TESOL France's 30th Annual Colloquium! - Celebrating 30 Years!

This year, TESOL France celebrates 30 years of sharing knowledge, experience and best practices in English language teaching in France. The 30th annual International TESOL France Colloquim will be held in Paris, France.

Autumn is an exciting time for TESOL France! The association is proud to bring you a truly international conference with 68 speakers and 20 poster presenters from over 23 countries around the world. This three-day event will take place from November 4 to 6 at Télécom ParisTech, 46 rue Baurrault in the 13th arrondissement. Stephen Brewer, Luke Meddings, and Geoff Tranter will be the Plenary Speakers.

Complete program and Registration

68 conference talks on these themes:

• Adult Learners
• French Learners
• English for Specific Purposes
• Technology in the Classroom
• ELT Careers
• Primary Learners
• Higher Education
• Classroom Management
• Teacher training
• Pronunciation
• Business English
• The Four Skills
• Grammar and Vocabulary
• Materials Design
• Using Corpora
• Young Adult Learners
• Language Testing
• Classroom Techniques
• Intercultural issues

Plus: a talent show, stand up comedy and networking receptions !

Making it REAL - Conference, Sèvres (France)

Some of you may be interested in attending this conference right after the TESOL France Conference.

Over the last three years the REAL2 project, co-financed by the European Commission, has worked to set up a Network of Language Teacher Associations in the form of a sustainable membership organisation. As the project draws to its close, join us this November in the beautiful former Sèvres Porcelain Works on the outskirts of Paris to discover more about what has been achieved so far and how to get involved in our ambitious initiative to give a voice to Europe’s language teachers.

Our Objectives

The conference will enable you to:

• find out more about how the new European Network of Language Teacher Associations (REAL) is working to support associations and defend linguistic diversity in Europe ;
• share your concerns, ideas and experiences about the world of teaching and learning languages with other like-minded professionals;
• get practical tips and ideas on how to run your association ;
• debate and exchange about key aspects of linguistic policy affecting language teachers and learn more about how you can change things.

Our approach

The seminar will be based around three types of activities led by experienced speakers from associations, schools and universities:

• Plenary sessions given by leading lights in the language teaching world such as Prof. Michael Kelly (University of Southampton, UK) and Uwe Mohr (Goethe Institut, Belgique) focusing on the activity of the Network and wider issues on languages and European linguistic policy interpreted simultaneously in English, French and German;
• Practical workshops to share good practice on running language teacher associations, to find out about how associations can be involved in European projects and to help define REAL’s political stance on key political issues.
• A roundtable for exchange and debate on the role of individual language teacher associations in Europe.

In addition to these sessions, there will be a whole host of more informal opportunities for networking and dialogue.

Participants will also have the possibility to display disseminate material from the projects and association activities that they are already involved in. All sessions will provide adequate time for questions and answers.

Target group

• Active members of language teacher associations
• Members of organisations involved in language learning and teaching

Languages

The REAL network is firmly in favour of protecting European linguistic diversity. As the most widely spoken and learnt languages in Europe, English, French and German have been chosen as the conference’s main working languages. There will of course be many opportunities to use other EU languages given the diversity of those attending.

See the full programme here: http://www.real-association.eu/content/making-it-real-final-conference-sevres-france#tabset-tab-2

Watch TESOL France Talks Live Online!

How to join the workshop

The event takes place in the IATEFL online conference room.

Before entering the room you will be prompted to "Enter as a guest". Please use this model to enter your name for example: Carl Dowse (Germany)

This will make it easier for attendees to identify you.

Once in the room, you will be able to communicate with other attendees using the text chat window at the bottom of the screen.

Please note: there is a limit to about 100 participants in the room.

Session 1: 9:15 - 12:15 CET (Paris time)
Click here to check your local time
Click here to enter the room

9:15- 10:30: Curtis Bartosik How to Find Clients. 5 Steps to Successful Selling
10:45 - 12:00: Getting your CV Right! Erin Douglas
 
Session 2: 13:15-18:15 CET (Paris Time)
Click here to check your local time
Click here to enter the room

13:30 - 14:45: Ken Wilson Plenary: Ten ways to get your students to DO something
15:15 - 16:30 10 Ways to Earn More Money as a Language Trainer Claire Oldmeadow
16:45 - 18:00: Don't Just Work...Work on your EFL Career! Carol Bausor

The Spring Day on Professional Development

Come to this exciting one-day conference: The Spring Day on Teacher Development

Venue Télécom ParisTech, 49 rue Vergniaud 75013 Paris, France
Click here to see a map of the neighborhood and get directions to the venue.
Click here to download a map of the venue and the neighborhood.

