IATEFL news
IATEFL News
JANUARY 2012
We have a few items of note to announce from the IATEFL Head Office: Firstly, the AGM minutes from 2011 are now available online in the members' area on our website www.iatefl.org Secondly, we are delighted to announce that the final plenary session at this year's conference in Glasgow will be Scottish-born Fish, former front man of the British rock group Marillion. Having recently completed a 180-date tour of Europe, Fish will close the conference with a plenary session involving music, song, poetry and storytelling and will be held on Friday 23rd March at 13:40.
Finally, and by no means lastly, we are pleased to welcome Kay Cox as our new Finance Officer at Head Office.
The next Jobs Market will take place in Glasgow 20-22 March, 2012 at the SECC. Some of the best employers in ELT are joining us, and they’ll be recruiting for excellent positions in universities, private language schools, publishing and more. If you, or a colleague are looking to attract qualified and experienced TEFL teachers consider the Jobs Market. There are flexible packages to suit every budget and recruitment plan - from on site interview space to simple job postings. For more information and to find out how to get involved visit: http://www.iatefl.org/jobs-market/jobs-market-for-employers
Webinar: ‘Essentials for the Global Teacher's Toolkit’ GISIG's first webinar, ‘Essentials for the Global Teacher's Toolkit’, took place on Sunday 18 December 2011. Feedback from the twenty participants was encouraging, and the event proved a useful first step towards our collaboration with more experienced colleagues in BESIG (see below). Thank you to all who attended; we appreciate your support. For those who missed it, you can find the recording here. Suggestions for future topics and presenters welcome. Contact Dennis Newson This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Global Issues in Business English This one hour webinar is scheduled for Friday 20 January from 13.00 to 14.00 UK time. Coordinator, Maureen Ellis will talk about GISIG rationale, purposes, and activities, and James Chamberlain of the University of Applied Sciences of Bonn-Rhein-Sieg - and an active BESIG member - will present some of the ways in which business ethics and environmental issues are introduced to students at his university. The event will be introduced by Carl Dowse, BESIG web coordinator; and chaired by Steve Flinders of York Associates, who teaches Business English to in-service students and is also a member of BESIG. Participants will have the opportunity to put questions to the panellists, to post comments and to respond to poll questions during the event. The objectives of the event include examining the role of global issues in BE, making BESIG members more aware of what GISIG offers, and strengthening relations between the two SIGs. Spring newsletter Our newsletter editors welcome articles, lesson plans, teaching materials, puzzles, artwork, your students' work ... for our Spring newsletter. We have begun to think about a name for GISIG’s newsletter; two suggestions have been Globelt and Glocal, but we’d welcome your ideas on this. Contact Danny Whitehead This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . GISIG online discussion If political, economic, environmental, statistical … in fact, the multiple intelligences and literacies required for ‘reading the world’ interest you, you will want to join in the online discussion This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . September conference in Bielefeld, Germany Look out for details of our conference in Bielefeld, Germany, in September 2012. Global Issues Pre Conference Event Please join us in Glasgow on 19 March 2012 for the Global Issues Pre Conference Event: ‘Opening doors: bringing Y(Our) global issues into class’. This event is particularly geared towards teachers who work with young adults and who would like to learn more about creative ways of incorporating global issues into their day-to-day teaching. There will be a series of exciting workshops and presentations, as well as a variety of ways for participants to share ideas, experiences and concerns. The presenters will be Rakesh Bhanot, Kip Cates, Maureen Ellis, Jamie Keddie, Alan Maley, Dana Radler, and Wolfgang Ridder. If you’d like a 10-minute slot for a poster presentation, or a Show & Tell mini-session, please get in touch with Margit Szesztay at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . We look forward to hearing from you, and hope to see you in Glasgow. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , GISIG Coordinator
Electronic Village Online (EVO) 2012
The IATEFL Young Learners and Teenagers Special Interest group (YLTSIG) is pleased to invite you to join its EVO session for 2012. Over the five-week period between January 9 and February 12, we invite you to join us in one of the best virtual staffrooms online. YLTSIG members, all well-known dynamic members of the English Language Learning Community, will be joining us to share their particular expertise on a wide variety of subjects. Participants will be able to discuss and share experiences, ideas, thoughts through the regular online meetings: special needs, difficult pupils, games and language aims, very young learners, technology for teens... all just part of the programme. Glasgow 2012 In Glasgow YLTSIG will again offer a Pre Conference Event and a YLTSIG Day. The YLTSIG Day will focus largely on e-Learning for young learners, and during our 2012 PCE we will be studying the ins and outs of English for VYLs (very young learners). We hope to see many members and non-members on both occasions.
