After a highly successful, well-received conference in 2021, International House London is excited to announce our 4th Future of Training Conference, taking place online on November 12th 2022!
View the complete 2022 Future of Training – Online Conference Programme
This conference will take place online so that professionals from across the globe are able to join. There will also be an opportunity to join us face-to face for lunch if you are in London and to watch the conference on the big screen in our Covent Garden school. Recordings of the talks will be available for all face-to-face and online attendees shortly after the conference finishes.
Tickets are now on sale. Visit our Eventbrite page to book either face-to-face or online tickets.
Scott Thornbury
Scott Thornbury lives in Spain and, until recently, taught on an online MA TESOL program for The New School in New York. Prior to that he taught and trained for International House in Egypt, the UK, and Spain. His writing credits include several award-winning books for teachers on language and methodology. He is also the series editor for the Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers, and a trustee of the Hands Up Project, which promotes drama activities in English for children in under-resourced regions of the Arab world. His website is www.scottthornbury.com
Talk:
‘Out of the slimy mud…’: What do we mean by ‘emergence’?
“Out of the slimy mud of words… there springs the perfect order of speech.” (T.S. Eliot). In this overview of the concept of ‘emergence’ I want to distinguish – and disentangle – at least three senses in which we use the term: 1. The theory that languages are ‘emergent phenomena’ and that grammar is ‘sedimented’ language use; 2. The idea that, given the right conditions, language – both first and additional – emerges (rather than is ‘acquired’) in the life of an individual; and 3.the way that ‘emergent’ is used to characterize classroom language that is not pre-selected according to a mandated syllabus.
Luke Meddings
Luke Meddings has been a teacher, author and teacher trainer in ELT for over 30 years. In 2000 he co-founded the Dogme in ELT movement with Scott Thornbury; their book, Teaching Unplugged (Delta, 2009) won a British Council ELTon Award for Innovation in 2010, and he has trained extensively since then, sharing ideas with teachers around the world. In 2011 he started the independent e-publishing collective, the round, with Lindsay Clandfield: their book 52: a year of subversive activity for the ELT classroom, was published in 2012. He was previously Deputy Editor of EL Gazette, co-founded an experimental language school in London, and wrote a column and blog on ELT for the Guardian. He also writes about music, and What They Heard: How The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan Listened to Each Other and Changed Music Forever was published by Weatherglass Books in 2021.
Talk:
What have we learnt from this year’s conference? What have been the themes, the consensus and the challenges, the ideas and suggestions? What, in essence, has emerged? Join me as I present a round-up of key takeaways from the day and look forward to further developments in teacher training and education
Tickets are now on sale. Visit our Eventbrite page to book either face-to-face or online tickets.
Bio:
Writer of several prize-winning books, Jane Willis worked extensively overseas as an English teacher and trainer before moving to Aston University’s Masters in TESOL programs. Her book ‘A Framework for Task-based Learning’ was followed 11 years later by ‘Doing Task-based Teaching’ written jointly with her late husband Dave Willis and based on advice from practising TBLT teachers worldwide. Now retired, she lives in the English Lake District and enjoys fell walking. She teaches tai chi and is still quite active on the TBLT scene.
Talk:
Task-based language teaching, emergent language and trainers’ concerns
The results of a 2020 survey revealed that the majority of CELTA trainers did not recognise TBLT as a viable option for novice teachers. Jane will seek to demystify TBLT and examine 5 opportunities within a TBL framework where teachers might help learners with emergent language. She will suggest ways of doing this, and, for each way, ask participants to assess the degree of difficulty novice teachers might encounter. Appropriate for on-line as well as F2F class teaching.
Bio:
I am convinced from my experience that we are Learning Beings, as well as Human Beings and Social Beings. Thus learning is our natural state, and when it happens – not necessarily in schools – we may feel a kind of joy as if “Yes, this is what I’m for”. I guess we all tap into this state even if we don’t talk about it. I work with teachers and trainers to explore human faculties like playfulness, intuition, empathy, meaning making, spontaneity, pattern making, joy and improvisation in learning.