This conference will include seminars on:

• Professional development and the decisions of today's teachers
• Motivating young learners
• Motivating students with role plays
• Marketing yourself
• Teacher CVs
• Continuing education options for teachers
• Boosting your salary
• The state of ELT in France

Plenary Speaker: Ken Wilson

Ten ways to get your students to DO something

English language materials are bursting with good content and ideas for skills exploitation, but to make them work and get the best out of them, you need to engage your students' interest. This isn't always easy, especially if they are at the end of a long, hard week or "aren't in the mood". At times like this, you need to challenge them, make them curious and encourage them to be imaginative. Sometimes you simply have to find out what they're good at or even give them responsibility for what happens in the class. In this talk, I will suggest ten ways that you can uncork their interest and their talents. Maybe you can show them talents they never knew they had - drawing, miming etc - or even specialist knowledge about insects or outer space. It's all there, waiting to be exploited. Remember, in a class of 30 students, there are 32 sources of information - you, the book and the students themselves. 

Ken Wilson is an author and trainer. He has written about 30 ELT titles, including a dozen main courses. He also writes supplementary material and in 2008, OUP published Drama and Improvisation, a collection of about sixty of his drama activities for teachers. His first ELT publication was a collection of songs called Mister Monday, which was released when he was 23. Since then, he has written and recorded more than 150 ELT songs, published as albums or as integral parts of course material. He has also written more than a hundred ELT radio and television programs, including fifty radio scripts for the BBC Follow Me series, thirty Look Ahead TV scripts and a series of plays called Drama First. For many years, Ken was artistic director of the English Teaching Theatre, a company which toured the world performing stage-shows for learners of English. The ETT made more than 250 tours to 55 countries, including several visits to France. Ken lives in London with his wife Dede and their two cats, and works in a shed at the end of his garden.

List of talks and times (NB: some will be repeated):

9:15 - 10:30
-The state of play of the French language Training Market -- by Andrew Wickham
-How to Find Clients. 5 Steps to Successful Selling Especially for Auto-entrepreneurs, Travailleurs Independents -- by Curtis Bartosik

10:45 - 12:00
-Don't Just Work... Work on your EFL Career! -- by Carol Bausor
-Thinking Critically About Teaching and Research -- by Jean-Paul Narcy-Combes
-Getting Your CV Right! -- by Erin Douglas

13:30 - 14:45
Plenary by Ken Wilson: Ten ways to get your students to DO something

15:15 - 16:30
-10 Ways to Earn More Money as a Language Trainer -- by Claire Oldmeadow
-How to Find Clients. 5 Steps to Successful Selling Especially for Auto-entrepreneurs, Travailleurs Independents -- by Curtis Bartosik
-Letting Go of the Classroom - from Role Play to Improvisation -- by Damian Corcoran

16:45 - 18:00
-The state of play of the French language Training Market -- by Andrew Wickham
-Motivating Young Learners -- by Dede Wilson
-Don't Just Work... Work on your EFL Career! -- by Carol Bausor

18:15 - 19:00
Q&A with the Speakers

19:00
Reception

This event is FREE of charge to TESOL France Members and Speakers.
More information: http://www.tesol-france.org/springday11.php

TESOL-France Grenoble workshop: Using Podcasts in Language Teaching

The next TESOL-France Grenoble workshop will be on Thursday, February 24th from 1:30pm to 5:00pm. It will be a joint TESOL-France / APLIUT / Grenoble-INP event.

http://www.qualitytime-esl.com/spip.php?article111

The agenda will include a presentation on “Using Podcasts in Language Teaching: Lab, Classroom and Assignment Activities” followed by a swap shop on “Encouraging Our Students to Speak!” A swap shop is an exchange of ideas through short presentations and/or demonstrations by anyone interested in sharing materials or techniques. 

The event is free for members of TESOL France or teachers at the hosting institutions.

For other participants the fee is €8.

The event will be held in the center of town at:
Grenoble INP-Ecole de génie industriel  (GI is not far from the railroad station behind the church and next to IUT 2.)
46 avenue Félix Viallet
38031 Grenoble

A second event in Grenoble will be held on Thursday, March 31st. The theme and the venue will soon be communicated.

