The ELT NEWS Teacher Clinic Day (TCD) sets new standards on how teacher development workshops are conducted. The TCD has been designed to give participants a full day of highly practical workshops with a lot of teaching ideas for immediate classroom implementation.
Three well-known teacher trainers and a debutant will each conduct a workshop on a specific topic. Join George Drivas along with Konstantina Gkotsi (Teaching Reading), Nick Michelioudakis (Teaching Listening) and Cliff Parry (Teaching Speaking) and get ideas on how to teach Reading, Listening and Speaking more efficiently.
The Teacher Clinic day will take place on 21 October 2018 in Athens at the Stratos Vassilikos Hotel. For more information and registrations click here.
TCD Agenda
9:30-10:00 Registration and welcome coffee
10:00- 12:00 Teaching Reading
George Drivas (Head of the Foreign Languages Department at Doukas Schools) along with Konstantina Gkotsi, EFL Teacher at Doukas Schools
Those who can read, are forever free! (Frederick Douglas)
- Extensive vs Intensive reading revisited. What are the similarities and differences between the two approaches? What advantages and pitfalls should teachers consider? How can learners be trained to distinguish between the two to be more effective? What subskills are involved?
- Fact or Fiction? In the age of fake news, readers should be aware of the ways they can use to verify the validity and reliability of their sources. Not everything in print or on screen is accurate and numerous authors may not have the best of intentions. What are the differences between statement and paraphrase? What are the differences between plagiarism and reporting? What is the importance of CLIL in EFL classes?
- Setting up a Literature Programme to improve language efficiency. What Learning Goals should the teacher and learners decide on? How can they assess the effectiveness and appropriacy of the methods used? What reading frequency should they consider? How can ICT technologies help the usefulness of the endeavor?
- Project based learning activities that focus and benefit from reading. An extensive list of (reading) projects will be presented to enhance learner creativity and increase motivation.
12:00-12:30 Break
12:30-14:30 Teaching Speaking
Cliff Parry (Teacher Trainer, Academic Manager at the British Council)
When I entered an EFL classroom in Greece for the first time, one thing was for sure – I had no idea how difficult teaching was – but I suppose like countless unprepared souls before me and without doubt thousands to follow, I walked into my class with childish confidence and an English teacher’s bible – a grammar book – a well-thumbed Thomson and Martinet with strange chapter titles like “Simple Present”, “Present Perfect” and “Adverbial Clauses”. I’d never seen such a book before and at the time it seemed to me that it should have been issued with a “health warning” – its rules and examples struck me with waves of terror when I realized that I didn’t speak proper-like – so much terror that I didn’t want to speak at all!
My session on Teaching Speaking is highly practical. I’ll show you how to make your board interactive and memorable; eight ways to make speaking activities successful and enjoyable; we will discover five principles which underpin successful teaching no matter what the level and age group being taught. Finally we’ll discuss the values that make a teacher and how you can demonstrate these in the classroom.
14:30-15:00 Break
15:00-17:00 Teaching Listening
Nick Michelioudakis, Teacher, Teacher Trainer, Presenter
LUDIC LISTENING (LISTEN - LAUGH - LEARN)
Do your students find listening difficult? Do you have difficulty engaging their interest in listening tasks? Are you tired of the standard M/C, T/F questions? If your answer to these questions is ‘Yes’, this workshop is for you.
My session is highly practical; after a brief discussion of some of the key elements which help motivate students in listening tasks, we are going to look at eight specific activities which illustrate how these principles are applied in practice.
In addition, we are going to look at the importance of content and where we can find good quality, interesting content online.
Finally, we are going to look at how we can integrate listening with other skills and help our students make the most of the language they have been exposed to.
