English UK: promoting quality English language learning in the UK
The Academic Conference is a one-stop event for ELT practitioners and their managers.
The event includes expert speakers, materials providers, opening plenaries from Silvana and Vic Richardson and the chance catch up with old contacts and make new ones over great food throughout the day and an evening drinks reception.
The final day of the Academic Conference will be closed with a talk by Countdown's Susie Dent.
Saturday 19 January: classroom practice
Session one: classroom challenges and nurturing knowledge
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Supporting students with learning differences with Yvert de Souza This session will give you a better understanding of some of the challenges students with learning difficulties and/or physical disabilities face in the EFL classroom. |
Leading language learners on a road to employability through enhanced assessment practices with Alex Thorp This session unfolds what is expected of contemporary language teaching practices in nurturing skill-sets and developing learners as they engage with a globalised environment. |
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The power of personalisation with Alex Warren In this session we'll explore how we can connect learners to the world through personalisation and bring the classroom to life. |
Self organised learning environments: do they work? with Varinder Unlu Varinder will present findings on the impact of Self Organised Learning Environments (SOLEs) and how they can help create a more autonomous and collaborative classroom. |
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Managing the digital classroom with Nik Peachey This session we will explore together a range of digital tools and teaching techniques that teachers can adopt to utilise the presence of digital devices in the classroom and make them productive. |
Session two: engagement and mental health
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How to stay well in the classroom: being mentally fit with Phil Longwell Phil will draw on his own research into mental health of teachers to explore practical ways of staying well in the workplace. |
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Dealing with IELTS academic writing task two with Sarah Philpot This workshop will look at the questions that typically occur in IELTS writing task two. Sarah will break them down into their essential parts to ensure that all aspects of the question are answered. |
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Top ten tips for motivating teenage students with Mel Judge This session will introduce fun and practical ways to increase engagement and make sure that we are challenging our students not just linguistically but cognitively and socially. |
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Textploitation: using a text to develop skills with David Byrne This session will look at how we can take advantage of texts used for entire lessons to develop learners' skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing. |
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Mind the gap: low-prep differentiation for busy teachers with Anna Young and Clare Henderson This session aims to provide take-home ideas about what differentiation is and how they can be used to support and challenge different learners. |
Session three: exams and teaching creatively
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Using musical activities to raise phonological awareness with Anne Margaret Smith This workshop will demonstrate how teachers can make use of musical activities to focus on aspects of phonology, including connected speech and intonation patterns. |
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Exams made clear with Aida Sahutoglu Aida will focus on developing productive skills in exam classes to explore how we could enhance students' fluency and coherence to demonstrate a wider range of language. |
What does recent research tell us about teaching pronunciation? with Chris Edgoose This presentation will provide an overview of recent research into effective pronunciation teaching and address the fact that, on average, only 5% of coursebook content is devoted to pronunciation. |
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Think pair share: no hassle speaking activities with Chrissi Florides This session gives delegates some simple and creative ideas to get students thinking and speaking. The ideas are practical, fun and require few or no materials. |
Session four: wellbeing and development
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Recognising and Dealing with burn-out in ELT with Chris Farrell This session will look at some of the potential causes of mental and physical exhaustion, depersonalisation, and cynicism as well as their effects. |
"I write formal, like?" Teaching and learning academic style with Edward de Chazal In this workshop, selected texts will be analysed to identify the major characteristics of academic written English and how students can implement these. |
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Teaching (not testing) listening skills: focus on decoding with Sarka Kreuzova In this session we will examine the reasons why 'traditional' receptive skills lesson structure that implement a set of comprehension questions may not be helping students develop listening skills. |
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Diving in to the local experience with Susan Holden Susan will present practical ideas for both in and out-of-class activities for teenage students on short courses that can be combined to make the most of language and cultural possibilities. |
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Teaching vocabulary beyond intermediate with Julie Moore This session will look at key concepts in vocabulary learning and their implications for teaching students beyond intermediate levels by examining what it means to 'learn' a word.
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