Marianne Raynaud and her “5 Minute TOPs”

Marianne Raynaud, our TESOL France Grenoble Coordinator, has introduced a new series of podcasts that has been cited among the iTunes France selection of “Nouveautés” under “Enseignement”. Just scroll down from “Podcasts” in the black tool bar and choose “Enseignement” or look at the screen capture here below. Let me remind you that all podcasts on iTunes are free audio or video recordings that you can download directly.

The TOPs in the title stands for “Training with Oral Practice”. Marianne’s podcasts are oral exercises that incite the listener to speak. The exercises are based on quotes and song lyrics. On her website www.qualitytime-esl.com you can find links to videos to go with the exercises.

So please subscribe to Marianne’s podcasts to help her go up in the rankings, and ask your students to subscribe too. For the latter this will provide 5 minutes of oral practice outside of class at least once a week. It’s better than nothing!

Marianne has two other podcast series that are doing well too. Type her name “Marianne Raynaud” into the search window of iTunes (in the upper right-hand corner) to find them: “QualityTime-ESL Podcasts” (grammar) and “Your English” (vocabulary).

Marianne welcomes suggestions for her future podcasts!

The TESOL France Conference: What they're sayin'

The words out and the TESOL France 2010 Conference has been labeled as one of the best ELT conferences of all time.  Granted, it required two years of hard work, blood, sweat and tears from a team of volunteers on the TESOL France Board (see the list on the right), but it was 300% worth it.

Here are what some bloggers across Europe are saying about the conference:

Marianne Raynaud's Website
Mike Harrison's Blog
Eva Büyüksimkeşyan's Reflections on the Conference Part 1
Eva Büyüksimkeşyan's Reflection s on the Conference Part 2!
Martin Sketchley's Blog "ELT Experiences"
Gary Anderson's Blog

Conference Preliminary Programme and Registration Now Online!

Welcome back everyone! We hope you all had a lovely summer. We also hope you've come back rejuvenated and refreshed to get back into teaching.

If you still need some ideas for the classroom, look no further! Our 29th Annual Colloquium on November 26-28 (with David Crystal, David A. Hill and Ben Crystal) will provide you with more than enough input to cover the entire year and beyond! And you'll get to meet up with friends and make new ones.

You can download the entire schedule (format pdf) on the conference website. 

http://www.tesol-france.org/Colloquium10.php

And you can also register for the event.  Be sure to do in advance to ensure you get a conference badge.

Remember this event is free of charge to all TESOL France members.  
Non-member registration fee is 49EUR and automatic membership into TESOL France for an entire year! (which means free access to all TESOL France events and receiving our handy Teaching Times magazine!)

The schedule is jam-packed with conference talks, poster sessions, entertainment and plenty of time to network.

FRIDAY November 26th
Friday 26 November 15.30 to 17.00 Registration, Poster session, Visiting stands & networking
Friday 26 November 17.00 to 18.00 Opening Plenary: David A. Hill Why Extensive Reading is Essential
Friday 27 November 18.00 to 19.00 Cocktail dînatoire, Poster session & Visiting stands
Friday 27 November 19.00 to 20.30 Language Players presented by David Crystal and his family! Bring tissues cause it's going to be hysterical.
SATURDAY November 27th 
Saturday 27 November 09.00 to 18.45 Conference sessions
Saturday 27 November 13.00 to 13.30 Poster session & Visiting stands
Saturday 27 November 14.45 to 16.00 Plenary Session: David Crystal Language Play: From Scrabble to Babble
Saturday 27 November 18.45 to 19.30 Reception, Poster session, Visiting stands
Saturday 27 November 19:30 to 21.30 Open Mic Night! Music, songs, stand up comedy, and more! With your host David A. Hill

SUNDAY November 28th
Sunday 28 November 9:00 to 12:00 conference sessions
Sunday 28 November 12:15 to 13:00 Closing Plenary: Ben Crystal Shakespeare on Toast and Prize Draw!

David Crystal Spotted! Language Change on the Internet

Zoe Kleinman, BBC's technology reporter, recently wrote an article on how language changes thanks to the internet. (full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10971949).

We at TESOL France think this article is pretty cool.  For one thing, wouldn't it be great to chat with your students about language change? Are they adopting any of the new words used today?  Can they identify any borrowings from English or other languages?  Do they use "bling?"

