This year, we are taking our annual ELT conferences online! So regardless of whether you are in Madrid, Barcelona, Palma, Valencia, Bilbao or anywhere else for that matter, you will be able to join us for a day of teacher professional development and empowerment.
The British Council is celebrating 80 years in Spain this year and in our 80th year, life and ways of working are a little different. What hasn’t changed is our continued commitment to the development and growth of teachers across Spain and beyond.
Our Teaching for Success conference this year will be held on Saturday 26th September and the theme is Future-Proof Learning. How do we prepare our students (and ourselves) for the unexpected and the unknown? There will be a range of sessions that will give you practical ideas and strategies to integrate into your teaching, whether you teach Early Years, Primary, Secondary or adults.
All talks will be delivered online and we will be publishing the full programme closer to the date of the conference. We look forward to seeing you there.
TIME |
SESSION |
| 10AM |
Opening.Mark Howard (British Council Director, Spain) |
| 10AM - 11AM | I wonder….?. Lesley Keast |
| Acceptance and Commitment Therapy-based training for teacher well-being and self-care. Fiona Mitchell |
|
| 11:10AM - 12PM | Professional Resilience for Teachers. Andrew McMullen |
| The Power of Habits: When to make and break them. Sam Inder |
|
| Reconsidering classroom management strategies: the impact of traditional reward systems on classroom relationships. Gaia Lambert |
|
| Virtual Hall | Visit the Virtual Hall |
| 12:30PM - 1:30PM |
Plenary: Strategies for Digital Learning and Teaching
Graham Stanley |
| 1:40PM - 2:30PM | Understanding and Assessing L2 Speaking Dr Victoria Clark |
| Motivational strategies – Keeping students engaged in real and virtual classrooms. Joanna Dossetor |
|
| 4PM - 4:50PM | Time to Think: Putting Our Beliefs to the Test. Joan Free |
| Pre-Literacy skills: Phonological Awareness through musical activities and songs. Nuria M Moriarty |
|
| Helping students and teachers to focus through practising mindfulness. Nicola McGrath |
|
| 5PM - 5:50PM | Using technology to engage students in their learning. Vasanti Ramdeen |
| Practical ideas to engage young learners in the ‘virtual classroom’. Hazel Bowen |
|
| Using podcasts with language learners for receptive and productive skills. Craig Wealand |
Confirmed plenary: Graham Stanley
Confirmed Speakers
Joanna Dossetor
Jo Dossetor is a teacher and teacher trainer, with over 20 years of teaching experience in Spain and Chile. She has recently completed an MA in Professional Development for Language Education. She currently works as a Senior teacher for Partner schools and Secondary courses at the British Council Barcelona. She is interested in best practice in YL teaching, and in teachers’ professional development.
Motivational strategies – Keeping students engaged in real and virtual classrooms (Secondary - Adults)
Keeping teenage and adult students engaged in class is key to their learning. The word ‘motivation’, which is derived from both ‘emotion’ and ‘drive’, is also intrinsic to this concept of engagement. What are the key strategies for the teacher’s motivational toolbox? In this talk, we will discuss various ideas and approaches, drawing on the work of Zoltán Dörnyei in this area, among other writers. Participants will go away with some practical ideas to put into practice in both online and ‘real’ classrooms.
Lesley Keast
Lesley Keast is the Qualifications Manager for the British Council in Spain, and teaches primary age children. She has taught on the MA TESOL at the University of Alcala since 2009 and has been part of the Granny Cloud project since 2014, working with young children online in India.
‘I wonder….?’ (Primary and Secondary)
Teaching online has provided many challenges, but also opportunities about how we can capitalise on learners’ access to the internet to learn.
In the session we will look at the development of the ‘I wonder…?’ project which takes ideas from the School in the Cloud and the Granny Cloud into online classrooms, where teachers can tap into children’s natural curiosity about the world and learners can develop their digital literacy skills and learner autonomy. We will look at ways to set this up in online classes and how to avoid some pitfalls of information searching and ensure learners work together.
Fiona Mitchell
Fiona Mitchell is currently Global Commercial Development Manager, Global Assessments, based at British Council Spain. Originally an English teacher, she has held several roles in educational leadership with the British Council in Spain, Portugal and Italy. She holds a Diploma and Master’s Degree in TESOL, and is also a certified coach, with this being her other main area of interest. With her current focus on supporting international teams, Fiona is currently on an MSc in Coaching and Behavioural Change. People and their well-being are a passion for Fiona and are an integral part of her work.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy-based training for teacher well-being and self-care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an evidence-based therapeutic model also adopted in coaching and workplace training. It is effective for helping attenuate the effects of e.g. stress, anxiety and burnout, especially for those in caring and frontline professions. This session provides a theoretical overview and practical guidance on the adapting the model for inset training. The presenter, who has specialised in ACT, will draw on research and her own case studies to suggest how the model can support well-being for teachers and other staff, inside and outside the classroom. This session is relevant to those interested in well-being and self-care for themselves and for others.
Nuria M Moriarty
Bi-lingual background. I have worked in Early Years education for the last 12 years, I love it and I still have so much to learn! I have a degree in Communication and Advertising, Master's in Educational Television and luckily my life took a turn and I specialized in Early Years Education (QTS, Diploma of Educational Studies in Early Childhood Development)
Pre-Literacy skills: Phonological Awareness through musical activities and songs (Early Years)
Reading is a big milestone in the life of a child. But just as children need to build their muscles and body before they walk, they also need to build their phonological awareness and their oral language before they start reading. This is an engaging and fun stage of their language development and spending quality time at it, will pay off when the child is ready.