AI fireside
2025-02-20 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Informal online event to learn about, discuss and share practical ideas on AI topics:

Short talk on latest news/developments – James

Q&A – attendees and James. What would you like to know/ understand better/ make better use of?
Our experiences and thoughts – everyone

Thursday 20th February 19:00 – 20:00
Register HERE link. Then you will receive the link to the Zoom call by email.

Business English Evolution - Key takeaways from BESig Malta 2024
2025-03-06 19:30 - 21:00
The 37th Annual IATEFL BESIG Conference, held in Malta from November 22 to 24, 2024, centered on the theme “Business Frontiers – Creating the Future Together.” The conference addressed five key topics:

Business English learning technologies: AI, online teaching, platforms, tools, and resources.
Teaching practices: Transferable activities, learning strategies, and best practices from the
Business English classroom. Future-proofing our industry and our clients’ jobs: Marketability, well-being, and employability.
Sustainability: The role of Business English in promoting positive social change, inclusivity, and sustainable practices.
Global world: Managing multicultural business and classroom environment.

Approximately 20% of the conference content focused on AI and technical skills, while the remaining 80% emphasized human-centered soft skills. This highlights the growing importance of mastering professional communication and intercultural competence—now more essential than ever for trainers.
How do you, as a trainer, integrate these skills into your lessons?
In this webinar, I will provide a concise summary of the key takeaways from the BESIG Malta Conference. This will be followed by a panel discussion, interactive role-playing activities, and shared experiences to deepen our understanding and to solidify our expertise.
Register here

PRICING Q & A FOR FREELANCE TEACHERS AND TRAINERS
2025-04-05 14:00 - 16:00
Pricing is a topic that challenges many freelance language professionals. In this webinar, we want to help you with your pricing problems.
To make the session as relevant as possible, we will be addressing your specific questions. When you register for the webinar, let us have your questions on the topic. What do you want to know about pricing? What do you have most difficulty with? What do you want to improve?
We’ll take the most common questions and work together to bring you answers that you can apply to your specific work situation.
In his first career, Mike Allison learned how to consistently quote higher prices than the competition and still book the work. Since switching to business English training, he continues to be fascinated by pricing dynamics and its role in the sales process.
Register here

IATEFL highlights
2025-05-16 17:30 - 19:30

Think like Leonardo Da Vinci and teach your students too!
2025-05-17 10:30 - 12:00
In this interactive, experiential webinar we will study and practice the seven Da Vincian principles so that you can try them out yourself with the intention of taking them into your language classroom to help your students develop their own creative thinking in English. The session will be largely interactive with very little theory. We will be DOING!!!!
To register: https://eltaf.de/future-events/

Canva ELT materials: create smarter, teach better
2025-05-24 11:00 - 13:00

Talking pictures with Robert Kirstein
2025-06-14 10:30 - 12:00
Activities revolving around texts and audios are commonplace in language classrooms. But do we really exploit the full potential of the many great visuals available in our materials? In this webinar we’ll be taking to heart the old saying ‘A picture is worth a 1000 words’ by exploring the various possibilities pictures and illustrations provide. We’ll be focussing on ways in which you can use images to help consolidate and expand your students’ vocabulary and grammar. You’ll have the chance to try out a range of activities based on photos and illustrations in various course books, and which you can adapt for use with other materials. Come along, enjoy English, enjoy pictures and enjoy yourselves!
To register: https://eltaf.de/future-events/

GMF conference 2025
2025-10-10 - 2025-10-11
GMF Bayern e.V.
Gesamtverband Moderne Fremdsprachen Bayern
Save the date: GMF conference 2025, at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Nuremburg on October 10-11, 2025
GMF is an association dedicated to modern language teaching. This year’s conference is focused on the topic “Quality assurance in foreign language teaching in times of teacher shortages”.

There will be keynote speeches, workshops and plenty of opportunities for exchanging ideas and networking

Updates on the programme will be published in due time at: https://gmf-bayern.de

ELTABB online workshop: Cut the Noise: Turning your clients into clear communicators with Vicky Margari
2025-10-11 10:00 - 12:00
In today’s hybrid workplaces, even highly skilled professionals can struggle with unclear emails, endless back-and-forth and miscommunication across channels. We trainers often try to address these challenges by telling, explaining and teaching. But real transformation takes more than that. In our role, we are in a unique position to give our clients more than just language lessons. We can empower them with insights and tools to work better together.
In this online workshop, you will:

try out practical activities for building clarity in digital communication, including helping clients identify and cut noise in their daily work,
discover strategies to help clients choose the right channels and habits, so messages are delivered and received with greater impact and efficiency,
collaborate with fellow trainers to address real workplace communication challenges, sharing ideas and adapting approaches for different contexts.

You’ll walk away with a toolkit of ideas and approaches to partner with your clients as they reflect, challenge assumptions and transform how they communicate at work.

