ELT - Cambridge University Press

Cambridge Day 2007

The 7th Annual Cambridge Day, Sookmyung - Cambridge Day will be held October 20, 2007 at Sookmyung Women's University with SMU TESOL.

This is a free event open to all English teachers to participate in an informative conference with authors and experts in language teaching.

Lectures:

Charles Talcott- Putting our Teaching to the Test
Learning outcomes assessment plans are a critical component in English courses for both professionals and students. Human resource directors and head teachers need to link coursework with evaluations that demonstrate effectiveness. But how can we best blend an English language acquisition curriculum with an assessment program? What ways can we deliver a content-rich English syllabus that is coherently linked to solid, reliable assessment? This talk considers how we can “Put Our Teaching to the Test” by developing Best Practices in incorporating innovative English outcomes assessment plans into our pedagogical methods and approaches.

The talk focuses on how English assessment tests, such as the TOEIC, provide material that lends itself to some very interesting language acquisition possibilities. The critical shift here is from "teaching for" a test to "teaching from" the communicative foundation at the heart of English testing.

Leo Jones - Communication in the Classroom—Helping students to improve their speaking skills.
This lecture will explain how to encourage students to develop their speaking and listening skills by sharing ideas while participating in a wide variety of pair and group work activities and discussions and also demonstrate a number of activities. Among the questions to be discussed are: How can pair and group work help students to become good English speakers? How can we encourage shy or unmotivated students to talk in English? How can we discourage self-conscious students from worrying about making mistakes? How much do mistakes matter? When should students be corrected? How can we deal with large or noisy classes? What can go wrong? What difficulties might occur and how can we deal with them? How can we make materials work well? How can we encourage students to enjoy talking English in class?

Andy Kirkpatrick - World Englishes: Implications for the ELT Classroom
Two crucial factors need to be taken into account when considering what model of English to use in the classroom. The first is that there are now many different varieties of English. Asia is represented well, with established Bruneian, Malaysian, Filipino and Singaporean varieties of English. The second factor is that the majority of English speakers in today’s world are multilingual speakers who have learned English as a second or later language. These multilingual speakers use English as a common language – as a lingua franca - when communicating with each other. As a result, native speakers of ‘traditional’ varieties of English such as standard British or American English now represent only a small minority of English speakers. In this seminar, I shall consider these issues within the Asian context. I shall first give examples of and compare different varieties of English – both native speaker and more recent varieties. I shall explain, with examples, that the variation in newer varieties of English is far less than that found within older and traditional varieties of English. I shall then describe contexts in which multilingual speakers routinely use English as a lingua franca, drawing mainly on examples from ASEAN and East Asia. Finally I shall consider the possible implications of these issues for the future and teaching of English.

Hugo Loyola - Speaking Activities for Natural Conversations
It seems there is a general consensus that speaking is a fundamental skill in mastering a language. An important consideration is looking at speaking from a discourse analysis perspective to try to pin down the areas that are needed for learners to speak in a natural way. The objective of this presentation is to demonstrate fun tasks that were developed based on principles stemming from discourse analysis and pragmatics.

Teaching Resources at your Fingertips
This session will present up-to-date and valuable resource materials, technology, and information available to teachers today. The latest in photocopiable materials and resources both on- and off-line, tests, and extra activities. Everything needed to make teaching in the classroom easier.

SPECIAL PRIZES SPONSORED BY IRIVER!!!

Questions: please contact our office at 02) 547-2890 or cambridgeday@yahoo.co.kr