TeachingEnglish newsletter 11 April 2018

TeachingEnglish - the global home for teachers 11 April 2018 Welcome to this special edition of the TeachingEnglish newsletter The professional practice 'Taking responsibility for your own professional development' involves, among other things, staying up to date with developments in education in teaching and learning. One way to do this is attending conferences. However, not everyone, including myself, is able to do that. Thanks to IATEFL Online, this week we can all 'attend' by watching some of the many talks being live-streamed. So, with the 52nd Annual International IATEFL Conference now under way in Brighton, this week we are featuring some key talks from the conference which we hope you will find of interest and relevance to you. Watch the opening plenary session with Lourdes Ortega who discusses the benefits to teachers of second language acquisition research. Or, if you're interested in textbook production and how you can get the highest-quality and most appropriate books for your classrooms, watch Dorothy Zemach's plenary talk 'Sausage and the law: how textbooks are made'. Watch Fred Gordon discussing the use of authentic listening at lower levels, and focusing on responding to how learners feel to get ideas on how to help your low-level learners with listening. If you use drills in your classroom, the latest word is that they are back in fashion. Watch Ana Lucia de Mello Carriel's practical talk about making these more relevant and communicative for your learners. And there are more talks coming up this week. In Thursday's plenary, Brita Fernandez Schmidt reflects on and shares her experience of working with marginalised women. And later, Agnieszka Luczak talks about the importance of peer assessment and strategies for doing this. On Friday, Barry O'Sullivan's plenary talk looks at the history and relevance of language testing, and Sarah Blair will be looking at 'sentence energy' as a way to engage effectively with writing. So, join us for [IATEFL Online]( this week. Deb TeachingEnglish team Plenary talk - day 1 This opening plenary on day 1 with Lourdes Ortega looked at the benefits of second language acquisition research. Many professional development efforts focus on familiarising teachers with the latest trends in SLA research. But why should language teachers care? In this interesting talk, Lourdes shows new ways of seeing the relationship between research and teaching, from the perspective of a down-to-earth SLA researcher. [Watch a recording of this plenary talk]( Plenary talk - day 2 'Those who love sausage and the law,' goes the saying, 'should never watch either being made.' But given how influential textbooks are - they can shape a teacher's activities, lesson plans or entire course curriculum - it's time to have a look inside the sausage factory at how textbooks are created. In this plenary talk, Dorothy Zemach shares frank insights on materials creation from both the author's side and the publisher's side, and makes recommendations on how teachers can use their own power. [Watch a recording of this plenary talk]( Authentic listening In this talk, 'Authentic listening at lower levels: responding to how learners feel', Fred Gordon examined how learners' inability to understand real listening texts makes them feel. It will encourage teachers to recognise how learners respond emotionally to authentic material, and will suggest practical ideas to maintain learners' motivation and help them achieve measurable, identifiable progress. [Watch a recording of this talk]( Drills are back 'Drills are back in fashion! Now with taste and style' is an interesting talk about the benefits of drilling. Ana Lucia de Mello Carriel gives examples and experiments with ways to make more mechanical practices relevant, communicative and even personal. [Watch a recording of this talk]( Talks on Thursday Thursday's talks include: 'Knowledge is power: access to education for marginalised women', 'The importance of being earnest: can teachers learn from students?', 'Effective peer assessment as a step towards independent learning', 'Leadership for sustainable teacher development and improved pupils' learning', 'I can see clearly now: rethinking teacher training observation tasks', and more. [Find out more]( Talks on Friday Friday's talks include: 'Living to tell the tale: a history of language testing', 'Questions with gestures: examples from Chilean EFL classrooms', 'Teaching writing visually: smarter sentences and shapely texts', and more. 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