White Xmas with Thomson & CenterCom!

New titles from Thomson ELT ...

You can download Hugh Dellar's lectures at this event here:

Teaching Grammar Better
Taboo or not Taboo: That's in the Question 

Before reading the scenario, please, take a note that at this event we will also announce the following:
- Hugh Dellar's International Summer School at Lake Baikal (July 2007)

14:00: Greetings from Santa Claus and Snow Maiden
In their short session, Santa Claus and Snow Maiden will not only sing Xmas Carols with you, dear Teachers. Of course, they will have Huge (not to be confused with Hugh) gifts but ... only for those of you, who will be the first to answer one of the five questions. The questions will be published on this website on 1st December, 2006, alongside with the description of the gifts. The key to being able to answer these questions correctly is to thoroughly study Innovations Advanced Student's Book, which many of you should have as a free gift anyway.

Question 1:	Find 10 idioms starting with the word 'I'.	Gift 1:	............
Question 2:	In which units does it talk about: (a) being very sprightly? (b) getting into a right mood? (c) pre-emptive strikes? (d) being past it? (e) dashboards?	Gift 2:	............
Question 3:	What is: (a) an old fogey? (b) GBH? (c) the gutter press? (d) a boob job? (e) a draft dodger?	Gift 3:	............
Question 4:	Find 5 commonly used sentences containing the word 'would'.	Gift 4:	............
Question 5:	Find 6 sentences from six different pages that you could use when you're angry.	Gift 5:	............

14:15: Hugh's 1st Prayer
Teaching Grammar Better
Abstract: The idea that grammar is best taught through endless Present-Practise-Produce lessons still dominates our profession. In this talk, I will be exploring why students still struggle to use grammar despite studying it for so long, and suggesting ways in which we can start to teach grammar better. The vast majority of students spent countless hours studying grammar  forms and meanings and doing practice exercises and activities.  Nevertheless, despite all this work, most still struggle to put all  this knowledge into effective practice. In this talk, I will be suggesting that the kind of PPP (Present, Practise, Produce) lessons that still dominate EFL teaching materials are actually part of the problem, and that if we really want students to use the grammar they study, we need to start teaching grammar differently - and teaching it better. I shall be proposing that this involves thinking much more about how grammar is actually used in the real world; doing away with the tyranny of studying structures in glorious isolation from each other; ensuring much more frequent recycling of grammatical structures within examples of everyday conversations and doing different things with different kinds of grammar at different levels.

15:15: Xmas News from Thomson ELT
- New Thomson Learner's Dictionaries
- New Thomson Primary Courses
- New Thomson Secondary Courses
- New Thomson Exam Material
- New Thomson Readers

16:00: Hugh's 2nd Prayer
Taboo or Not Taboo? That's in the Question
Abstract: In writing and training, I have found that so-called taboo subjects and language are often censored in the name of cultural diversity. I argue it is really a case of cultural stereotyping and infantalising students. ‘Taboos’ are not taboo when teachers focus on language and help students talk for themselves. This is a talk partly about writing Innovations but is as much about what is not in it as what is. I look at the kind of language which is not allowed, and a text which we were forced to change and the arguments we were given – principally, that it may be offensive, and imposes culture on the teachers and students. I argue these comments actually stem from stereotyped images of foreigners, liberal imperialism and a seeing the diversity that separates us rather than the common humanity that links us. I suggest some ways as writers we have tried to combat this, through providing the language to challenge stereotyping and the space for students to respond to texts. I will also show through quotations from students in my class how they break out of their stereotypes and how teachers can help their students to do this through principled language pedagogy.

Вернуться к плану мероприятий...