2012 YLTSIG PCE: The Younger, the better? How young are your youngest students? 2 years? 3 years? If you teach these pre-school tots, and are interested in learning more about this age group, come and join YLTSIG’s 2012 PCE Glasgow. This year’s YLTSIG’s PCE looks at Very Young Learners (aged 0 – 5 years). Many teachers train to teach adults. In practice, not only are many of them teaching young learners, but often pre-schoolers are tagged onto their timetable. What support is there for them? What training are they given? Where can they find support, materials, inspiration? How do preschool teachers work? What are the issues they confront on a daily basis? What are the challenges? A PCE of success stories and disaster stories – we’ll be sharing our knowledge and our experience. This event is the first time YLTSIG is addressing issues concerned with this age group. Don’t miss it! And for those of you who were at the Brighton PCE - the FLAT cats will be returning to put in an appearance in 2012 and tell their stories! The day is kindly sponsored by Macmillan and Cambridge ESOL. Speakers and panellists are Sandie Mourão, Shelley Terrell, Shelagh Rixon, Opal Dunn, Teresa Fleta, Caroline Linse and Fran Gamboa. 2012 YLTSIG Day: e-Learning for young learners For the YLTSIG Day we have an excellent programme to offer, around the larger theme of e-Learning. The day will also allow members and non-members to attend the YLTSIG Open forum. The programme has Esra Girgin, Russell Stannard, Paul Davies, Tim Falla, Sebnem Oral, Helena Metslang, Jo Hayes and Lulu Campbell as speakers! This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it YLT SIG Joint-Coordinators
Lesson plan competition The IATEFL BESIG committee would like to remind IATEFL members about the deadline for the competition for an activity for business English. As we announced in the last e-bulletin, IATEFL BESIG, in collaboration with the Cambridge University Press 'Professional English Online' website, are running a new lesson plan competition that gives Business English trainers the chance to have their ideas published professionally online for the first time. The competition is open to anyone who has not previously had any teaching materials commercially published. The closing date for entries is 31 January 2012, and winners will be announced at IATEFL in Glasgow on 19 March 2012 as well as on the IATEFL BESIG website and the Cambridge University Press ‘Professional English Online’. More information here. Mercedes Viola, member of the BESIG Online Team Global Issues in Business English Webinar In this one-hour webinar, BESIG member Steve Flinders of York Associates, and Maureen Ellis of GISIG will be joined by James Chamberlain to discuss the role global issues should play in the business English classroom. Information here.
The Politeness and Pragmatics of ELF - Weekend Workshop In the next Weekend Workshop, to be held on Sunday 5 February 2012, 16.00 CET, Chia Suan Chong will be giving a workshop based on her research into non-native speaker perceptions of requests by other non-native speakers when using English as a lingua franca (ELF), in terms of politeness levels, and will be looking at what and how we choose to teach. Information here. BESIG PCE at IATEFL Annual Conference ‘Business English as a Lingua Franca – what should we be teaching?’, sponsored by Cambridge ESOL. We’re living in an age of unprecedented language contact and hence, language change. At least 1bn people in the world speak English, but only 330m are native speakers. Many more business conversations take place between non-native speakers of English and the world’s major business lingua franca is no longer owned by native speakers. So, how is successful communication achieved in business contexts when many or all of the people involved aren’t native English speakers? And what implications does this have for what we should be teaching in our business English lessons, and how? Following on from its popular webinar held last February on ELF and BELF (Business English as a lingua franca), IATEFL’s Business English Special Interest Group will explore these questions. Our goal will be to form bridges between research and the classroom, moving the discussion on towards the whats and hows of teaching. The day will include presentations from highly respected researchers at the cutting edge of ELF and BELF research, along with practical consideration of classroom activities and materials that focus on fostering BELF skills and capabilities. Vicki Hollett, freelance teacher, teacher trainer and author of many popular ESP courses, will present and moderate a panel discussion at the end of the day. This is a ‘must attend’ event for professional English teachers and course directors and developers whose students need to communicate in international contexts. Speakers include Vicki Hollett, Alan Firth and Chia Suan Chong.
Vicki Hollett is a Business English teacher and author of many business and technical English courses such as Business Objectives, Tech Talk, and Lifestyle (pre-intermediate). In addition to delivering hundreds of courses and workshops for teachers in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North and South America, she continues to teach students who need English to work in international contexts. Vicki is sponsored by Pearson and IATEFL BESIG. Alan Firth is Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and TESOL at the School of Education, Communication & Language Sciences at Newcastle University, UK. He carries out research on human interaction, specifically interaction transacted through talk. Much of his research has been concerned with interaction in English as a 'lingua franca' in professional settings. He is sponsored by IATEFL BESIG Chia Suan Chong is a graduate in Communication Studies and has an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT from King’s College London. Currently running Business and General English classes, in addition to teacher training (CELTA) courses, at International House London, Chia is often seen at conferences speaking about ELF, Dogme, Systemic Functional Grammar, and Intercultural Pragmatics. She speaks English and Mandarin as her first language, and Japanese, Italian and Spanish as her second. Active on Twitter, Chia loves a good debate and blogs regularly here. She is sponsored by International House London. The other speakers will be announced soon on our website and the exact timetable of talks and workshops will be also be available soon. BESIG Day, Thursday 22 March 2012 The BESIG Day at the annual IATEFL conference will feature a mix of workshops and talks on various aspects of business English. The details of the day will be announced soon on the website. Speakers include Claire Hart, Kristen Acquaviva, Damian Corcoran, Natasa Gajst, Kirsten Waechter, Jennifer Verschoor, Stephanie Ashford and Tom Smith.
