Rita, a teacher from Amsterdam was appalled when a pupil showed her her private holiday snapshots taken from Facebook during a traineeship in Curacao. ‘ I didn’t wear anything indecent and didn’t throw up or anything, but it was very shocking.’ Fortunately, the same pupil taught Rita how to change the settings of her profile. [...]
It was my first time in Vilnius, this beautiful city where the slow flowing Neris meets the meandering Vilnia. Lithuanian capital greeted me with plenty of sunshine, its exciting old town and lively atmosphere. However, it was not the city itself I came to see. I got to Vilnius to attend LAKMA and IATEFL TDSIG [...]
Teaching seems at times very close to social work. At the start of the lesson pupils and students sometimes first need to relax a little because one of them just witnessed a major row between his parents before cycling to school. As a teacher you need to offer this student some space to cool down. [...]
Here’s a selection of photos from the recent TDSIG/LAKMA event. There’ll be a report or two published here shortly, so watch this space. Enjoy!
Does the language that you speak influence your behaviour? And is the opposite true too? Does your personality influence the way you manage to speak a second language? Please share your experiences with us on this site. If you end up being a TEFL teacher it is very helpful to have some acting in your [...]
TDSIG and LAKMA, Lithuanian Teachers’ Association are happy to invite you to a joint conference entitled ELT IN THE DIGITAL AGE from 22 to 23 September 2011 at Vilnius Pedagogical University, Studentu St. 39, Vilnius, Lithuania. New technologies and social media reshape the way today’s learners access information and gain knowledge. Teachers respond differently to [...]
Here’s the presentation put together by Nicky Hockly’s group, which I also participated in. I’m the unshaven one showing my loyalty by wearing the TDSIG t-shirt.
A report of the Unplugged Conference of the 21st May by Catalina Dumitrescu. Catalina is a teacher trainer at Oxford TEFL Barcelona ‘It’s so easy not to practise what you preach. It´s better to sit down and talk. We all have so much to say. Not a good idea to be talked at.’ – Luke Meddings [...]
It is going to take place at Vilnius Pedagogical University http://www.vpu.lt/ The Conference invites ELT teachers, researchers, teacher educators and decision makers to exchange, discuss and develop their ideas on the challenges of the digital world. The conference programme is expected to offer many opportunities for contact between ELT practitioners and researchers via plenary speeches, workshops, [...]
Five more days to go and then our Unplugged Conference is on in Barcelona. http://www.tdsig.org/unplugged/ You can also register on the day in reception at OxfordTEFL if the online registration doesn’t work. I will now continue our discussion on Giving Feedback. On our annual IATEFL Conference in Brighton we had an interesting PCE entitled ‘Does my bum [...]
Anthony Gaughan, teacher trainer, will be one of our facilitators at the TDSIG Unplugged Conference in Barcelona on May 21. Find out more. REGISTER NOW!
Luke Meddings will be giving a Dogme demonstration lesson, along with Scott Thornbury, at the Barcelona Unplugged Conference in May. Register now, as places are limited. Find out more
I’ve always felt that dogme, a genuinely learner-centred approach that turns top-down orthodoxy on its head, is intrinsically linked to teacher development. It may now be true to say that teacher development must be linked intrinsically to dogme, if the latter’s gradual evolution from a critique of materials overuse into a framework teaching approach is [...]
Dogme has endured, and I now find myself going into other schools and teaching departments to share the ideas advanced in Teaching Unplugged. What’s increasingly apparent to me is that – while there is a genuine appetite for ‘opening the space’ in language classrooms – heads of department sometimes view this with more confidence than [...]
The ‘unplugged’ TDSIG conference, which will be held in Barcelona on Saturday, 21st May, will retain the Open Space format used in last year’s pre-conference event to explore unplugged teaching and its implications for teacher development. Open Space is a particularly apt way to run a conference devoted to unplugged teaching, as both approaches emphasise [...]
REGISTER NOW! We are happy to announce The Unplugged Conference, a one-day event on Sat 21 May 2011 at OxfordTEFL, Barcelona, Spain, organised along Open Space Technology lines so as to maximise participation, and with the aim of exploring and debating issues involved in unplugging teaching, teacher training and teacher development. The event is organised [...]
