Compiled by Lynda Steyne

Teacher Development Opportunites

National (and international)

• ELTForum.sk Teacher Development Conference 2013
  When: 7-8 June 2013
  Where: Bratislava
  LAST WEEK FOR REGISTRATION!
  Check out the interviews with speakers already posted these past 2 weeks. We found Penny’s particularly encouraging.
  • Penny Ur: Keep Faith & Teachers don’t just teach; they learn
  • Ken Wilson: Get a lot of sleep, don’t smoke, and drink a lot of water.
  • Daniel Xerri: Poetry Makes Language Learning Engaging
  • Zuzana Strakova: A Safe Environment for Young Learners
  • Jana Chynoradska: To be a teacher is a gift.
  • Candy Fresacher: Expanding Horizons and Sharing Ideas
  • Alexandra Chistyakova: I feel I should bring change and be that change.
  • Laura Hudson: Going Beyond the Limitations

  And the conference has made the news! Here & here & elsewhere. Keep an eye for more in the papers!

Summer Camp

• SOL Slovakia presents ‘SO[U]L Camp‘ with Kathy King and Mark Andrews!
  When: 16-24 July 2013
  Where: Cadca, Slovakia
  Hurry! Reserve your spot while there’s still room!

Online

TODAY, 25 May 2013

• IH Teachers’ Online Conference:  Sixty Speakers. Sixty Ideas. Sixty Years. All day.
• ‘Questions about language with Professor David Crystal’: 4pm CET

TOMORROW, 26 May 2013

• (Re)Assessing Oral Correction: Cecilia Lemos’s continuing workshop on correcting our students’ errors. If you missed the 1st part, you can see that here: Oral correction: reflections from a recovering recaster.

Other

• ISTEK schools in Turkey held their ELT conference a couple weeks ago – many of the sessions are available on YouTube. Free. (Scroll down past the interviews to get to the workshops.)

• Business English teacher Mike Hogan will be hosting Macmillan’s Methodology Hangout on May 29th on Google+. In this video , Mike gives a preview of what he’ll be covering.

• John F. Fanslow on ‘Breaking Rules’: iTDi is offering a 5-day (Sundays, 2pm CET) course beginning NEXT Sunday (June 2nd), but the whole course is only 39EUR.

• FREE IATEFL BESIG online conference 2013
  When: Saturday 15 June from 9am-6pm (CET)
  For business English and ESP teachers: Recordings will be made available to everyone until 22nd June and then archived in the members only area of www.besig.org.

International

September 2013

• The 11th National & International Conference – Moravian and Silesian Association of Teachers of English, CZ
  When: September 13-14, 2013
  Where: Faculty of Education, Palacký University, Olomouc, CZ
  Plenaries: Daniela Clarke, Graham Hall, Mark Andrews, Piotr Steinbrich, Simon Gill and Karen Saxby
• the 1st International Loras Network Workshop
  Topic of the year: Bilingualism and Multilingualism in ELT and Families
  When: Sunday, September 22nd, 2013
  Where: Zug, Switzerland
  More info: loras@lorasnetwork.com

• 22nd International IATEFL Poland Conference: A holistic approach to learning and teaching
  when: 27 – 29 September 2013
  where: Lodz University of Technology

October 2013

• IATEFL-H Annual Conference 2013
  Speakers: Henry Widdowson, Barbara Seidlhofer, Dörnyei Zoltán, Bethany Cagnol, and Gary Anderson, George Pickering
  When: 4-6 October 2013
  Where: Budapest

November 2013

• 26th Annual IATEFL Business English SIG Conference
  When: 8-10 November 2013
  Where: Prague

• Call for Papers: Deadline: June 30, 2013
  TESOL France Colloquium 2013
  When: November 22, 23 and 24, 2013
  Where: PARIS!
  Plenaries: Scott Thornbury and Sue Palmer

Activities and Lesson Plans

• “Carbon dioxide at record high level” – Pre-Intermediate
  A 26-page printable lesson containing listenings and 30+ online quizzes and a 2-page mini-lesson

Videos for Class

• We posted another lesson on the Dove ‘Real Beauty’ video here.
• Some readers have CDs available for them. Now Macmillan has come up with storytelling in the form of YouTube videos. Great idea!

• Kieran Donaghy’s Film English website was awarded the ELTon for Innovation in Teacher Resources in English language teaching on Wednesday evening. We think he deserved it.
  In this lesson ‘Mixtape’, the topic is music.
  Language level: Intermediate (B1) – Upper Intermediate (B2)
  Learner type: Teens and adults
  Time: 60 minutes
  Activity: Speaking, writing
• THE EMERGENCE OF CITIES by Nick Michelioudakis
  How did we move from small settlements to large cities? How did specialization, division of labour and trade emerge? And more importantly, how did we come to have kings?!? The Chairman of an old stone-age town planning committee explains to the bemused members his idea for a new way of doing things… Of course, as the social structure becomes more complicated, it is only natural that someone should be in charge… A fantastic way to add a humorous note to any Business English lesson on Committee Meetings etc.
  Handout [+ the KEY]
  Target: adults (business)
  Level: C1 – C2
  Topic: Meetings / Architecture / Local Authorities. Taken from the BBC TV series ‘Horrible Histories’
• Making sense of spelling – Gina Cooke: A great lesson on English spelling
  Age: teen and up
  Level: B1+

• What do you teach TOTAL beginners? Here’s Dave’s lesson on video.

