The annual Teaching for Success conferences, hosted by the British Council for ELT teachers are a great way to start the year and Pearson will be in attendance at the events across the country: in Bilbao and Valencia on 21st September and in Madrid and Barcelona on Saturday 28th. Whether it’s to attend one of our workshops to get some ideas for your lessons, or to drop by our stand to have a look at our materials, we’d love to see you there!
What’s on the programme?
Bilbao: Brian Engquist will be delivering Teens: it’s hard to B1 and Developing Learner Confidence
Valencia: Michael Brand will be delivering Teens: it’s hard to B1 and Developing Learner Confidence
Madrid: Liz Beer will be delivering Teens: it’s hard to B1 and Putting some sparkle in speaking
Barcelona: Michael Brand will be delivering Teens: it’s hard to B1 and Developing, not testing, listening skills
Liz Beer, Michael Brand, Brian Engquist
Interested? Have a look at our abstracts to learn more about the workshops:
Teens: it’s hard to B1
Our B1 level teens haven’t quite reached maturity yet – both personally and linguistically. What language, skills and strategies will they need in B1 exams? Can we dovetail this with their needs and preferences as teens? In this workshop we’ll look at general principles for teaching students at this level and try out some activities across the four skills that will leave your teens both engaged and prepared to succeed at B1.
Developing Learner Confidence
Success in any form, be it in life or in the classroom, depends on confidence. It’s an essential ingredient but one that many learners lack. In this workshop, we’ll look at ways to help all learners develop confidence in using English. Real confidence is built on solid foundations and we’ll be examining the use of learning objectives, reflective tasks and the flexible use of materials to meet our learners’ individual needs and empower them to succeed.
Putting some sparkle in speaking
Many primary teachers list ‘getting them to speak’ among their difficulties. In this workshop we’ll look to provide the antidote. Task design is key: let’s look at meaningful, authentic activities where pupils really do have a reason to communicate. A sense of fun is also important: what can props and drama do for our students? This lively session will equip you with principles and practical ideas to use with your pupils in your next class.
Developing, not testing, listening skills
We help students develop their productive skills through work on sub-skills such as pronunciation, punctuation and paragraphing. But when it comes to receptive skills, we tend to provide lots of practice and test students’ understanding through comprehension questions rather than help them develop the sub-skills and strategies they need to improve those skills. In this workshop, we’ll investigate what listening sub-skills are and what strategies learners can use when listening. We’ll try out some engaging classroom activities and look at how to stage such activities in a listening lesson to truly help our students listen better.
