iELT-Con 2021
Keynote Speakers
Humanizing Language Teaching in the Digital World
Associate Professor Jonathan Newton
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
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ABSTRACT: If the present is anything to go by, digitally-mediated teaching will be an assured part of our future. As we have all learned from the past 18 months of teaching through the Covid-19 pandemic, this has far reaching implications for how we teach, how learning happens, and for teacher and learner well-being. Drawing on these themes, in this talk I address the need to ‘re-humanize’ language teaching in a digital environment; to find ways to build and strengthen connectedness and community among teachers and between teachers and their learners. I explore these themes based on my own experience working as a teacher educator during the pandemic and drawing on the experience of many teachers I work with. These experiences have revealed, not surprisingly, the huge difficulties and strains of teaching on-line that teachers have faced in what is already a stressful job. In a way, though, the sudden move to on-line teaching has also been a ‘circuit breaker’, forcing a break from old ways and a chance to reboot our skillset and our understanding of what it means to be an English language teacher. In so doing, teaching on-line has offered affordances for creative teaching and for genuine engagement and cooperative learning, which I will discuss and illustrate in the talk.
Zen and the Art of English Language Teaching
Associate Professor Tamas Kiss
Sunway University, Malaysia
ABSTRACT: In this talk I will adapt and use five teachings of Zen Buddhism to discuss the importance of some language teaching principles that have always been, and will be, fundamental for educators. COVID-19 has brought an enormous amount of stress and uncertainty to our personal and professional lives which makes us wonder whether we will ever return to how we used to teach or if we should embrace the ‘new normal’ of online teaching. It’s not easy to see where we are going, or where we are currently, for that matter. As Walt Whitman said, “the future is no more uncertain than the present”. Will we need new skills? Perhaps. Will we need to learn new technology? Most definitely.
Therefore, rather than worrying about the unknown, we should focus on what surely makes our teaching work and our professional lives fulfilling: the importance of reflection, an acknowledgement that nothing is permanent, enjoying the moment, emphasizing the process, and prioritizing simplicity over chaos. How these translate into effective teaching and learning strategies is what I will present in my talk.
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Developing Life Competencies in English Language Classrooms
Allen Davenport
Cambridge University Press
ABSTRACT: Life competencies can be integrated into any subject, but they are particularly suitable for teaching English. Learning an additional language already involves many of the identified competencies such as communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. This means there is lots of scope to develop these skills further, in an integrated way, through the teaching of English. This webinar will look at how Cambridge approaches these life competencies across the learning journey. Specifically, we will focus on what the Cambridge Language and Pedagogy Research Team have identified as life competencies and their relation to traditional models of 21st-century skills and foundational aspects of language learning. We will also explore how the understanding of the competencies translates into learning outcomes and highlight practical activities that can easily be integrated into language lessons.
Exploring the Value of Teacher Collaboration: Learning From and With Each Other
Dr. Gabriela Kleckova
University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic.
TESOL International Association
ABSTRACT: Collaboration is often talked about as one of the essential skills of 21st century. It is also seen as one of the pillars of teacher professionalism. Although as language teaching professionals we understand the value of collaborative learning, we may not identically embrace it in our own professional lives. This talk explores the elements of collaboration that lead to effective and respectful partnerships and consequently success in our language classrooms.