The 47th Annual International IATEFL Conference & Exhibition

Dear teachers!

I suggest you get acquainted with one of the most important events in the field of English language teaching. This International Conference IATEFL, held annually by the British Council. IATEFL interpreted as follows: International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (iatefl.org). IATEFL — a thriving community, which includes more than 4,000 English teachers around the world.

The mission of this organization is the idea of ​​»Link, develop and support English Language Teaching professionals». And an international conference is one way to achieve this goal, because it allows you to meet and exchange experiences with the professionals (and there are more than 2000) from 100 countries. Conference lasts 4-5 days, includes more than 500 presentations, seminars and lectures. Very valuable interviews with recognized experts in the field of Teaching English, which are the world-famous authors of books on teaching English.

This year, 47 IATEFL Conference held in Liverpool from 8 to 12 April (iatefl.britishcouncil.org). Next year it will be held in the town of Harrogate in the county of North Yorkshire (United Kingdom) from 1 to 5 April. Below are interviews and performances, which are not only interesting to us as teachers, but also very useful to improve our knowledge and skills, and obtaining the necessary relevant experience. Enjoy watching!

Interviews

1. Interview with David Crystal

   David Crystal (born July 6, 1941) is a linguist, academic and author. His many academic interests include English language learning and teaching, clinical linguistics, English style, Shakespeare and lexicography. He is the Patron of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) and honorary vice-president of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP). He has also served as an important editor for Cambridge University Press.

   Crystal is the author, co-author, or editor of over 120 books on a wide variety of subjects, specialising among other things in editing reference works, including (as author) the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (1987, 1997, 2010) and the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (1995, 2003), and (as editor) the Cambridge Biographical Dictionary, the Cambridge Factfinder, the Cambridge Encyclopedia, and the New Penguin Encyclopedia (2003).

   • Personal website — davidcrystal.com
   • Twitter account — twitter.com
   • Personal blog — david-crystal.blogspot.com
2. Interview with Jim Scrivener

   Jim Scrivener is currently Head of Teacher Development for Bell International. Previously he has been Head of Teacher Training for International House, Hastings and Director of Education for IH Budapest.

   His publications include Learning Teaching (Macmillan ELT) which won the ARELS Frank Bell Prize in 1995, Oxford Basics: Teaching Grammar, Teachers’ Books and Portfolios for Straightforward, two business coursebooks for OUP and he has many articles on onestopenglish.com. His most recent book, Teaching English Grammar (Macmillan ELT) won the HRH Duke of Edinburgh English Speaking Union 2010 award as «Best Entry for Teachers».

   Jim is a frequent conference presenter and course leader around the world. He was head of the team that designed the Euro exams, now widely taken in Central Europe and has been actively involved with Cambridge ESOL exams including design of their online teacher portfolio. He recently designed and implemented the first Online Delta course.

   • Twitter account — twitter.com
   • Personal blog — demandhighelt.wordpress.com

   The book «Learning teaching» must read each teacher.

3. Interview with Scott Thornbury

   Scott Thornbury (born 1950, New Zealand) is an internationally recognized academic and teacher trainer in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT). Thornbury has written over a dozen books on ELT methodology. Two of these, ‘Natural Grammar’ and ‘Teaching Unplugged’, have won the British Council’s «ELTon» Award for Innovation, the top award in the industry (in 2004 and 2010, respectively).

   Thornbury is also the series editor for the Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers, and the author of many academic papers on language teaching. His AZ of ELT (scottthornbury.wordpress.com) is one of the most influential and well-visited blogs in the field of ELT.

   Currently, Thornbury is Associate Professor of English Language Studies at the New School in New York, and Academic Director at the International Teacher Development Institute.

   • Personal website — thornburyscott.com
   • Twitter account — twitter.com

   I recommend reading the book by this author: «How to teach speaking», «How to teach grammar».

4. Interview with Mark Hancock

   Mark Hancock has taught English since 1984 in Turkey, Brazil, Sudan, and Spain. He has written a number of coursebooks (eg English Pronunciation in Use), teachers’ resource books, and a self-study book. Mark is co-author of Pen Pictures, a writing skills course for young learners, and Winners, both published by Oxford University Press.

   • Personal website — hancockmcdonald.com
   • Twitter account — twitter.com
   • Facebook account — facebook.com
5. Interview with Jeremy Harmer

   Jeremy Harmer is a writer, teacher and teacher trainer of English to speakers of other languages. He is author of The Practice of English Language Teaching among other things.

   • Personal website — jeremyharmer.com
   • Personal blog — jeremyharmer.wordpress.com
   • Twitter account — twitter.com

   I recommend reading the book by this author: «How to teach English», «How to teach writing».

6. Interview with Kieran Donaghy

   Kieran is a terrific blog called Film-English (film-english.com), in which he regularly puts it created lesson plans that are based on small thematic video. It’s just a storehouse of ideas!

7. Interview with Tim Phillips, British Council Head of Teacher Development

This section on the official website of the conference (iatefl.britishcouncil.org) you will find more than a dozen of interesting interviews in which competent teachers share their experiences, give advice and comments on these or other matters of teaching.

Speeches

And this is the most interesting presentations, seminars and lectures, which should definitely pay attention to. The full list is on the official website in the Sessions:

• David Crystal: Beatles, Blends and Blogs
• Do published course materials reflect learners’ lives?
• Difficult students: techniques for building self-esteem
• Motivating our learners: actualizing the vision
• Using technology to provide content-rich feedback
• Taking learners to task! Successful task-based language teaching
• The decline and fall of coursebooks?
• Moving with the times: mobile literacy & ELT
• Supporting speaking skills: controlled practice revisited
• Helping your learners to overcome reading difficulties
• The ‘ideal L2 self’: motivating adult EFL learner
• Developing presentation skills with open source speech visualization technology
• Using video in the classroom with teen learners
• Creative pedagogy, language learning and technology

 

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Proceedings