Secondly, the article cites David Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Bangor, and future TESOL France Plenary Speaker (November 26-28, 2010). So, if you are curious about what Crystal thinks about language change, then check out this article before coming to our conference.

See you in November!

Round Table Discussion on Classroom Management

If you couldn't make it to our Spring Day on May 29th 2010, you can now view the entire Round Table Discussion on Classroom Management in which we discuss discipline issues in young learners, higher education and adults.  It will surely help you get ready for the upcoming semester.

Part 1:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3hV6Y0RSro
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrzqdQOcTQ4&feature=related
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QwIhHOcFI4&feature=related
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NraJZb0eGdw&feature=related
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NraJZb0eGdw&feature=related

Panel members include: George Pickering (Chair); Burcu Akyol (via Skype) Bethany Cagnol; Duncan Foord; Linda Vignac

TESOL France has a YouTube Channel!

We're excited to announce that TESOL France has a new YouTube Channel where you can get a taste of the association. Just like a wine tasting, the videos include samples of some of the best speakers and events TESOL France has to offer. http://www.youtube.com/user/tesolfrance

Continue your own professional development all year round and/or use them with your students.  Got questions or comments, simply post them to the video itself.

Happy Viewing!

The Spring Day on Managing Students, Teachers and Yourself

Saturday May 29th 2010, 9:00am to 7:30pm
Télécom ParisTech, 49 rue Vergniaud, 75013 Paris.
Register here:  http://www.tesol-france.org/springday10.php

This Spring Day will include seminars on:

• Managing your own career
• Boosting your salary
• Observing fellow teachers
• Giving and receiving feedback
• Developing Tech-Savvy ESL/EFL Teachers
• Empowering ELT Teachers Through the Arts
• Classical and emerging themes in leadership and management thinking
• The International Diploma in Language Teaching Management (IDLTM)
• Plus: A round table discussion on Classroom Management: The challenges teachers face today

This event is FREE of charge to TESOL France and IATEFL LAMSIG Members and Speakers.

March 20th: Independents' Day Part 2

TESOL France President, Bethany Cagnol, and fellow Executive Committee member, Elaine Henry, team up for "Independents' Day Part 2". This 3-hour workshop is for independents and non-independents.

March 20th 2010 2-5pm
Télécom ParisTech
Elaine and Bethany will be speaking about:

• Getting and maintaining clients,
• Time management,
• Late-payment issues,
• Paperwork,
• URSSAF,
• Excel,
• Autonomously managing one's accounts.

Since this workshop is Part 2 in the series, the speakers won't go into too much detail on how to become a travailleur indépendant.  But for highlights from Part 1 on how to go freelance, Bethany Cagnol has created a handy blog: The Freelance Teacher in France.  The speakers recommend reading the articles before coming to this workshop.   Get your questions in now, by posting them on the blog.  The speakers will then try to incorporate them into the workshop.

Join us in what promises to be a very informative and lively discussion.

Falling salaries and prices!

Falling salaries and prices, increasing competition from web 2.0 technologies and low cost distance learning, a major reform of training law under way: what future for face to face language trainers in France.

Presented by Andrew Wickham

March 6th, 2010

1:00pm to 5:00pm
Venue: Telecom ParisTech

Register here: http://www.tesol-france.org/Wickham10.php
To cover speaker and event costs, there is an exceptional entrance fee for members and non-members: €25

The rise of distance learning and the Blended revolution are having an increasing impact on the traditional language training industry in France, which could be on the eve of a major transformation. Today, face to face training with teachers based in France accounts for 80 to 90% of language training, but if the current trends persist, will distance learning by telephone or visioconference, using "offshore" trainers working in countries where salary costs are much lower, replace face to face training in the coming years? Is e-learning, thanks to Web 2.0 technology and broadband access, finally coming into its own? What are the comparative advantages and disadvantages of distance learning over face to face training? How are traditional training organizations coping? Is the market going to concentrate? What do face to face trainers need to do to stay competitive? With prices and salaries under even greater pressure from the economic crisis, and worsening work conditions, what incentives are there for providing the high level, personalised professional training that many clients say they want today? How will the current reform of training law impact the market in 2010 ? Will the trends currently developing in France spread throughout Europe in the coming years? These are some of the questions that the Linguaid market study set out to find answers to in early 2008. Nearly 2 years later, Andrew Wickham, the writer of the market study report, which was published in Spring 2009, will present the study, which has been updated for 2010, and discuss some of the findings that directly concern trainers. The workshop will be as interactive as possible. This will be followed by an open discussion with participants.

