2012 IATEFL PCE & SIG Day

Chia Suan Chong is a graduate in Communication Studies and has an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT from King’s College London. Currently running Business and General English classes, in addition to teacher training (CELTA) courses, at International House London, Chia is passionate about Dogme, Systemic Functional Grammar, Intercultural Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics. She speaks English and Mandarin as her first language, and Japanese, Italian and Spanish as her second. Active on Twitter, Chia loves a good debate and blogs regularly at chiasuanchong.wordpress.com.

Sponsored by International House London

My journey with ELF

Early discussions about ELF surrounding the codification of the lingua franca core, the preservation of speaker identity and the non-use of NS targets incited heated debates in many a staffroom. This talk aims to take you through my 6-year journey with ELF as a practitioner, the issues I had, the conversion I made, and the possible implications and lesson ideas that have arisen from recent ELF pragmatics research.

Mark Powell is a Business English coach, trainer and author. Perhaps best known for his titles in Macmillan's highly successful In Company series, his most recent publications are CUP's International Negotiations and Dynamic Presentations, which was 'highly commended' in the 2011 ESU awards. Mark regularly runs the Cert IBET at different venues throughout Europe, his own Certificate in One-to-One Language Coaching and will soon be launching The Dynamic Presenter's Workshop.

Sponsored by Cambridge University Press and IATEFL BESIG

Lean Language II: What Does Lean Mean?

In international business, there's a concept known as 'lean management'. Simply put, it means 'performance without waste', 'eliminating the superfluous', 'achieving more with less'. It means never going back to fix an error you should have avoided in the first place. Picking up from where I left off in my BESIG 2010 plenary, I'll be speculating how we could apply a similar 'stripped down' model to language training.

Session 3.1 (10.25 – 11.10) (Workshop: 45 min) Applying m-theory to m-practice: adult learners with mobile devices

An ever-increasing number of learners and teachers have mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Many are, however, not aware of their potential as fun, effective and highly practical learning tools. This workshop will focus on the impact of m-learning, or mobile learning, in adult-learner contexts and will illuminate m-learning strategies which facilitate language learning and foster learner autonomy

M-learning is an abbreviation of mobile learning. Mobile learning is the use of mobile devices, which include smartphones and tablet computers, for the purposes of learning.

Claire Hart has been teaching in-company courses in Southern Germany for the last five years. She has taught in both large multi-national companies and small family-run businesses. She currently teaches a combination of Business English, Technical English and ESP courses. She has recently joined the IATEFL BESIG Online Team and is a tech enthusiast.

Kristen Acquaviva teaches Business and Technical English in companies in both Thuringia and Bavaria. She often works with multilevel classes and groups with highly specific needs. She is a linguist by training, and enjoys incorporating technology into the language learning process.

Session 3.2 (11.45 – 12.45) (Workshop: 60 min) Rehearsals for life. Boosting performance in role-plays and presentations

In this workshop you will learn ways to help trainees develop their performance skills in role-plays and presentations.Discover how classrooms become rehearsal spaces for real situations and how appropriate preparation improves performance. I will focus on the crucial part that motivation and feedback play in reinforcing positive learning experiences and how to enhance trainees' and your own vocal presence.

Damian Corcoron has been working in TEFL for 24 years, mostly as a freelance in-company trainer in Paris, adapting authentic materials, developing learner autonomy, and providing training in presentation, meeting and negotiating skills for managers. He is also an experienced professional actor working primarily as a voiceover specialist on TV commercials, documentaries, and feature film dubbing. He has recently been working in Higher Education with Engineering and Fine Arts students.

Session 3.3 (13.45 – 14.15) (Talk: 30 min) The lessons we learn from 'sales terms and conditions'

Specific terminology and grammatical structures make sales terms and conditions a valuable resource for the acquisition of English for business and legal purposes. The talk presents the characteristics of these documents by focusing on their genre conventions, phraseological collocations and grammatical characteristics. During the talk, we also discuss the ways in which these resources can be applied in a classroom.

Nataša Gajšt MA (American Studies) is a lecturer in English at the Faculty of Economics and Business, the University of Maribor (Slovenia). In 2004, she was awarded the LCCIEB CertTEB. She has given talks at a number of domestic and international language conferences. Her professional interests lie in corpus linguistics, ESP lexicography, BE materials design and in vocabulary acquisition research.

Session 3.4 (14.30 – 15.15) (Workshop: 45 min) L+C=EC: language + culture = effective communication

Anyone teaching English in a business context is aware that teaching the language is not enough: working at companies or universities, we prepare people for the international work environment and thus are automatically teaching culture as well. It is the combination of both that makes people effective communicators. This workshop will provide some insight and exercises on that.

L stands for language, C for culture and EC for effective communication (as explained in the long version) drawing on E=MC2

Kirsten Waechter lives in Bochum, Germany, and divides her time between Germany, Scotland and Sweden. She is qualified as a trainer for International English for Business, an intercultural and diversity trainer and a chartered translator as well: “I get bored easily!” Thus the right mix is needed of teaching technical and business English at university and in companies combined with workshops on business and communication skills and intercultural issues, e.g. international team building and team leading. She is also the author of several pocket guides on business English for Cornelsen and runs seminars on teacher training. She is always pleased to share insights and ideas and can be reached at info@tailored-trainings.de.

Session 3.5 (15.50 – 16.20) (Talk: 30 min) Teaching Business English with technology in Latin America

This presentation will offer hands-on opportunities for Business English educators to explore practical ways of using technology face-to-face or online in their daily classroom activities. We will discuss how innovative ideas to incorporate web-based resources have been introduced in Latin America in order to teach Business English in our networked world.

Jennifer Verschoor Business simulations that seek to integrate content, language and skills tend to feature elaborately constructed scenarios, extensive background reading and feverish number-crunching. {I}StartUp Enterprise{I} offers a leaner and nimbler alternative. In this session, we will introduce the simulation and the teacher’s guide, and demonstrate three key techniques to help you to maximise language learning with the minimum of resources.

Session 3.6 (16.35 – 17.20) (Talk: 45 min) Developing language skills through business simulations

Business simulations that seek to integrate content, language and skills tend to feature elaborately constructed scenarios, extensive background reading and feverish number-crunching. {I}StartUp Enterprise{I} offers a leaner and nimbler alternative. In this session, we will introduce the simulation and the teacher’s guide, and demonstrate three key techniques to help you to maximise language learning with the minimum of resources.

Stephanie Ashford (BA Hons, MSc TESP) is an experienced ELT materials writer and Business English trainer working in both academic and corporate environments. She is Director of Business English at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University in Villingen-Schwenningen, and has just embarked on a doctorate in Higher Education Management (with a linguistics twist) at the University of Bath.

Tom Smith is a business English trainer based in southern Germany, where he teaches in higher education. He also writes coursebooks and other materials for vocational and higher education, and is co-director of Executive English (www.executive-english.biz), a language training and consulting organisation.

Session 3.7 (17.35 – 18.35) IATEFL BESIG Open Forum

Refreshments sponsored by Cambridge University Press and Lydbury English Centre Your chance to learn more about BESIG, to meet the committee and the 2012 BESIG facilitator scholarship winner, Jennifer Verschoor from Argentina. We will announce the winner of the Lesson Plan Competition co-sponsored by Cambridge University Press, and development of local BESIGs in the former Yugoslav states following our successful conference in Dubrovnik in 2011. We will share our plans for BESIG and welcome your suggestions and feedback.