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Event Programme
Thessaloniki, March 5th and 6th
Develop. Grow. Succeed
Theme: Language teaching, learning and assessment practices and beliefs
DAY 1
Presenters: Kateryna Protsenko (ALS House Delta Centre), Yiannis Papargyris (PeopleCert), Greg Kavvadias (on behalf of Macmillan Education), Pola Papadopoulou (on behalf of ALS House), Maria Davou (Glossomatheia), Maria Araxi Sachpazian, Tanya Livarda (ALS House Delta)
Day 1 subjects:
09.15 – 09.50 Registration & welcome coffee
Fun and Challenging
Enroll in this hands-on, innovative event and take part in a unique, challenging learning experience. Our presenters and partners serve as facilitators in the event, guiding all attendees through academic exploration and individual learning.
09.50 – 10.00 Welcome – Opening remarks (Dr Paschalis Chliaras)
An Exceptional Learning Experience
Dr Chliaras welcomes presenters, partners and attendees to a pioneering event organised by ALS House and Macmillan Education.
10.00 – 11.00 Kateryna Protsenko (ALS House Delta Tutor) presents
Materials-light lessons revisited
ABSTRACT: In this session, we’re going to look into what we need to do to plan a materials-light lesson, how to word the questions and tasks so that they are natural, but still encourage enough language output which we can later work with, and what we actually need to do with what we hear in class. There are lots of dangers and fears lying behind all this… How do we deal with having only a loose idea of where things might go? Are we prepared to go with the flow and let the learners lead, or is there a way for us to stay in control? Let’s face those dangers together and come up with a framework and activities which can help us teach effective lessons. This session is going to involve some practice parts in which you will be asked to participate in activities, experience everything the way your students would, and plan what you would need to do as a teacher.
11.10 – 12.10 Yiannis Papargyris (PeopleCert Assessment Development Director) presents
Materials Development for Language Testing: Principles and Limitations
ABSTRACT: Materials play a pivotal role in most aspects of learning. Materials embody the aspirations of a teacher in the same way they reflect the abilities of a learner. This presentation will share an insight into the principles we follow when developing materials for standardised assessment, but it will also provide practical advice for teachers who engage in materials development and/or exam preparation.
12.10 - 12.40 COFFEE BREAK
Full of surprises
12.40 - 13.40 Greg Kavvadias ( ALS House / Macmillan Education) presents
Lifting the course book: quick and easy tips for effective and engaging reading lessons.
ABSTRACT: Does your teaching curriculum revolve around a course book? Do you have some great ideas for lessons but hesitate to implement them for fear of not "getting through" the thing? Then, join us in this hands-on, interactive workshop to discover quick and easy practical tips for supplementing and adapting your course book to make your reading lessons more enjoyable.
13.50 -14.50 Pola Papadopoulou (ALS House) presents
Combining the product and process approaches to writing to guide students towards preparing for the Cambridge (FirstfS) exams
ABSTRACT: As a productive skill, writing is a part of learning that a lot of students struggle with. A reason for this might be that the skill might be presented in a very rigid and exam-oriented way. While this helps with keeping the structure of the exam, there are ways this process might be become more varied and enriched for the students. This presentation will attempt to give a definition of the process and product approaches in writing as well as the benefits and drawbacks of each. In its more interactive part, attendees will be given the opportunity to differentiate between the two based on actual activity ideas presented. The presentation will also cover why a combination is beneficial when preparing learners for the Cambridge exams and will allow attendees to take a chance at putting part of a lesson plan together combining the two approaches.
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14.50 - 15.50 LUNCH BREAK
60-minute break
More to come
15.50 -16.50 Maria Araxi Sachpazian (CITY College) presents
Assessing Learning: Do our practices match our beliefs?
ABSTRACT: There has always been a debate amongst teachers about the place of assessment and there are instances when assessment seems controversial and separated from our course design. This has led many professionals to suggest that it is banned to make way for continuous, performance evaluation. This session aims to examine the place of assessment and discuss its connection to the material used, while looking at some common oversights.
17.00 -18.00 Maria Davou (Glossomatheia) presents
Holistic Teaching and Learning in the language classroom
ABSTRACT: This talk is about two language education programs developed in a language school in Athens, incorporating inquiry-based learning principles, adding age and level specific features. The talk will focus on the development of both Inquiring Minds (IM) and Deeper Learning (DL), their theoretical background, principles and values, their reception from the stakeholders and application results using assessment data, both from the classroom and high-stakes exams.
18.05 -19.05 Tanya Livarda (ALS House) presents
Rethinking observation and feedback as a means to feed-forward and to help teachers grow.
ABSTRACT: Have you ever thought why most teachers are afraid of being observed or why we struggle when we give feedback to our colleagues? Have you ever considered the role of observation and feedback in your school or in your workplace? A number of studies (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Randall & Thornton, 2001; Race,2018) pointed out the benefits of conducting observations and feedback sessions, with the most prominent one being to ensure quality of teaching. However, conducting observations and feedback is more than that. It is a way to help teachers grow, to improve themselves by constantly reflecting and identifying their needs. During this interactive presentation, we are going to reflect on the what, why and how we could create an observation scheme in our schools as well as why feedback matters. We are also going to identify different ways of giving both oral and written feedback by looking at practical examples. The last part of this presentation will be dedicated to how we can transform feedback to feedforward in order to ensure our colleagues' growth and professional development.
