughout the workshop, participants will be encouraged to discuss the merits of each in terms of their own classroom teaching experience.
The Writing Process for Teachers and Students (Workshop)
Students often complain they don’t know what to write or how to begin; and they believe ‘writing’ means sitting at their desk or computer hammering out an essay from beginning to end in one sitting. Competent writers know that writing is a process that begins even before committing pen to paper and concludes only after multiple revisions, editing and other finishing touches. This interactive workshop will review the process of writing and provide tips and strategies for practising each stage of the process. A detailed overview of the writing process, checklists for revising and editing, and a model essay illustrating the process from beginning to end will be distributed.
What Do Students Write about? (Paper)
This study analyses essays written by 103 BBA students of the Islamic University College of Malaysia during the end-of-semester examination. The respondents underwent an English course as one of the compulsory subjects in order to graduate. A choice of eight topics was given, in line with the components of the English Language writing syllabus – narrative, describing a process, giving reasons, cause and effect, advantages and disadvantages, fact and opinion, comparison and contrast. It was found that the highest number of respondents (30) chose the topic relating to whether TV programs do more harm than good. A follow-up interview was conducted in order to find out why they chose that topic. Respondents stated the reason for choosing the topic was that they preferred writing about something easy and familiar. Hence, a few suggestions were made in order to help students write about challenging and unfamiliar topics.
A Blueprint for Narrative (Workshop)
A distinct pattern emerges from most narrative texts when the narrative theories of Vladimir Propp are applied. By recognising these patterns with the help of literature and video, teachers will be able to apply a specific structure when teaching. By the end of the session, participants will have an understanding of narrative structure and character roles, which may be used to develop materials and plan lessons for narrative composition.
Writing and Some Common Problems among EFL Learners in Cambodia (Paper)
Mr Sok Soth & Mr Thun Virak top
Writing is a difficult subject as most EFL learners of English indicate. Is it the skills themselves that are difficult? Or is it the learners? Do motivation and attitude matter? This paper will discuss a comparative study into the common problems that undergraduate students undergo when studying at the Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL), Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), be they motivational, attitudinal or other. Specially, this paper will offer certain solutions to make the teaching of English more effective among learners of English as a foreign language.
Using Interactive Feedback Strategies to Improve Student Writing (Paper)
This workshop will focus on feedback during the revision stage of the writing process. Teachers’ feedback is more meaningful and effective when there is negotiation of meaning between teachers and students rather than focusing on mistakes. This workshop will focus on two strategies for interacting with students about their writing: directive and facilitative. Directive strategies use teacher suggestions and comments about moving, changing or omitting information in a paragraph or essay. Facilitative strategies use questions and comments about ideas and content. Students improve their writing through interacting with and considering teachers’ feedback and suggestions about their writing. The presenter will share her experience and sample written interactions with students to improve their writing. There will also be opportunities to apply and practise the strategies presented.
STREAM: Teaching Young Learners
Using Action Phonics and Shared Reading to Develop Literacy in Young Learners (Workshop)
Many children in Malaysia complete primary school without having developed a sound grasp of reading. Research has indicated that a combination of the whole word approach to reading and work with phonics is helpful in developing literacy. Alison has been teaching reading to children in underprivileged schools in Sabah, using a combination of action phonics and shared reading. Participants will learn how to teach phonics using an action for each sound and will also be shown how to develop children’s sight vocabulary and appreciation of reading through shared reading, where the focus is on the whole word approach. This workshop will be of benefit to kindergarten and primary teachers, particularly those from rural settings.
Creative Ideas for the Young Learners’ Classroom with 0-15 Minutes of Preparation Time (Workshop)
Research has shown that to keep young learners engaged, activities should be changed every 7-10 minutes. This workshop aims to present creative ideas that can be adapted to supplement any course book. These activities address phonics, grammar, using music and art in the classroom and more. Best of all, they can be done with minimal resources and take only 0-15 minutes of preparation time! The workshop will be interactive, involving all the participants and provide simple instructions which can be modified for both the young learners and the adult classroom.
Read to Write: Teaching Children How to Write Using Reading Texts (Workshop)
This workshop will examine ways of helping children transfer their ideas from reading to writing by using in-class reading passages and stories as jumping off points for developing personal written responses. Writing development activities that will be demonstrated include cloze exercises, question/answer formats, writing models, chart completion and interviews to prepare children for writing their own personalised responses with as much structure or creativity as the teacher wants to allow. This workshop is appropriate for teachers of children at all levels.
Teaching with Care, Love and Responsibility (Paper)
No one can be a good teacher without warm feelings of love, care and responsibility for students. Teaching is a valuable gift. We should teach students with love, encouraging them to learn beyond what is taught in class. We should also care for their future and for the future of our nation; if we all want to see positive changes in our country in the next 10 or 20 years, we must start looking at young children now since these children are all potential leaders of the nation and the world. Dr Haim Ginott has emphasised, ‘I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom… As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.’ All teachers must be careful of their responsibility to provide quality education to their students. When they receive effective education, they will also make positive contributions to the development of the nation and the world.
STREAM: Testing
Progress/Achievement Test Writing (Workshop)
Tests are integral to students’ motivation in their studies since they are conditioned to work hard to achieve their goals by passing exams. Teachers need some knowledge of this field in order to produce effective tests. This workshop looks at awareness of progress/ achievement tests, why teachers test and what teachers should test. In addition, what do teachers need to consider in order to design tests in a more user-friendly way? This workshop also focuses on question types used as test items. Participants in the workshop will share ideas from their own experiences and assess some samples of question types or rubrics that can be used, especially with regard to teachers who are new to test writing. This workshop should help develop teachers’ test materials for their own classes or schools.
IELTS: Questions and Answers (Workshop)
IELTS is one of the major international standardised tests of English language proficiency in use today. It is accepted by universities and other educational institutions worldwide for their international students as well as by many professional bodies and global corporations who need a valid and reliable measure of the English language proficiency of their members or employees. This workshop aims to answer some essential questions about the IELTS test, such as what kind of test IELTS is, what candidates have to do, and what an IELTS band score means, as well as what is new about the test in 2007. There will be opportunity for questions from the workshop participants.
Testing Comprehension: The Notorious Case of Multiple Choice Questions (Workshop)
Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) are a popular way of objectively testing reading and listening comprehension. While easy to mark, good MCQs are far from easy to create (Heaton, 1988; Weir, 1990; Hughes, 2003). Even highly experienced language teachers are prone to write MCQs which have flawed stems or distractors. This workshop will review the principles of developing good MCQs and then apply them to a sample of texts. Participants will benefit both from refreshing their knowledge of what is ‘good practice’ and from the actual experience of writing MCQs in a collaborative envi