Session Reports by Maureen Boon

Juggling with gerbils - poetry off the page - Brian Patten

Tuesday 19th April 2011, 13.20 - 14.20

Teaching One-to-One: 5 ways to develop your lesson - Ingrid Wisniewska
Tuesday 19th April 10.25 - 10.55 am
 
Ingrid presented her ideas on one-to-one teaching very clearly and thoroughly in a relative short amount of time.  She told us that one-to-one teaching is an extremely popular way to learn a language but can sometimes be challenging for the teacher.
 
Ingrid defined five teacher roles within the learning situation:
1)  Conversation partner
2)  Feedback provider
3)  Observer and listener

Politeness: more than just please and thank you - Mark Hancock

Monday, 18th April, 17.50

Mark gave a fascinating talk on politeness.  He stressed that it is a way of behaving not just a stereotype and is also culturally based.

For students learning English it is important to learn how to behave politely and to understabd that politeness is not always sincere.  Mark has some good ideas for conversation schema and also for students predicting the real thoughts behind the polite behaviour. 

His key points are:

For the first time in four days I ventured out of the Brighton Centre during the day by joining one of the guided Brighton walks.  Our guide was Glenda who took us efficiently around the sights of Brighton whilst giving us lots of fascinating facts about the city.

What a night - wine, cake, stories and songs!  I never realised that conferences could be so varied and entertaining.

6.30 pm

First I went to the British Council networking reception in the Grand Hotel.  We were greeted with wine and the room was full of people - all talking.  During this session I made an attempt to find Sue Palmer (Toxic Childhood) to ask her a question and was eventually successful!

Please let me know as soon as possible.  The Q&A session is at 16.10.  It would be great if someone had a question for me to ask.

Grammar Mimes - Ben Feben: Sunday, 17th April, 13.35

This was an energetic and interactive session with lots of participant involvement.  Ben told a story about how he had acquired a scar on his hand using 5 gestures for different past tenses.  He then got the whole group to join in using the gestures. 

Good news for those people looking for international ESOL and spoken ESOL exams for visa application to the UK.  These exams have been recently approved and are also appropriate for people from both academic and  non-academic background.

These exams are not to be confused with Skills for Life ESOL exams as taken in the UK.  They are for learners to take in their own countries as a pre-requisite for visa application.  To find out more either visit the City and Guilds stand in the Exhibition Hall or www.cityandguildsenglish.com 

A thousand years of words on words, Saturday 16th April, 19.00

This was a great ending to an action packed day.  David, Hilary and Ben Crystal gave a funny, well co-ordinated performance with great panache.

They used up to 1000 years of quotes from history and literature to give a foolproof methodology on how to teach English.  For example:

Mark Twain  'Even the angels speak English with an accent.

Addison  'The English delight in silence more than any other nation.'

David gave a very interesting talk on storytelling which has been reviewed by my fellow roving reporter - Elizabete.  David is also running an evening event on Sunday 17th from 19.30 to 21.00 and would like to welcome everyone to come along and take part either by telling stories or listening to them.  During his talk he spoke about one of his students from Nigeria who felt isolated from the rest of her class and was too shy to join in a story telling evening which all the students were participating in.  David decided to tell a story from Nigeria on her behalf.  Later s

I was sitting in one of the two addtional syndicate rooms which had been opened because there was no room in the main area for all 2000 plus delegates.  It was amazing - the room was full to overflowing with people sitting on the floor or perching themselves on tables.  I was straining to see one of the two live video screens and/or the two Powerpoint screens.

Peter asked:  What is language for? Answer:  To communicate.

Peter asked:  To communicate what precisely.......?

He considered three hypotheses:

Philida said that her learners are 'revving to go.  They want their English so badly!'

Bev Davies explained to me that ES(O)L consists of ESL plus ESOL (i.e. English as a Second Language – USA and English for Speakers of Other Languages – UK). The (O) also represents a globe and is a symbol of internationalism. Simples!!

This was the last activity for the ES(O)L SIG at the end of a long day.  Bev and Elaine made this a highly intTeractive and fun session with all of us participating in a number of activities of the kind to which we subject our learners.  I met and had conversations with more people during this session than I had had the rest of the day!