19.05 - 19.10 CLOSING REMARKS
END OF DAY 1
Our goal as educators is to spur our students’ curiosity and allow them to learn at their own pace. Get in touch with us tomorrow to learn more, or better yet, come by to experience this first-hand.
DAY 2
Presenters: Claire Steel and Sarah Smith (Eltonix), Leda Lampropoulou (PeopleCert), Greg Kavvadias (ALS House / Macmillan Education), Pola Papadopoulou (ALS House), Maria Davou (Glossomatheia), Maria Theodoridou, Eleftheria Eleftheriadou (ALS House Delta)
Day 2 subjects:
09.15 – 09.30 Welcome coffee
Fun and Challenging
Enroll in this hands-on, innovative event and take part in a unique, challenging learning experience. Our presenters and partners serve as facilitators in the event, guiding all attendees through academic exploration and individual learning.
09.30 – 09.40 Welcome – Day 2 opening remarks (Dr Paschalis Chliaras)
An Exceptional Learning Experience
Dr Chliaras welcomes presenters, partners and attendees to a pioneering event organised by ALS House and Macmillan Education.
09.40 - 10.40 Greg Kavvadias (ALS House / Macmillan Education) presents
The whys and hows of flipped classroom teaching
ABSTRACT: Learn how to transform your classroom into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where you guide your students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in language learning. This seminar will equip you with the theoretical and practical knowledge necessary to create a successful, future-proofed flipped classroom, suitable for the uncertain post-pandemic educational context.
10.50 -11.50 Pola Papadopoulou (ALS House) presents
Lesson planning and self-reflection for busy teachers + putting it all together (building a portfolio)
ABSTRACT: As a teacher myself and after discussions with fellow professionals, I see that one of the issues we have when organizing ourselves is planning and self-reflection and evaluation especially when we are so busy with the actual teaching. This interactive presentation aims at discussing the main parts of a lesson plan and preparation for teaching while putting together a lesson template. It will also tackle self-reflection and evaluation providing the attendees with checklists that they can always adapt to their needs. Moreover, we will address what a portfolio is and why we would need it as teachers as well as how to compile one.
11.50 - 12.20 COFFEE BREAK
Full of surprises
12.30 – 13.30 Leda Lampropoulou, PeopleCert Head of Assessment
Interactional Competence and the Role Roleplays Play in Speaking Exams
ABSTRACT: Speaking seldom occurs in the absence of interaction and research has shown that roleplays can allow valid inferences on the test-taker’s interactional skills. This presentation identifies the benefits and challenges of testing interactional competence and disentangles issues with teaching Speaking through the use of roleplay tasks.
13.40 - 14.40 Claire Steele and Sarah Smith ( eltonix ) present
Cognition and Challenge: Increasing the level of challenge and engagement in the Secondary Classroom
ABSTRACT To better challenge our teenage learners, and appeal to different abilities in the classroom, teachers must incorporate mastery and development tasks. ‘Tasks’ include everything you ask students to do for example, questions and answers, activities or projects.
Mastery Tasks (involving lower-order thinking skills or LOTs) are mastered by all learners in a short period of time regardless of prior learning. Developmental tasks (involving higher-order thinking skills HOTs) stretch learners and develop cognitive skills.
Reformulating teacher questions and developing our questioning skills further increases the level of challenge and better engages students. Research shows that 60% of teachers’ questions involve remembering, 20% are procedural, and only 20% encourage thinking.
Finally, encouraging learners to choose their level of challenge (rather than teachers dictating it) and reflect on their choice fosters a sense of ownership and progress.
14.40 - 15.25 LUNCH BREAK
45-minute break
More to come
15.30 -16.30 Maria Theologidou (ALS House) presents
"Hello, can anybody hear me?" - Promoting student voice in online learning environments
ABSTRACT: Student voice and the need to create learning experiences driven by our students’ interests and initiatives are not novel concepts in ELT. How easy is it though to strike a balance between student and teacher-monitored environments when the context and mode of our teaching/learning have been constantly changing over the last two years? In this session, we will discuss how student voice can be strengthened in online/blended environments and explore practical solutions that can help us shape student-centred learning spaces.
16.35 -17.35 Maria Davou (Glossomatheia) presents
How to use your Glossoobooks!
ABSTRACT: The magic of paper, its smell and touch, the magic of stories, poems and novels will be brought to life in this workshop about Glossobooks. Join us for a journey through their pages and be inspired.
17.40 -18.40 Eleftheria Eleftheriadou (ALS House) presents
Teaching very young learners; a blessing and a curse
ABSTRACT: The recent introduction of English as a foreign language in Greek pre-primary education has led to the voicing of different, and frequently contradictory, opinions. Although, as English teachers, we are aware of the benefits that early exposure to a foreign language offers, we cannot ignore the challenges entailed in such a venture. This presentation will address some of these challenges by exploring the following question: What are the learners’ characteristics that make teaching this age group unique and how may these affect our teaching? It will also give some practical ideas that can be implemented in the classroom to engage students and facilitate learning.
18.40 - 18.50 CLOSING REMARKS
END OF DAY 2
THANK YOU!
