Conference Events

DJ Kaiser, Webster University, St Louis.

What are some of the initiatives that you have taken to develop your career as an educator? In this plenary, we will explore some practical and creative ways that educators at any stage of their career (student, recent graduate, or seasoned professional) can grow in their field. Examples from English Language Teaching will be used but approaches will be applicable to any field. Come prepared to reflect and take action.

Feruza Rashidova, President of UzTEA

To preserve culture, people need to develop their languages. To preserve their national value and develop the economy, each society needs to foster the professional development of their teachers. With the globalization of the economy, finance has brought the globalization of technology into education. Today, open-source resources enable teachers to undertake in-service and preservice training in formal, unformal and informal formats. Regardless of the type of education, it is necessary that a precise framework articulates the quality of teaching and training so as to guarantee specific levels of their learners’ achievement. In this talk, frameworks of education, which inevitably include teaching, learning and assessment will be addressed.

Scott Thornbury

The acquisition of a functional vocabulary is the primary task of the second language learner. But what words, when, in what order and – crucially – how? In this talk I’ll review key research findings about vocabulary learning and discuss how they might be applied in the design and implementation of vocabulary learning activities, both in class and out of class – using some easily available and user-friendly technological tools.

Dr. Basiyr Rodney, Webster University, St Louis.

COVID 19 has disrupted the practice and delivery of public education around the world. These disruptions have created considerable challenges as well as opportunities. Challenges have been accelerated because between school closures and remote learning arrangements millions of students were forced out of school. Many of these students have not returned and many other students have fallen behind learning benchmarks. Technology has a role to play in reorienting curriculum, equalizing Instructional delivery and broadening instructional media while personalizing assessment systems. In this discussion we explore ways in which some of the big eight technologies can help to meet the recommendations of UNESCOs public action on education report.

Jennifer Law

There is an old proverb in English that says, ‘two heads are better than one’. In other words, collaborative enterprises can result in more creative and effective solutions than a person working alone. In this session we will explore the different ways in which we foster collaboration and creativity within our global ELT community. We will touch on mentoring, research projects, knowledge sharing, Coffee and Chat sessions in our Virtual Café – and more!

Jamie Keddie

Images speak to us. They give rise to outbursts of emotion, thought and curiosity. They bring back memories and remind us of experiences we have had. In an instant, an image can spark an imaginary narrative in the mind. And importantly, there are many situations which require putting these visual narratives into words. In this practical session, I would like to share an original "picture-telling" idea for the communicative language classroom.

Carole Robinson

How can we make connections between the pages of the coursebook, the demands of the curriculum and our students’ lives?

In this talk, I will look at ways to engage students in meaningful, communicative activities that relate to the coursebook and the curriculum and bring personalisation to the forefront. As well as providing a selection of useful activities, the talk will look at how adapting and creating such activities can enhance your professional development, getting you ready for the next step in your teaching career.

Alan Pulverness, TransformELT

Classroom research is a bottom-up approach to professional development, a way of empowering teachers to develop their own understanding of what happens in their classrooms. Its investigative cycle of problematising, experimenting and reflecting can enable the teacher not only to be more fully conscious of what is happening in his/her classroom, but also to develop his/her relationship to the wider educational community. This talk will outline the principles and practice of classroom research, focusing particularly on its potential in terms of teacher development.

Facilitator: James Thomas (Webster University)

In this workshop, we will explore two free, online corpus programs. Both of them are very easy to use technically. The aim of the workshop is to explore the many uses they can be put to in language education. This is not a workshop in computational linguistics, rather a practical workshop that focusses on helping students discover patterns of normal usage in language.

The key is asking questions – once that door is unlocked, there are countless linguistic paths to follow. They include the properties of words, multi-word units, collocation, colligation, example sentences, discourse, topic trails, genre studies. Every feature of language begets a language learning task. And every task involves learning through engagement and experience.

The two program we will focus on are SkELL and VersaText, both intended for use by teachers and students.

Facilitator: Maggie Dankert (Webster University)

True Colors is a self-awareness activity enabling individuals to become aware of their personality styles and how their styles interact with other team members. Each of us has a combination of the four True Colors (Orange, Gold, Green, and Blue) that make up our personality spectrum, usually with one of the styles being the most dominant. By identifying your personality (and the personalities of others), True Colors provides insights into different motivations, actions, and communication approaches.  *On-campus only; due to interactive workshop there is not an option for hybrid modality.

Facilitator: Judson Wright (U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan)

In this session, Wright will present Visible Thinking Routines, a methodology first developed through Harvard University’s Project Zero. These are short, easy-to-learn routines that support and deepen students’ thinking, improve their comprehension and connection with course material, and provide opportunities for students to communicate and share their thoughts and ideas in the classroom. Through this interactive workshop, Wright will provide attendees an opportunity to experience these routines first hand in a safe, fun environment.

Facilitator: Amirsaid Sadikov (British Council, Uzbekistan)

Today, in a period of active globalization and the emergence of a larger number of international companies with multi-branch industries and networks around the world, the need for unified and generally recognized standards is becoming especially relevant. This trend is also inherent in the professional skills of human resources, such as the knowledge of certain foreign languages, computer literacy, or other skills. In this regard, along with other organizations, the British Council, as a leading specialist with over 80 years of experience in the assessment of the English language proficiency, has developed the "Aptis" test.

This presentation will focus on the Aptis test, its types and some certain peculiarities that distinguish it from other international tests. We will also explore the structure and format of the test, the types of questions used, and get acquainted with the "Aptis" test simulator which is freely available 24/7.

At the end of the presentation we will discuss our joint partnership work in Uzbekistan and our productive cooperation with the State Testing Centre under the Cabinet of Ministers on the "Aptis for Teacher" project, which allows teachers to receive bonuses to their salaries.

Facilitator: Thomas Kleiner (Webster University)

Effective communication is elusive, content and contextualized from which meaning of the message between people is modified by abstractions, disruptions, culture, and personal experiences to name a few.  Our ability to communicate with each other is at the center of human development and social organization.  Today's messages are confounded by digital social media structures creating profound changes on how we are making sense of the world in a complex digitally interconnected world.  As we have been doing through the ages, we rely on our collective abilities to share knowledge through language, symbols, context in ways even nonverbal cues.  In this workshop we will explore our ability to think, reason, and communicate may be creating gaps in the communication process impacting human cognition in fundamental ways.  The implications of closing these "gaps of meaning" has important consequences for managers, educators, and decision-makers in their choices and options when facing challenges communicating to others.