Part 2 of 3 TESOL France Highlights
The TESOL France conference was one of the best conferences I have attended and so full of information that it’s taking 3 posts! A great thanks to TESOL France president, Bethany Cagnol (@bethcagnol) and the other conference organizers for planning such an amazing line-up of speakers! In this post, I focus on pedagogy and classroom activities that don’t involve hi-tech tools. Many of these presentations were given by our ELT Twitter PLN.
Poster Presentations
Multiple Intelligences in ELT by Vladimira Michalkova- Check out this colorful poster created by Vladka (@vladkaslniecko), a teacher from Slovakia! She was such a joy to talk to on my journey to the airport and she has very interesting ideas on how to engage learners!
Complexity Theory and ELT by Willy C. Cardoso- Check out this amazing document with links and the accompanying handout that really causes deep reflection. Willy is a deep thinker so if you want to discuss this further feel free to tweet him, @willycard.
Presentations
Warmers, Fillers and improvisations in EFL Classrooms by Eva Büyüksimkeşyan- I really enjoyed Eva’s(@evab2001) hands-on approach to showing us some innovative lessons to get students using English in a creative way. The lessons she shared inspire students to reflect, write, and discuss. In one of her lessons we listened to a jingle. We closed our eyes and imagined what movie scene this would be, the setting, and the characters. We then shared our responses with each other! In another lesson we listened to parts of the Four Seasons and tried to guess which season was playing. We had to provide reasons. Visit her post for the hand-outs and slide show that describe each lesson in detail.
Animating Your Coursebook by Marisa Constantinides- I caught this presentation at ISTEK. Marisa (@Marisa_C) provides great research and ideas for bringing the coursebook to life. Some ideas include improvisation activities, digital storytelling resources, and adding creative captions! She provides so many ideas that really you will have to read the post about it.
Drama: It’s Never Too Much of a Good Thing by Anna Musielak- Although I missed Anna’s (@AnnaMusielak) presentation I heard it was really fun and creative! Thankfully she blogged about some ideas on Ken Wilson’s blog!
10 Things I Think I Know About Teaching, Learning, and Writing by Ken Wilson- Ken’s (@KenWilsonLondon) presentation was filled with many fantastic ideas that transform traditional teaching methods to animated lessons. His ideas were highly motivating for learners of various ages, especially teens. You can read about Ken’s ideas in these posts:
- Ten Things I Think I Know (Part 1)
- Ten Things I Think I Know (Tranche 2)
- Ten Things I Think I Know – The Final Countdown
- Ten ways to motivate the unmotivated…
- Reading aloud in class is a complete waste of time
- How Do We Animate Lessons? Interview with Ken Wilson
Motivation, Fun, & Building Confidence with Pronunciation by Dede Wilson- Making pronunciation engaging and fun is one of my weakest points as an ELT teacher which is why I attended this great workshop! Dede showed us how to make pronunciation engaging by having us learn Hungarian and do several activities. You can read about most of these activities in these links:
- Literacy and the Written Word
- British Council Hand-out 1 (Doc)
- British Council Hand-out 2 (Doc)
- Mike Harrison’s review of the workshop
Using Documentaries in the Classroom by Anita Kwiatkowska- Although I missed Anita’s (@l_missbossy) presentation I heard it was really thought-provoking! Thankfully she blogged about some ideas in her blog!
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