Submissions must choose one of the formats below:
Important dates: 10 Dec 2011: call for papers begins 10 Feb 2012: call for papers ends 20 Feb 2012: provisionary acceptance email sent to speakers 05 March 2012: deadline for speakers to confirm their participation 15 March 2012: speaker and early-bird delegate registrations begins 15 April 2012: speaker and early-bird delegate registrations ends 28 May 2012: online delegate registrations ends Date and venue: Saturday 16 June 2012, 9:00-18:00, Télécom ParisTech - 46, rue Barrault, 75013 Paris, France. Check out the Telecom website which includes all the nearby metro and bus stations Event Coordinators: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and Andrzej Stesik Local organizer: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . ELTA BESIG in Serbia English Language Teachers’ Association (ELTA), the Serbian IATEFL associate, has set up a new special interest group, under the name ELTA BESIG.
The inaugural event for the local group will be a workshop with Carl Dowse, our Web Coordinator, entitled ‘A Business English teacher’s digital toolkit: a practical guide’. In order to equip Serbian business English teachers with ideas to tackle the challenges of teaching in the 21st century, Carl will provide hands-on advice on how to use digital technology for planning lessons, teaching and professional development. As practical skills are best learned by doing, participants will be given useful tips and guidance on how to spice up their teaching using digital technology and how to best incorporate it into their professional lives. The workshop will be held in the British Council premises in Belgrade on 25 February 2012. We are looking forward to welcoming business English stakeholders not only from Serbia, but from the neighbouring countries as well. Registration details here. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , BESIG Coordinator
Happy New Year to everybody from the LASIG!
Pre-conference event, Glasgow It won’t be long before some of us will meet in Glasgow! The programme for our pre-conference event on Monday 19 March, ‘Learner Autonomy in Action - across borders’, is now more or less finalized (see below). We think that we have managed to put together a very attractive programme. Therefore, don’t wait too long before registering as it will be a matter of “first come, first served” procedure and numbers are limited! Why not make use of the “early bird” reduced fee before 27 January? Outline of the programme for the day 10.00-1015: Welcome, outline of structure for the day, brief announcements 10.15-11.00: First plenary - David Little, Dublin: “Language learner autonomy across borders - where are the borders and do they matter?” In smaller groups: ‘Getting to know each other, discussions and preparations of questions/comments for the panel at the end of the day’. 11.00-11.15: Examples of “Autonomy in Action” – poster presentations (1): Carol Everhard, Greece, Bob Morrison, Japan, Kathryn Kelly et al, Bangladesh, Robert Moncrief, Finland (3 minutes each to present themselves and their poster presentation) 11.15–11.45: Looking at posters (Coffee at 11.30) 11.45-12.30: Three examples of “Autonomy in Action “(2): Dorte Asmussen, Denmark, Franziska Zeller, Switzerland, Sanja Wagner, Germany. 12.30-13.00: Reflections and questions relating to (2) 13.00-13.45: Lunch. 13.45–14.00: Looking at posters 14.00-15.00: Four examples of “Learner Autonomy in Action” (3): Michelle Tamala, Australia; Katherine Thornton, Japan; Azizah Zahdi, New Zealand; Irina Minakova, Czech Republic. 15.00-15.15: Q&A session for (3) 15.15-15.45: Coffee as well as looking at posters. 15.45-16.30: Second plenary - Scott Thornbury, New York: “Unplugged Teaching – Autonomy in action?” In smaller groups: Prepare questions /comments for panel discussion. 16.30-17.00: Panel with David Little and Scott Thornbury 17.00-17.30: Sharing in groups: Things we will do on Monday! (results on screen). Evaluation and winding-up of day. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , LASIG coordinator
Deadline for Zoltán Dörnyei’s workshop on questionnaires on 10 Feb 2012 Zoltán Dörnyei’s will be leading a one-day workshop on questionnaires, to be held on 10 February 2012 in Coventry, UK. This will be a hands-on workshop/‘master class’ in the design and analysis of questionnaires, of interest in particular to those just starting out in research, but of use also to those who are more experienced in using questionnaires. The deadline for registering online is 27 January. Further details and registration here. Deadline for workshop at IATEFL Glasgow Conference There will be a one-day workshop on ‘How to combine teaching and researching’ on 19 March at the IATEFL Annual Conference in Glasgow, UK. Ema Ushioda, Sarah Mercer and Richard Smith will be facilitating this workshop, which focuses on learners and classroom language learning. It will be a practical workshop designed for teachers who are thinking of doing classroom research (for whatever reason), and will be of interest also to postgraduate students who are planning to combine teaching and researching roles. Registration and further details are here. The early-bird deadline for registration at the cheapest price is 27 January 2012 Further one-day workshops in 2012: Nunan, Allwright, Burns We have three more one-day research methods workshops planned for 2012
Further details of all these events here. Richard Smith, Research SIG Coordinator
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