How can technology serve the learning aims of individual learners and groups without adding further strain to the syllabus? How can pedagogy make the best use of technology? A step-by-step, hands-on workshop on how to use technology to facilitate learning with Chryssanthe Sotiriou and Dimitris Primalis. The workshop will focus on easy-to-use web 2.0 tools and applications that can:
• motivate learners,
• boost reading, writing, listening and speaking skills,
• facilitate collaboration and communication,
• accommodate personalized feedback,
• encourage creativity and critical thinking in a foreign language context,
• help students immerse into culture and be exposed to authentic language.
The participants will be given the opportunity to use these tools through practical EFL activities; explore their potential; decide on the criteria to select the suitable applications that accommodate their learners’ needs and learning styles. At the final part of the workshop, they will design activities and lesson plans for their own learners to take back to their classes.
A preview
- Linoit (show them how to use it and ask them to work collaboratively to write a paragraph in favour or against a topic)
- A brief theoretical background (21st century skills and how they relate to exams)
- Puppet pals (dialogues)
- Theory (selecting apps and web 2.0 tools based on skills they help learners develop)
- Creating content (cartoon strips, animated videos)
- Theory (setting personalized goals, PBL)
- Giving personalized feedback (office mix)
- Vocabulary through word clouds, sequencing ideas through mind maps
- Using the social media (Edmodo)
- Ask them to design their own activities
- Wikis
- Cloud apps- Socrative / kahoot and more…
Speakers
Dimitris Primalis is an EFL teacher, author and oral examiner. He has been teaching for more than 20 years and applies his knowledge and experience to introducing innovation and change into the daily teaching practice. His views and work are shared in his columns in the ELT News, the BELTA Bulletin and in his presentations in many conferences in Greece and abroad. Dimitris was awarded the 2013 IATEFL Learning Technologies scholarship and he has been selected as Expert Innovative Educator by Microsoft (2014-15). He is working at Doukas Primary school in Athens.
Chryssanthe Sotiriou has obtained a BA in English Literature from the English Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a postgraduate diploma with distinction in Translation from the University of Mons-Hainaut in Belgium, being a scholar of the ‘Alexander Onassis’ Foundation. She has been involved in the Leonardo da Vinci Sectoral Programme: “Mobile and Wireless Technologies for Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (ΜW-TELL)” and in “Digital School”: Greek Ministry of Education. Her research interests include Project Based Learning (PBL) and the use of social media in Education. She has given lectures in seminars and conferences for teaching and the use of technology to teachers of primary and secondary education.
She has more than 20 years of teaching experience, working as an EFL teacher in a Doukas School in Athens, Greece, recently holding the position of Language Coordinator in High School.
