The end of season seminar/workshop was held on 26th November at Ace English Bay Street and was very well attended. This was the first time the workshops in the second session were delivered by less experienced public presenters and they were very well presented and supported by those who attended. Well done to all the workshop presenters, both experienced and first-timers for their time and effort, to the committee for their organisation and to the members who, once again, gave up their Saturday morning to further their development.
FIRST SESSION Alan Marsh: Speaking for lower levels There are plenty of speaking activities for middle and higher levels but what about lower levels? In this session you will go away with some tips for boosting your lower level (elementary upwards) learners’ confidence and effectiveness when speaking as well as a hatful of fun, engaging activities you can take straight into class.
Jean Theuma: Getting to know you, getting to know all about you.... With rolling enrolment, long-term students sometimes do the same Getting To Know You (GTKY) activity week after week. This session will feature a number of fun GTKY activities which are adaptable to many levels. So come along to a practical, hands on session designed around (in the words of Julie Andrews) ‘getting to know you...’ and find a few new ideas!
Kevin Spiteri: Enjoying it ... but learning enough? Perception and reality for English language learners in Malta This session looks at the topic of Personal Learning Networks (PLN) within ELT, how to set one up and how to get the most out of it. The basics on how to have access to the people that matter and to the hottest topics will be tackled in an interactive manner with the intention of having participants leaving with the foundations laid for their own PLN.
Pam Borg: Top 10 Tips for maximising the benefits of the Interactive Whiteboard The modern EFL teacher needs to be technologically adventurous but doesn't always have the time to experiment with the technology. I would like to share my ‘Top Tips’ so that you will be able to identify 'visual learning techniques' used on the Interactive Whiteboard and therefore enhance your own ‘visual’ lesson presentations in order to increase student concentration, motivation and learning.
Sigo Gatt: Upgrading Learner Fluency Through Video This interactive workshop focuses on video techniques to present a simple but multi-step practical classroom activity, which, together with critical and creative thinking skills, aims to help learners acquire spoken fluency. Participants will explore a template to utilise video and editing techniques to help learners understand and incorporate new language chunks in their spoken English.
SECOND SESSION (11.30 - 13.00)
Anthea Zammit: Lower Level Speaking & Michael Beirne: Use Your Body Anthea’s workshop will cover how to present a speaking lesson at a low level that covers personality adjectives and use of present continuous and present simple to describe ongoing events in a video. Michael’s talk will address posture in the language classroom, both in relation to actual health and safety consideration, as well the use of body language and performance as aids to language learning
Claire Borg and Catherine Camilleri: Top Things to Do When the Photocopier Breaks Down Have you ever been thrown into the deep end on a Monday Morning? Ever wondered how to make the best use of time with limited resources and materials? Has the photocopier ever broken down and you have been... well... stuck! This session is designed to give some clear practical, tried and tested ideas for teachers with limited resources.
Ian Scerri and Theo Navarro:Off the Beaten Track: Innovating in Conversation Classes Conversation classes are a lot of fun to teach… for a while. Many teachers find themselves running out of new topics and ideas when they have the same class for more than six or seven weeks. This session aims to equip teachers with some new and innovative tricks to keep things interesting and fresh during such lessons.
Matt Done: Getting more out of gap fills Gap fills are part and parcel of English language teaching. They’re obviously useful to assess whether your students have understood a particular language item, but there can be a lot more to them than that. In this session, we’ll explore some simple techniques and activities that you can use straight away to squeeze even more learning out of gap fill tasks.
Andre Zahra & Laura Alcarez Fernandez: TPR for everybody! Andre and Laura’s session will consist of TPR activities, games and techniques that can be included in everyday classes to help students with their daily challenges. This includes how to make memorising concepts a fun part of their learning process, as well as spicing up certain structures ie grammar and vocabulary and, of course, helping with pronunciation.
Adrian Theuma: Teaching by Design Want to give your worksheets a professional boost? Adrian’s session will focus on building visually appealing, functional worksheets using simple layout tricks to make it easier for students (particularly visual learners) to process new information. We’ll look at finding and adjusting the perfect picture for your exercise, choosing the right font, and reducing “clutter” to create worksheets which really work.