Darren wrote: Searching the Cambridge CELTA syllabus for `culture’, I discover the following. Unit 1 ELearners and teachers and the teaching and learning context 1.1 Cultural, linguistic and educational backgrounds Demonstrate an understanding of the range of backgrounds and experiences that adult learners bring to their classes A quick scoot around the Trinity CertTESOL site [...]
Don’t know the difference between a method and an approach? Scott might be the one to ask.
For those of you (like me) whose teacher development interests include using technology in teaching EFL, Nik Peachey has created a newsletter which will be sent out by email a couple of times a month, and which will feature “the latest news, cool tools and research links related to educational technology inside and outside the [...]
More teacher development events in Eastern Europe. The 18th International IATEFL Slovenia Conference will be held in Topolšica, from 10 to 13 March 2011. Leni Dam, Lindsay Clandfield, Judy Copage, Marie Delaney, and Eamonn Shanahan are amongst the speakers. You can get more information about the plenaries and speakers, along with titles and abstracts for [...]
Changing demographies in our countries have their effects on our classrooms. A true exchange of ideas requires an understanding of different beliefs and value systems. What role does diversity have in your education? Do teacher training colleges in your country teach diversity?
The 19th Annual HUPE Conference will be held in the Grand Hotel Adriatic, Opatija, Croatia, from the 7th to 10th of April, 2011. HUPE – The Croatian Association of Teachers of English – extend a welcome to “everyone who is willing to share their good classroom practice and innovative ideas”. Plenary Speakers include Mirna Radišić, [...]
In the next issue of our Teacher Development Newsletter we will run an article on how our members deal with noisy and disruptive classes. A colleague of mine explains to his classes at the start of the year that pupils will be given an extra assignment if they don’t listen. He has a special folder [...]
This week our dilemma is on ‘no child/learner left behind.’ What to do with diversity in your classroom? Teachers move away from the problem-based approach and move more towards the needs-based approach. Do you think you are trained to cater for pupils/learners with learning difficulties? And what do you do with highly talented pupils/learners? Do [...]
In the Netherlands there is an ongoing discussion on how we could improve our education. A panel of 10 educators came up with the following suggestions: improve image of the teacher more opportunities to grow for teachers, but make sure you name and shame when teachers don’t achieve don’t just look at the marks of [...]
It’s worth visiting this blog if you have an interest in teacher development.
Friend Karen Richardson has reached out to the teacher development community to help out a colleague. She sent me the following email (also posted on our Facebook page): “A colleague has asked me whether I would be her assessor/tutor for her Teaching Practice. She intends to take a cert TESOL course run by intesol. It’s [...]
The answer to this question is ‘yes’. But it should be clear what we mean by ‘critical friend.’ The concept would no longer be meaningful if it could not be distinguished from helpfulness, sympathy or peer coaching. An essential characteristic of a critical friend is that someone who wants to learn by seeking support for [...]
Critical friendship is an intriguing concept. The term appears in many books and articles about research and about collaborative learning. However, it has rarely been defined clearly. It is my aim to define it more precisely so that we set it apart from concepts like collegial consultation and helpfulness. I will do this by presenting [...]
The Internet is an great tool for teacher development. If you thought the Web was just for entertainment, think again. Here are some simple ideas to get you started. TDSIG.org – Obviously, the first thing to do is sign up for this website. Our objective is to provide the best in teacher development news and [...]
In this month’s blog I would like to tackle the concept of critical friend. In the next NL you will find an article on this topic. What all critical friends have in common is that they are good listeners and respond to problems and questions with integrity and a positive attitude. Of course the two [...]
As the proud new webmaster of TDSIG.org, I’ll be trying to provide both members and casual visitor (the “development-curious”), with a user-friendly and useful site dedicated to teacher development. To this end, I’ve introduced a few changes to the site. Nothing too dramatic, but hopefully improvements. The site is now more colourful, and therefore hopefully [...]
“ELT, life, the universe and everything” Harrogate, 7 April 2010 This is a Pre-Conference Event with a difference: in the world where change is the only constant, we are going to challenge the need to stick to things as they are and venture into the universe of the unplanned, where anything can happen. The structure [...]
