Tuesday 29 August 2017

Budapest 2017 teacher training course

At the recent OUP teacher training event and conference in Budapest, I presented three workshops and a plenary talk over three days. Materials for each session can be downloaded by clicking on the links below.
My plenary talk focused on the development of receptive skills: listening and reading. In the talk, I highlighted the importance of placing equal emphasis on both bottom-up and top-down processing skills (that is, knowing the language well - its grammar and lexis - and activating background knowledge - schemata) in aiding learners' comprehension. 
In the secondary workshop for teachers of teenagers aged 14-19, we explored the development of writing skills - through focusing on both the product and the process of writing.
In the upper primary workshop for teachers of younger learners aged 10-14, we looked at how the world has changed and is changing in the 21st century, and what it means for us in practice: what activities we can do to develop 21st century skills in the classroom.
In the conference workshop on the final day, our focus was on using culture, art and creativity in English classes. My opinion is that you can turn practically any form of art into learning opportunities for English by designing simple but effective classroom activities - of which I offered a representative sample in my handout.

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