Compiled by Lynda Steyne

Teacher Development Opportunites Online

• Join BELTA for their webinar with Tyson Seburn: innovative use of reading circles in an academic English classroom. Sunday, April 21, 4pm CET.
• Observation and your teaching staff: on observing and encouraging the teachers you’re responsible for to grow as teachers. Thursday, April 25, 3-4pm (CET).

• All the plenary sessions, and many of the workshops and talks given at IATEFL Liverpool last week are now available free of charge online.  A priceless resource of wisdom and training.

• Re-defining access to language learning: using handheld and mobile learning: Michael Carrier talks about how handheld and mobile learning technology extends the range of the teacher by extending learning beyond the physical lesson in the physical classroom.
• Thinking about getting your CELTA?  Find out more: “The Ultimate Guide to CELTA” 1 May 2013, 16.00 CET

• IATEFL Failure Fest: how is failure a better teacher than success?

We’re all used to case studies and presentations reflecting heroic successes. But what of the things that went wrong? The stories of entrepreneurs and innovators constantly refer to learning from failure, with the adage, “Fail early, fail fast, fail often.” But how do you actually turn failure into success?

Focusing on innovation in language learning and teaching with short snappy presentations in which brave presenters reflect on what they’ve tried and hasn’t worked, and what we all might learn from the experience.

• Shelly Sanchez Terrell regularly gives webinars, all of which are free. Check out what’s available this month.

• Macmillan archives all its webinars – some are even available for download. All are free.

International

• 4^th International TeachMeet Int’l
  When: 3:00 pm CET on Saturday, April 20, 2013
  Where: online
  Submissions deadline: April 19th
• Call for Papers: IATEFL-H Annual Conference 2013 Submission deadline: April 30, 2013 When: 4-6 October 2013; Where: Budapest
• Call for Proposals: Deadline proposals: 15 May 2013
  The 11th National & International Conference – Moravian and Silesian Association of Teachers of English, CZWhere: Faculty of Education, Palacký University, Olomouc, CZ
  When: September 13-14, 2013
  Plenaries:Daniela Clarke, Graham Hall, Mark Andrews, Piotr Steinbrich, Simon Gill and Karen Saxby
• Call for Proposals
  TESOL France
  Where: Paris
  When: November 22, 23 and 24, 2013
  Plenaries: Scott Thornbury and Sue PalmerDeadline for submitting speaker and poster proposals: June 30th 2013
• Call for Papers: 26th Annual IATEFL Business English SIG Conference
  Where: Prague
  When: 8-10 November 2013
  Deadline for submissions: 24 May 2013

National (and international)

ELTForum.sk Teacher Development Conference 2013

• When: 7-8 June 2013
  Where: Bratislava
  Check the website for more info on speakers and registration.

Oxford University Press

OUP Slovakia has lots of seminars coming up. Click the link to find out where and when. Don’t forget to register online!

Activities and Lesson Plans

• FREE lesson plan on Earth Day which is this coming Monday, April 22nd.

• The Word Wheel: a great way to review and acquire vocab.
• Free lesson plans using films and their trailers – LOTS of vocab and speaking activities. Mostly B2 and up.
• 10 Business Idioms that use cats and dogs – it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there 🙂
• Looking for a different way to check comprehension? Tyson Seburn has some ideas for B2-C1. Worksheet and answer sheet included.
• Sean Banville’s got some ideas and activities on dealing with plagiarism in the classroom.

Videos for Class

• English Videos is a great resource for both us and our students. Personally, we enjoy Ronnie’s teaching because she’s slightly crazy and kids love her. Each link on her page includes vocabulary and comprehension checks.

• If at first you don’t succeed: Another great video lesson from Kieran, this time using a short film called ‘3×3’.

Language level: A2-B2
Learner type: Teens and adults
Time: 90 minutes
Activity: Describing a photo, watching a short film and speaking
Topic: Physical appearance, intelligence and persistence
Language: Adjectives to describe a person’s appearance and character, and expressions related to intelligence

Free Downloadable Books

10 years of digital expertise: Articles by Pete Sharma, Nik Peachey, Fiona Mauchline, Lindsay Clandfield, Carol Read, Gavin Dudeney and Nicky Hockly.

Stuff to ponder

• The Grammar Lesson: a poem by Scott Thornbury. Priceless!

• You may have seen this in Slovak already. Here’s the original: One American history teacher’s letter of resignation…much can be applied to our situation in Slovakia (and other places).

• The myth of learning styles: The theory of learning styles has been drilled into our heads in our education courses and assumed to be foundational in most educational training. But is it reality?

• Using Music to Improve Reading: not only for our YLs

• How many of these new (or newly defined) words do you know? They really are everyday vocab in the English-speaking world today. Find out what they mean in the Guardian.

1. avatars
2. hashtags
3. Scunthorpe problems
4. trolling
5. memes
6. spam
7. LOLs
8. meh
9. Cupertinos
10. geeks

• Google has some advice for teachers on classroom management. Read the full article for indepth explanation, but here’s the list. What do you think?

1) Be a good coach.
2) Empower your (classroom) and don’t micro manage.
3) Express authentic interest in (students’) success and well-being.
4) Be productive and results-oriented.
5) Be a good communicator and listen to your (classroom).
6) Help your (students) with (human) development.
7) Have a clear vision and strategies for the (students).
8) Have key technical skills, so you can help advise the (classroom).

• Scott Thornbury talks about his latest interest: can you learn a language just as well online as you can in a classroom?

Helpful Tools for Teachers

• Using wikis to teach writing: a step by step account – with video – describing how using a wiki has helped him to focus on and improve his students’ writing skills.
• 5 Ways to Reduce Student Stress in the Classroom: tips to use with both younger and older learners.
• Critical Thinking: a great blog post by Arjana Blazic. “”If we want our students to become critical thinkers, we must encourage them to ask questions, to think logically and coherently and to come up with compelling answers.”
• Esltopics.com has a FB page on which they’ve posted some helpful pics using idioms. We’ve put them all in one album that you can find here.
• Not many of us teach Shakespeare, but for those who do, there are some ideas in this Guardian article.
• Poetry in ELT: on how to suprise our students with their own creativity
• Manythings.org is a website with lots and lots of exercises and practice for your students… free.
•  Ello.org is an excellent free listening resource –  you can sort by topic, accent, level (2-7) – that includes dialogues, monologues, videos, games…
•  Christina Martidou shares some great comics-creation tools for you (and your students)…
•  14 Brilliant Bloom’s Taxonomy Posters for Teachers: if you don’t understand one, you’ll probably understand the next.
• ELTA (English Language Teachers Serbia) have just published their monthly magazine – some interesting articles here. All free. (scroll down to find the articles for download)

Competitions

• ‘Cambridge English BEC – Teachers’ Competition 2013! Win a 2 week residential teacher development course in Cambridge by submitting a practical idea on how to help candidates prepare for the exam.
• Macmillan Cultural Readers competition for YOUR CLASS!
  Write your own Cultural Reader with your class. What can you tell us about your town, city or country? You can write about many topics, like history, geography, nature, culture, people, food, or sport. You can include text and drawings.
  All entries must be received by midnight (GMT) on 30^th June 2013 and winners will be notified by 31^st July 2013.