• FilmClub is actually a site meant for UK kids (a network of film clubs at schools), but there’s material here that can be used for our students as well (like how to write a review).
  There are hundreds of reviews and activities arranged by topic and age. Registration is free and once you register you can download issues of their fantastic free film magazine.

Stuff to ponder

• Ken Robinson: How to escape education’s death valley:
  ‘But teaching is a creative profession. Teaching, properly conceived, is not a delivery system. You know, you’re not there just to pass on received information. Great teachers do that, but what great teachers also do is mentor, stimulate, provoke, engage. You see, in the end, education is about learning. If there’s no learning going on, there’s no education going on. And people can spend an awful lot of time discussing education without ever discussing learning. The whole point of education is to get people to learn.’ 
• Vicky Loras on how and why FB can be a great tool for professional development
• The Benefits of Being Bilingual: a wonderful short video about why it’s great to be bilingual!
• “To be a teacher is already to be a hero…”:  On Monday, May 20^th, as kids got ready to leave school, a tornado over 3 km wide touched down in the town of Moore, Oklahoma, USA. At Plaza Towers Elementary School, teacher Rhonda Crosswhite tried to protect her students – with her own body. All survived.
• Non-native English teacher (and native, too), do you ever feel this way? “There’s no fiercer critic than the one residing within ourselves. Being a non-native speaker teacher of English offers ample opportunity to strongly feel doubt or the daunting idea of inadequacy.” Read on.

• One older teacher’s words of wisdom for a young person who just graduated from university with a degree in education this year:

• 
  How much do you know about ‘the flipped classroom’? Here’s a great article explaining simply and clearly what it is, how it’s done and why it might be a good idea for many of our students: Flipping the Classroom: A revolutionary approach to learning presents some pros and cons

• Where is the Creativity in Technology? “Computers are actually completely useless if we cannot utilize them to improve our minds. […]My goal is always to see how a tool can aid language learning.”
• How do you help your students read between the lines? Kevin has some ideas on that. For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn – by Kevin: “All communicative interactions require us to deal with ambiguity. All texts, whether a business letter or a conversation with a friend, require us, at times, to read between the lines.”
• Children who read on iPads or Kindles have weaker literacy skills and are less likely to enjoy it as a pastime, charity warns (Daily Mail article)
• The people who hate other people’s bad grammar (from the BBC)

Helpful Tools for Teachers

• Raggedy Ann Stories | American English: Raggedy Ann (andAndy) are the main characters in stories that many American kids grew up on (as well as having the classic rag doll on their bed).  13 of them have been developed for English language beginners. You can download the MP3 or listen online, or download the MOBI or EPUB files for your e-reader.
• If you’re thinking about getting your teenage students ready for FCE in 2015, you can expect some changes. You might as well know what they are now.
• Alexandra Lowe shares her favourite websites for helping ADULT English learners learn, study, and hone their grammar skills.
• Via the British Council: Flashcards!
  • Flashcard maker
  • Video tip about using flashcards in class
  • Flashcards – Action Games for Adults
  • Flashcards – Action Games for Kids
    
• The Oatmeal on the English Language: Matthew Inman is a cartoonist with a great sense of humour who also happens to have some helpful ways to remember how to use some sticky points in English correctly. We’ve gathered them here because we think you might find them useful too.
• A bit of help with those pesky English articles…Using Articles in English Grammar
  
• English Idioms: We’re putting together an album of all the idioms that www.esltopics.com’s FB page posts because we think they’re well done and helpful. I know some colleagues are already using them in class 🙂

• If you’re creating your own lessons and sharing what you know, you too can be published. It may mean publishing yourself. Here are 2 websites to help: How to become a published ELT writer in the digital era – 10 insiders’ tips & Indie Publishing | Learn Out Live!

Other Stuff

• Games to Learn English – For Students: Fun for our students (and us) to really learn English grammar, vocabulary and word order.

• Do you teach 9-11-year-olds and are interested in a mystery Skype call with a class in the US? Contact Will Deyamport by email at peoplegogy@facebook.com.
• Slovak Ventures is holding a contest to win books. It’s a simple question („Ako sa volá Shrekova žena“?) that you can give to your younger learners. Deadline for answers sent by email (info@venturesbooks.com): 28.5.2013.

• Have you got a great lesson that you’d like to share? International House is holding a competition in which the winner is published and wins an online teacher training course.

• Lead&Learn is holding a contest in which the prize is an all-expense paid Pilgrims course in the UK next year.

• ‘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.

Other

IELTS in Kosice, Slovakia, 22 June 2013