This year, TESOL celebrates its 50th anniversary and in celebration current TESOL president Dr. Andy Curtis will be doing some some reflecting forwards and backwards in his keynote. We at English Central and not capable of such optical acrobatics, but are aiming to impress nevertheless.
We will be launching the American edition of Jetstream and to help us do it in style, methodology man and Jetstream co-author Jeremy Harmer will be joining us! Jeremy will be doing 4 Jetstream-related presentations (see below) as well as being on hand in our booth to answer questions and connect with teachers.
We will have a number of giveaways at our booth (number 401, right at the front doors – you can’t miss it), so be sure to vist us!
We hope you will attend one – or all! – of Jeremy’s presentations:
Truth and Lies: Authenticity and Artifice in the Coursebook Experience
April 6th 1:00 pm – 1:45 pm in room 320 at the Baltimore Convention Center.
We have tended to see authenticity as a language issue (and, as a result, argued about what constitutes its authentic use). But there are other authenticities too: authentic experience, authentic content and authentic learning. But that’s not the whole story either. Students – just like the rest of us – are entirely susceptible to fun and fiction, imagination and play. What is NOT advisable, however, is to try and mix the two. This talk will look at what authenticity can mean in a twenty-first century coursbook – and where the fiction and lies come in!
Use It or Lose It: Performance in Language Learning
April 6th 5:00 pm – 5:45 pm in room Tubman at the Hilton Baltimore.
One of the great mysteries of language learning is how students transfer things they have memorized ‘short-term’ to a more permanent automaticity (of use).
One way of making this happen is through student performance –that range of activities which provoke them into trying to combine and use the language they have been studying (and which they studied in the past) as they struggle to produce meaningful content.
This is not a new phenomenon – after all the whole communicative movement arose from a concern with student production and performance – but we know more about it now, and we have more resources at our disposal.
You First: What Students Bring to the Coursebook Experience
April 7th 1:00 pm – 1:45 pm in room 321 at the Baltimore Convention Center
The whole point of language learning is, of course, what happens to the learners. They should not be consumers of teaching (or coursebook material). They should be the main part of the equation. So what can a coursebook (or any lesson design) do to centre everything that happens on the learners’ ‘here and now’ experience and progress?
This talk looks at how to bring students into the heart of everything that happens through a variety of activities which remind them (and us) that what is happening in their heads (and hearts) is by far the most important element in the teaching-learning equation.
How Students Get Language from a Course Book
April 8th 11:30 am – 12:15 pm in room Tilghman at the Hilton Baltimore
Students get language in a variety of ways. Sometimes teachers explain grammar and have students practice it; or they introduce words and students try to use them and then those words are revised. But there are other ways too. We can have students ‘mine’ written and spoken text for useful and, let’s not pass this by, interesting language that crops up – and which they may very well remember best of all.
This talk looks at the different ways that coursebook activites can help students engage with words, lexical phrases, grammar and functions –and how to make that engagement memorable and long-lasting.
Plus, we invite you to attend some of our partners’ presentations:
David Harrington: “Choose your Own”-Style Adventures in the ELT Classroom
April 6th 10:30 pm – 11:15 am in room Tubman at the Hilton Baltimore.
YOU are the hero! Try multipath stories as part of an extensive reading program as the focus of discussion tasks, as support for writing, to target reluctant readers, and more. Appropriate from upper elementary to adult. Examples drawn from the Atama-ii Books series, but applicable to any CYOA-style story.
Dorothy Zemach: Teaching Study Skills
April 7th 4:00pm – 4:45pm – Key 12
“They should have learned study skills in high school.” Yes — but what if they didn’t? University students sometimes arrive with brain power and drive, but without the organization and habits necessary for academic success. The presenter will demonstrate useful techniques for teaching and practicing academic study skills.