Andrew Wickham began as a language trainer then moved to training management, set up and ran a training company, then moved to project management of industrial blended learning systems. He currently works as a consultant. His specialties include: Designing, building and running large-scale integrated training systems, strategic consultancy, managing language and communication training projects, cross-cultural training for business communication, and communication coaching.

"'The Cheese Slid Off Her Cracker" -- Test Yourself

Test your students (B2 and C1)

How many ways can we say ”crazy" in English?
out to l______
he has a s______ loose
not all th_______
not right in one's h_______
out of one's m_______,
L_____y-tunes
lost his mar______s
not pl_____ing with a full deck
s_____ in the head

Test your "lights are on, but nobody's home" idioms.

A taco sh______ ____ ___ combination plate
A few b____s  sh_____ ___ ______ six-pack.
24 co______  ______  ___  ___ quarter.
A few cl____s _____  _____  ____circus.
A few p____s _____ ____  ___ casserole.
A few f__________s ____ ____   __  whole duck.
A few fr___s _______ _____ __ Happy Meal.
He only has one oar in the w______r.
Doesn't have all her corn______s in one box.
The cheese slid off her cr________.
Doesn't have all his d______ on one leash.
Elevator doesn't go all the way to the top f________.
His an______a doesn't pick up all the chan_______.
Missing a few b_________ on his remote control.
Receiver is off the h_____k.
Too much yardage between the goal p_____s.
Not the sharpest k_______ in the drawer.
The wheel's spinning, but the h_______’s dead.
Not the br_______t bulb on the Christmas Tree.
The l________ are on, but ____________’s home.
About as s_____ as a marble.

Answers (and a few more)

out to lunch
he has a screw loose
not all there
not right in one's head
out of one's mind,
looney-tunes
lost his marbles
not playing with a full deck
soft in the head
not all there

A taco short of a combination plate
The lights are on, but no body’s home.
About as sharp as a marble.
A few clowns short of a circus.
Not the brightest bulb on the Christmas Tree.
A few fries short of a Happy Meal.
He only has one oar in the water.
A few beers short of a six-pack.
A few peas short of a casserole.
Doesn't have all her cornflakes in one box.
A few feathers short of a whole duck.
The cheese slid off her cracker.
Doesn't have all his dogs on one leash.
Elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor.
Her sewing machine's out of thread.
His antenna doesn't pick up all the channels.
His belt doesn't go through all the loops.
Missing a few buttons on his remote control.
No grain in the silo.
Receiver is off the hook.
Too much yardage between the goal posts.
Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
The lights are on, but nobody's home.
24 cents short of a quarter.
The wheel's spinning, but the hamster's dead.

Extra activity:  Get your students to invent their own idioms.
A few __________  short of a _____________.

Introducing our 2010 Plenary Speakers

We are proud to introduce our 2010 Plenary Speakers (November 26 to 28, 2010 at Télécom ParisTech) 

Further information and our Call for papers:  http://www.tesol-france.org/Colloquium10.php

Professor David Crystal is one of the world's foremost authorities on language. An internationally renowned writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster, he received an OBE in 1995 for his services to the English language. He has authored and edited over 100 books including the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (1987), English as a Global Language (1997), Language Play (1998), Shakespeare's Words (2002, with Ben Crystal), The Stories of English (2004), By Hook or By Crook: a journey in search of English (2008), and Just a Phrase I'm Going Through: my life in language (2009).



David A. Hill is a free-lance teacher trainer and educational materials writer working out of Budapest, Hungary. He has worked for The British Council (18 years), Pilgrims, Canterbury (12 summers) and has been a teacher trainer with NILE, Norwich every summer since 1998. David has worked with many major ELT publishers, writing courses for Italy, Spain, Poland, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Bulgaria. He has recently co-written the teacher resource book Writing Stories for Helbling Languages for whom he has also adapted several classics and written original readers. David has held positions of responsibility within IATEFL for nearly 25 years, and is currently the Coordinator of the Literature, Media & Cultural Studies SIG. When not involved with ELT, he plays the blues, writes poetry, studies natural history and photographs art nouveau buildings.

