Next Saturday at 3pm UK time I’ll be presenting the monthly IATEFL webinar, introducing the competency framework for language learning materials writing which I created for MA dissertation. Find out more details and sign up on the IATEFL website ..read more

I’m excited to announce that the Take Your Time DELTA newsletter is coming soon! The first one will hit your inboxes on 10th June, but only if you’re signed up. You’ll get ideas about teaching skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking), teaching systems (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, discourse), general methodology, teaching activities, skills to help you in your career outside the classroom, plus a bit of fun too. The ideas should help you wherever you are on your professional journey, but especially if you’re doing a DELTA or DipTESOL at the moment. Add your name to the mailing lis ..read more

I finally made it to IATEFL Brighton and was able to enjoy talks on the final day I spent most of the rest of my 24 hours at the conference chatting to people – one of the things I most enjoy about being together with friends and colleagues from around the world! Rose’s talk is about criticality as an analysis of power. You can watch the plenary yourself on YouTube after 8pm today [I’ll add the link later]. Language, power and education There are different kinds of power according to Waring: Political power Personal power: the individual power we have based on the roles we play in society: a ..read more

I finally made it to IATEFL Brighton and was able to enjoy talks on the final day I spent most of the rest of my 24 hours at the conference chatting to people – one of the things I most enjoy about being together with friends and colleagues from around the world! Niki’s workshop is on CPD (Continuous Professional Development). Her first activity was to complete these sentences: A CPD programme should be… A CPD programme should not be… Niki has noticed that some schools have absolutely no CPD programme, some have occasional meetings with no thought in them, or some are very top down and look ..read more

I watched Zarina’s IATEFL Brighton plenary from Wednesday 17th April 2024 on YouTube. You can watch it yourself here: Zarina is representing diversity, equality and inclusion. She chose this slogan because unfortunately it is only applied to some people, not all people. Not everybody is made to feel that they are worth it – their value is seen as different by different people. Who decides our worth? The way someone looks at you, their tone of voice, their approach to you: they can all determine how you see your worth, and what sides of yourself you decide to portray to persuade people to see ..read more

Since I can’t attend the full conference this year, I’ve been taking advantage of the live channel on the IATEFL YouTube website. This was the coverage from 17th April, day 2 of the conference. Today I enjoyed the insight into poster presentations that was about an hour into the live feed. Here are some points that stood out to me from the coverage: Julie Moore talked about dictionary research done as part of the Hornby Trust ASHDRA Dictionary Research Awards. It sounds like there are some fascinating projects conducted with funding from the Hornby Trust, including brand new dictionaries bein ..read more

I watched the recording of Vicky’s plenary from 16th April 2024. You can watch it yourself here if you want to (it’s just over 45 minutes): My own feelings about AI are mostly apathy at the moment. I know that there’s a lot of fuss about it, and I know that it will be one of the tools that will affect my work now and in the future, but I’m waiting a little for the fuss to die down before I start exploring it much myself. If I’d attended the full conference in Brighton, I would have probably avoided AI talks, but I would definitely have attended Vicky’s talk, so I was glad I still get to watch ..read more

Since I can’t attend the full conference this year, I’ve been taking advantage of the live channel on the IATEFL YouTube website. This was the coverage from 16th April, day 1 of the conference. It was an interesting mix of interviews with speakers from the conference, clips that were recorded elsewhere including with delegates from the conference, discussions between the hosts and (perhaps less interesting!) adverts from IATEFL sponsors. Here are some points that stood out to me from the coverage: Lucie Cotterill mentioned how much the Sustainable Development Goals are mentioned in the progra ..read more

Monday 15th April 2024, IATEFL Brighton, the day before the main IATEFL conference, was the 10th pre-conference event run by MaWSIG, the Materials Writing Special Interest Group. I wasn’t able to attend in person, but I was still able to join in the hybrid event, helping to run the online side of things. There were six talks and workshops. This was the programme: Following Elly Setterfield’s advice, I’ve summarised a few interesting points from each of the talks which I’d like to remember for the future. Carol Read – Paradigm shifts in writing materials for children I was surprised that magic ..read more

In March 2010, I did my very first conference presentation at a PARK conference in Brno, Czechia, and I’ve been back many times since, so I really didn’t want to miss this special 30th anniversary conference. This was the abstract for my talk: What do successful readers do? As teachers, we’re often guilty of testing our students’ reading abilities through comprehension questions, without actually supporting them to become better readers. But where should we start? How can you move beyond a comprehension focus and help students to become the best readers of English that they can be? What migh ..read more