Plenary Speakers

HEALEY, Deborah

Telling Our Stories

DigLit – Pl


Sharing stories, especially about learning and teaching online in COVID times, motivates and empowers our learners and sustains and re-energizes us as teachers. The session will offer some approaches and tools for writing and telling stories in an online environment, along with some sample stories.

Dr. Deborah Healey is the 2020-2021 Past President of the Board of Directors of TESOL International Association. An online and face-to-face language teacher and teacher educator, she writes and presents extensively internationally on appropriate use of technology in language teaching. She is fascinated by stories, especially from students and teachers.

Healey, Deborah

Reading and Writing in a Digital World

DigLit – Tk

Technology is alternately accused of destroying literacy and saving it. From Twitter and chat (short texts) to blogs and fan sites (long texts), technology can be a medium for learning and for practicing. This talk will demonstrate approaches to teaching and learning reading and writing in the digital age.

 

Sponsored by TESOL International Association and The American Embassy in Rome

MENDOZA CHIRINOS, Grazzia Maria

Social Emotional Learning: Why Teacher and Learning Well Being Matters

SEL – Pl


Social Emotional Learning (SEL), key element to consider in education. Emphasizing on providing strategies to cope with crisis and conflictive situations is important when considering teacher and learner well-being. Strategies and tools to promote SEL will be provided and participants will leave with resources that aide implementation in the field.

G.M. Mendoza Chirinos from Honduras is US State Department Alumna recognized for project development for teachers’ professional growth and has been in the field for 27 years. Research interests include CALL, CBLT and Methodological approaches to Professional Development. Currently, TESOL International Board Member and Education Specialist at USAID Honduras.

 

Sponsored by TESOL International Association and The American Embassy in Rome

PUGLIESE, Chaz

Enhancing Learning through Principled Creative Teaching (PCT).

ClassP – Pl

Creativity, the set of skills used to manufacture original, valuable teaching ideas, can be any teacher’s formidable resource. Far from being a magic fix, more creative approaches to teaching can result in the students’ increased attention and motivation thus rendering the process smoother and providing the students with a richer learning experience. In this talk, we will firstly overview the numerous reasons for PCT, and highlight in particular, the need to surprise and stimulate the students. We will then go over a few strategies anyone can use to develop their creative muscles and we will quickly take a look at a few practical classroom applications.Please note that the ideas and principles sketched out in the talk apply to teachers working online as well as in more conventional f2f contexts. 

C. Pugliese is currently Director of Education at Pilgrims, UK. Chaz has 25+ years experience working with teachers all over the world, he’s been a keynote speaker at most international conferences and has run consultancies for the British Council on many occasions. He has published numerous articles/papers in all major professional publications and has published: ‘Being Creative’ (Delta, 2010), ‘The Principles Communicative Approach’ (co-author, Helbling 2015) and ‘Creating Motivation’ (Helbling, 2017).

 

Sponsored by Pilgrims, UK

SNEDDON, Tom

New Connections: Challenges and opportunities in post-Covid 19 ELT

AMT-PL

2020 has been a year of unprecedented challenges and unexpected opportunities for the British Council in Italy. This talk begins with a summary of how our courses and programmes have been impacted by Covid-19, and then moves to explore some reflections for better teaching and learning in the “new normal”.

Tom Sneddon is Head of Adults at the British Council in Italy. At a national level, he leads the management of the adult programmes across the centres in Naples, Rome and Milan. He has worked for the British Council in Italy since 2002; after years in Naples and Rome, he is now based in Milan. Tom has an MA in Applied Educational Leadership and Management and has managed and led a wide range of educational programmes in the UK and Italy.

 

Sponsored by British Council

 

 

ZEMACH, Dorothy

Managing Your Digital Life

Tech – Pl 

Students spend hours online – reading, researching, accessing course sites and study materials, interacting in English. But they aren’t always using their digital time wisely. Without meaning to, they are frittering away minutes and hours, leaving them with the impression that they’ve worked long and hard when they haven’t actually been very productive. If they can’t organize their digital lives effectively, the information they need and the work they’ve done gets buried and then lost. And students aren’t the only ones! With the advent of online and hybrid courses, electronic communication and networking, teachers and other professionals struggle with time management, digital clutter, and evaluating and managing the flow of information. I’ll give you practical advice to streamline your own digital life as well as classroom teaching techniques to help your students manage theirs.

D. Zemach taught English, French, and Japanese for over 25 years in Asia, Africa, and the US. She holds an MA in TESL from the School for International Training in Vermont, USA. An author of over 20 textbooks, she now concentrates on writing and editing English language teaching materials and conducting teacher training workshops. In 2012, she founded a micropress (visit at http://wayzgoosepress.com) that publishes fiction, non-fiction, and educational materials. Her areas of specialty and interest are teaching writing, teaching reading, business English, academic English, testing, and humor. She is a frequent plenary speaker at international conferences, and a blogger for Teacher Talk at Azar Grammar. Her personal website is http://dorothyzemach.com

Sponsored by Macmillan Education