By Pauline Taylor & Katie Head http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1013655 Our workshop was scheduled for the last morning of a busy and exhilarating conference. The session, which we called ‘Revitalising your Teaching’, attracted a good number of conference-weary IATEFLers, intrigued by the title and curious to know what recipes for teacher refreshment were on offer. The activities we [...]
Pre-conference event – What colour is my teacher? Workshop facilitated by Rosie Tanner and Jenny de Sonneville http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakerome/3065903183/sizes/l/ Before coming to the conference, I had decided to take part in the workshop of the Teacher Development SIG. I am so happy about it now! This day has given me much more than I had expected. [...]
To accompany the launch of the new TDSIG website, we’ve designed a range of TDSIG-branded products which you can purchase to show your love and affection for the IATEFL Teacher Development Special Interest Group, and teacher development in general. This cap, for example, would be ideal for keeping the Harrogate sun out of your eyes [...]
Welcome to TDSIG.org. This is our first post on our new site. Well, all that remains is to start blogging!
31st March 2009, Cardiff Pre-Conference Event in cooperation with IATEFL GI SIG In this day-long workshop, starting from the assumption that many of the ideas and activities we encountered in teaching materials and at events do not always suit our teaching realities, we helped each other create a personal toolkit for dealing with methodological and [...]
Developing professionally and personally 13th – 16th March 2008 in cooperation with the IATEFL Slovenia for the 15th annual IATEFL Slovenia conference Plenary speakers were Adrian Underhill, David A. Hill, Steve Lever, and Tim Bowen
Saturday January 27th – Sunday January 28th, 2007 in collaboration with IATEFL ELTM SIG and Abu Dhabi University Plenary speakers were Liam Brown, Deniz Kurtoglu Eken, Jeremy Harmer Phil Quirke, Adrian Underhill, George Pickering
International and global influences on our teaching University of Sussex, Saturday 11th March 2006 in colloboration with the IATEFL’s Global Issues SIG Plenary speakers were Tessa Woodward and Michael Eraut
Saturday October 7th, 2006 in collaboration with MSATE/MSSUA and The Language School of Ostrava, Ostrava, The Czech Republic Plenary speakers were Simon Gill and Colin Mackenzie
‘This really moved me!’ : Moving forward with literature about teaching Paris Saturday 25th February 2006 in colloboration with the IATEFL’s LMCS SIG and TESOL-France at Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI Jussieu
19th February, Brighton, UK In conjuction with the IATEFL Global Issues SIG.
Chile 22-24 September 2005 Centro de Extensiones, Universidad Católica, Santiago de Chile Since 1992, the biennial TDTR conferences have provided both practitioners and researchers with a forum in which to explore the ways in which teacher-led research in ELT can lead to personal and professional development. TDTR offers teachers the opportunity to present their own [...]
Thursday May 25th to Sunday May 28th, 2006 in collaboration with IATEFL’s Teacher Trainers’ and Educators’ Special Interest Groups & Başkent University, Ankara, Turkey held at Patalya Thermal Resort, Ankara, Turkey Plenary speakers were Deniz Kurtoglu Eken and Dave Allan
Liverpool, England: 15-19 April 2004: International IATEFL Conference & Exhibition. A very succesful day-long workshop led by Rosie Tanner and Jenny de Sonneville looking at co-operative development through the prism of multiple intelligences.
Barcelona: Friday 1-3 February 2002 Held at Esade in Barcelona, the Teacher Development & Teacher Trainers and Educators special interest groups joint symposium based around the theme of becoming a teacher: exploring training and development.
University of York, England: 23-27 March 2002: International IATEFL Conference & Exhibition. We held a joint Pre-Conference Event with the Testing, Evaluation and Assessment SIG. The theme for the day was Portfolios
Brighton: 17-21 April 2001 We held a joint Pre-Conference Event with Learner Independence SIG. The theme for the day was “Teacher Independence, Learner Independence”.
Turkey: 8-11 September 2001 Teachers Develop Teachers Research 5. The fifth conference in the very successful series took place in the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. Many thanks to the organiser Dilek Hancýoÿlu
Oxford: 10th February 2001 A day of relaxation and mutual support. The day featured stress-beating techniques, ideas on how to boost both your and your students’ self-esteem, instant lesson ideas and much more. The speakers were Imogen Rigden, Jane Revell, Sheelagh Deller and Dr. Stephen Lunn.