I’m an ex-director of International House Hastings, a past President of IATEFL, and I’ve just completed 8 years as trustee of International House London. I aspire to work with the development of schools as organisations that learn, and that contribute through their operation to making the world a better place.
Talk:
Emergence and improvisation in teaching and training
Emergence offers fresh situations, already energised, arising for real, in the moment, from exactly the people that are present. The class could become a living interaction rather than the enactment of a plan. But how do we accept this offer? We have to improvise, but how? We don’t discuss it. We will explore this theme, for new and experienced teachers.
Bio:
Dr Jason Anderson is a multiple-award-winning teacher educator, author and researcher with experience working in education systems around the world for the British Council, UNICEF, Trinity College London and national ministries of education. He is currently based at the University of Warwick, where he researches and writes on a range of topics, including language teaching methodology, multilingual policy and practice, teacher expertise and teacher reflection. He is author of eight books, including five for Delta Publishing, and is the current series editor of Delta’s Ideas in Action range.
Talk:
The emergence of teacher expertise: How expert teachers gain expertise and continue developing
This talk will investigate research (including my own) on what teacher expertise is, how it emerges, and what expert teachers do to maintain their own knowledge, skills and effectiveness. We will reflect together on our understandings of ‘expertise’ and our development as educators to gain insights into how to support the teacher-learners we work with to develop their own expertise.
Bio:
Judie Hudson been developing her skills as an English teacher and trainer since 1976. She enjoys trying out new ideas was excited to get back to face-to-face flipped short teacher training courses in 2022. Her special interests are helping teachers feel more comfortable in promoting pronunciation, using Cuisenaire Rods and generally helping teachers become the best teachers they can be.
Talk:
Why flipping can give you more
The idea of replacing input sessions with workshops and longer lesson preparation was suggested in 2018. Since then we have run three successful intensive face-to-face courses at the University of Hawaii. We have learnt so much more about why Flipped CELTAs can be less stressful, more enjoyable and the results. This talk will report what was done.
Bio:
Jacqueline Douglas is a Senior Trainer with NILE and has 25 years’ experience in ELT. She has worked in China, south east Asia, South America, Egypt, Greece, Russia, Turkey, Sudan and Saudi Arabia. She has an MA from NILE, focussing on materials development and learner autonomy and now tutors on the NILE Masters Programme. Jacqueline’s a CELTA and DELTA tutor and is a regular speaker at conferences including IATEFL. When not in the classroom, she enjoys life in her South Cambridgeshire village, organising walks, quizzes and a phone box book exchange.
Talk:
It is about you: placing the teacher at the centre of the learning process
Teachers spend their work life preparing and delivering content to help others learn. Here, we’ll explore how they might be given time and space for their own development needs to emerge. We can lead both teachers and trainers to shape a professional identity based on their values. If you are a trainer or academic manager this talk is for you.
Bio:
Cecilia is a teacher, teacher trainer and mentor who has over 20 years of experience and she is passionate about online teaching teacher development, technology in education, material development and CPD. She has taught in Brazil, the UK and Turkey. She is currently doing her PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick.
Talk:
Video-based observations for teacher development
Over the last few decades, there has been an increase in both the use and understanding of the role video can play in teacher training and development. Video-based classroom self-observation enables teachers to formulate their own development plans based on accurate data, which allows them to delve deeper into understanding how to improve their future lessons.
Whilst the presence of an observer in a classroom can impact on the performances of teachers and learners through a ‘hawthorne effect’, thus affecting the credibility of the data collected (Wragg 2002), video-based observations provide many benefits. Indeed, having to rely on memory recall can be difficult, and for this reason, video can help capture teaching episodes by providing concrete examples of complex moments that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Video-based observations enable teachers to engage in a dialogic process of self-observation and self-evaluation in various ways. In this talk, I will discuss structured approaches for integrating peer observations with video based on the book I co-wrote with Steve Mann and Laura Baecher Using Video to Support Teacher Reflection and Development in ELT (Forthcoming 2023). I will also propose a workable framework for online teachers to implement e-classroom self-observations.