TESOL France workshop: 30 January (2-5pm)

Mix and match – how tagging and playlist-courses can create personalised blended learning paths for BE students. 

January 30th (2-5pm)

Télécom ParisTech
49 rue Vergniaud
75013 Paris

The first decade of the 21st century has already seen some strong web 2.0 features emerge. Web users can easily create, network, personalise, share and self-organise. So language-learning content also needs to be co-created and not just delivered by 'experts' but by teachers, school staff and learners. With English360, a whole new approach to materials development and course design is now available. This method involves mixing and matching material from learners, their company, authentic web resources, mp3 or pdf files, and other shared resources from teachers worldwide. Teachers can also integrate their own course material seamlessly with 25 Cambridge University Press titles that have recently been repurposed for online/blended delivery within the English360 platform. This new generation of content creation (which is entirely free for educators) moves beyond the traditional book, photocopier or scissors-and-glue approach. It enables teachers to create tailor-made activities that are uniquely relevant (real-world) performance-based.
The workshop will start off with an overview of the web today, and will outline the rapid shifts now occurring in publishing. It will address Business English needs assessment and the issues involved in blended course design, as well as offering advice on materials development. It will illustrate tags and tagging and show how digital tools can make the needs analysis process fast, accurate and ongoing. Tagged material and cross-referenced resources mean teachers can pull content from as wide a range of sources as possible to create individualised 'course' books much as you can shuffle playlists on an mp3 device.
The easy-to-use English360 self-authoring tools, which can be used to create a wide range of activities, will be demonstrated during this hands-on workshop, together with the course management features of the platform. The session will be entirely interactive and involve open discussion with participants. 

AGENDA
The three-hour workshop will be cover:
Trends
· Web 2.0
· Blended learning
· Personalising training programmes
· Shifts in publishing
· The English360 philosophy
Business English
· Needs assessment/analysis
· Existing systems
· English360 tagging
· Finding content – CUP cross-referenced content
Using English360
· Creating courses
· Self-authoring activities
· Mixing & matching CUP content
· Sharing content
· 'Managing' learners

The workshop will be co-run by: 

Cleve Miller
Since 1989 Cleve has designed, managed and taught business English programs in 11 countries to thousands of students in over fifty Global-500 companies. He has been named a 'global expert' by the American Society of Training and Development and, since about 1998, has had a single-minded obsession with effective use of the web for learner-centred language teaching. Originally from Kansas, he is currently based out of Cambridge, UK. 

Valentina Dodge
Valentina is Teacher Community Coordinator for English360, where she helps educators provide personalised Business English learning programmes to meet their student and customer needs. She collaborates with, and supports, Business English language teachers all over the world to help them publish and share lessons and courses for blended or online delivery. She organises training sessions and support forums on instructional design and blended course organisation, to allow educators to combine their own materials and lesson plans with high quality course material from Cambridge University Press.

Test your Nationalities

Here is an exercise you can use to help your students expand their Nationality Vocabulary as well as gain practice putting a capital letter at the beginning of proper nouns.

Common mistakes among French native speakers of English:

In september the american company's stock increased. On monday the french sales team revamped their marketing strategy.


Fill in the information that corresponds to the adjective. If you are not sure, put a (?)

Adjective / the people / the person
Russian / the Russians / a Russian
English / the English / an Englishman -woman
Turkish / the Turks / a Turk

Germany ________ _________ __________
France ________ _________ __________
Greece ________ _________ __________
Britain _________ _________ __________
China _________ _________ __________
Quebec _________ _________ __________
Iraq _________ _________ __________
Thailand _________ _________ __________
Ireland _________ _________ __________
Italy _________ _________ __________
Switzerland _________ _________ __________
Israel _________ _________ __________
Japan ____________ ____________ _____________
Netherlands ____________ ____________ _____________
Finland ____________ ____________ _____________

It's Snow Problem!

It's that time of year again and with almost all of France under the white powdery stuff, we thought you might have a ball (a snowball, that is) using these words and idiomatic expressions with your students.

How many words do YOU know?

Snow
Snowy
Snowball
Snowman
A snow day
A snowdrift
To be snowbound
A snowbunny
Snowflake
To be snowed in
To be snowed under
Skiing
Snowboarding
Snowmobiling
Snowshoeing
Ice hockey
Flurries
Black ice
Slush
Slushy
Sleet
Freezing Rain
Blizzard
Wind Chill
Icicles
Frost
To scrape your windshield
A windshield scraper
Lake Effect Snow (see: http://www.weather.com/encyclopedia/winter/lake.html)
Frostbite
Where is the "snowbelt?"
Also: Snow - the black and white display of a t.v. when there is no reception

Fixed expressions
A snowball's chance in hell
To snow someone
It's coming down in buckets
No two snowflakes are the same

Play on words
It's snow problem
It's snow wonder
It's snow joke
It's snow fun
It's snowbody's business
There's snowbody here!

Can you think of any more?

Announcing our upcoming Plenary Sessions!

Come see them at our 28th Annual Colloquium on November 6th and 7th!

Plenary: English as a Lingua Franca

It is estimated that there are now in the world over two billion English speakers of whom the majority speak it as a second or foreign language. Indeed, English is now used more as a lingua franca for various functions of international communication (business, research, diplomacy etc.) than it is used intra-nationally for communication with each other by its native speakers. And most educated people in the world today (at least outside the English-speaking countries) are "English-knowing bilinguals": they speak their own language(s) for home use, and English for international communication.

There are various interesting implications of this development for English teachers which will be discussed this talk. I shall address questions such as: Is there such a thing as an ELF standard of language use in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation? How does the development of ELF change our teaching goals? Does it make any difference to the function and prestige of the 'native' or 'non-native' English speaking teacher? What is the place of the culture of the English-speaking peoples in the teaching of ELF?

Workshop: Teaching Large Heterogeneous Classes

What is a large class? What is a heterogeneous class? What are the problems we encounter when we have to teach classes that are both large and heterogeneous?

In this talk I will begin by attempting to define what is meant by 'large' and 'heterogeneous', and then go on to list some of the main problems -- but also the advantages! -- that we encounter when trying to teach them.

As with many educational problems, there are no easy solutions. We could, perhaps largely solve them by preparing different tasks to suit different groups within the class; or by preparing several texts at varying levels of difficulty, as suggested by some methodologists. But most of us have neither the time nor the money to invest in such elaborate preparation, let alone the time to check the results later.

In this talk, I shall be proposing and discussing a series of practical teaching principles, illustrated by practical procedures, that involve very little (or no) extra preparation, that can make our job teaching large heterogeneous classes easier, and that go some way towards bringing about more effective learning.

Penny Ur's Bio

Penny Ur was educated at the universities of Oxford (MA), Cambridge (PGCE) and Reading (MATEFL). She emigrated to Israel in 1967, where she still lives today. She is married with four children and five grandchildren. Penny Ur has thirty years' experience as an English teacher in primary and secondary schools in Israel. She has recently retired from the headship of the M.Ed program in foreign-language teaching at Oranim Academic College of Education, but continues to teach M.A. courses at Oranim and Haifa University. She is interested in all aspects of language-teaching methodology, but in particular issues of fluency and accuracy in language teaching, language-learning activity design and the implications for teachers of the development of English as a lingua franca. She has published a number of articles, and was for ten years the editor of the Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers series. Her books include Discussions that Work (1981), Five Minute Activities (co-authored with Andrew Wright) (1992), A Course in Language Teaching (1996), and Grammar Practice Activities (2nd Edition) (2009), all published by Cambridge University Press.

Plenary & Associated Workshop by Jamie Keddie

Plenary: Materials World

In an ELT context, what does the word materials mean to you? In this highly practical talk, I will be examining the richness of resources that are available to the modern language teacher. By dissecting six of my favourite lesson plans, I would like to share some thoughts on some essential lesson-planning skills which are often overlooked.

Workshop: Grammar Drawings

When a learner draws a piece of language, that language is suddenly brought to life and made memorable. In this workshop, which will be useful for teachers of all levels and ages, we will see some original grammar-based activities which exploit a fantastic piece of classroom technology - the pencil.

Jamie Keddie's Bio:

Jamie Keddie is a teacher, teacher trainer and writer who has taught in Spain and Germany. In 2008 he set up TEFLclips.com, a site dedicated to the possibilities for YouTube and other video-sharing sites in the classroom. He has written many articles on a number of subjects including grammar, image and the use of corpora in language learning. He is the author of Images in the Resource Books for Teachers series published by Oxford university Press. Jamie blogs at www.jamiekeddie.com.