Bio:
Vicky Margari spent two decades in hospitality, customer service and insurance, leading teams, before moving into business English training. Although she was steeped in language rules from an early age and is still a bit of a language nerd, her business background taught her that the real communication issues professionals face go far beyond language. Vicky’s mission is helping virtual teams communicate more clearly and confidently across digital channels in today’s multi-communicating, fast-changing work environments.

ELTABB members: free. Please RSVP on the Ning.
Other ELTA members: free. Email events@eltabb.com to get the link
Non-members: €10. Email events@eltabb.com to book your place

38TH ANNUAL IATEFL BESIG CONFERENCE
2025-11-07 - 2025-11-09
38TH ANNUAL IATEFL BESIG CONFERENCE
Location: President Hotel, Kifisias 43, Athens, Greece
Date: November 7-9, 2025
Theme: Business Unusual – Rethinking Business English for a Changing World
Registration at: https://www.iatefl.org/event-details/#/?id=674
(Early bird registration until September 15, 2025)
Hotel reservations: Delegates can book rooms at the President Hotel at a discounted rate by using the code IATEFL25 on the hotel’s website
Further information is available at: www.iateflbesig.org

Online Workshop: Teacher Well-Being with Christine Muir Sat 15th Nov 10am-12pm
2025-11-15 10:00 - 12:00
How do you define good teacher well-being?
What does good teacher/professional well-being mean or look like to you?
This two-hour workshop will support you to articulate your own answers to these questions – and going a step further, it will also help you to develop tangible and immediately actionable steps to increase your professional well-being.
We will begin by exploring key conceptualisations and definitions of well-being, building on this to support an initial well-being health check up. Developing understandings about exactly what we mean when we talk about ‘well-being’ is key to maximising positive change.
The workshop will support you in developing a personalised job demands ‘resource-model‘ by considering both the costs of your role and the physical, social, organizational and psychological resources available.
We will finish by exploring possibilities of ‘job crafting’ – how you can craft task, relational and cognitive aspects of your role to better align with your personal strengths, needs and interests.
As experts in your professional context, this highly participatory workshop will facilitate opportunities to both share your experiences and to learn from others.

Bio
Christine Muir is an Assistant Professor in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Nottingham. Drawing on her broad background as an English language teacher, her research interests remain highly applied. They are rooted in the broad field of language learning psychology and focus particularly on language learner motivation and language teacher well-being.
Christine has published widely, in handbooks, edited volumes and journals. She is also an active member of the international teaching and research community. She currently sits on the Executive Board of the International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning.

How to join:
ELTABB members: free. Please RSVP on the Ning.
Other ELTA members: free. Email events@eltabb.com to get the link.
Non-members: €10. Email events@eltabb.com to book your place.

Canva ELT branding: create smarter, reach further
2025-11-29 14:00 - 16:00
Click here to register

HELTA SWAP SHOP: BESIG HIGHLIGHTS
2026-01-31 10:00 - 12:00

Using AI in the humanistic language classroom
2026-02-21 15:00 - 17:00
The true power of AI in ELT lies in hyper personalisation, which allows us to stop teaching ‘classes’ and start teaching individuals by creating unique, real-time learning pathways for every single student. AI has the ‘potential’ to be an enormous force for good within education. It also has the ‘potential’ to do enormous harm. How that potential is realised depends on our ability to help our students understand and negotiate how to use it wisely. As educators this isn’t a process we should abstain from but a responsibility we should engage with. Or should we be concerned that our profession is sleep walking towards an AI induced crash in human values? How can we ensure we use AI to promote our humanistic approaches in English language teaching and training?
To join please send an email to info@pilgrims.co.uk and they will send you the zoom link to join the panel discussion.

ELTAF Webinar: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Time-Saving Tips for Busy Teachers with Laura Edwards
2026-02-28 10:00 - 13:00
Achieving both efficiency and effectiveness is a challenge for many teachers, especially freelancers who are often not compensated for planning time. Technology can help, but managing resources can quickly become overwhelming. In this interactive online session, we’ll explore strategies to streamline your teaching and make better use of the time and materials you already have.
Click here for more details

Write It. Notice It. Say It. Learner Diaries in Business English
2026-03-11 19:30 - 21:00
An interactive workshop on using short diary tasks to connect writing, noticing and speaking in business English.
Business English teachers often work with time-poor learners in a range of contexts, including offices, online lessons, one-to-one and small groups.
In this interactive online workshop, Lucy Tilney explores how a learner diary approach can be adapted to support noticing, grammar, pronunciation and spoken fluency, even within real-world constraints. Participants will leave with practical ideas they can apply immediately in their own teaching.
click here to register

ELTAF Webinar: Building Bridges – Engaging Activities for Enhancing Cultural Agility with Ridha Mejri
2026-03-14 10:00 - 12:00
The world of business English is intrinsically linked to effective communication across diverse national cultures. Mastering this skill is vital for anyone involved in international business. In this dynamic workshop, participants will delve into the realm of intercultural training through engaging and practical activities that they can later implement with their clients/students.
Click here to find out more

SNAPSHOTS OF LEARNING – Refective tools to notice and nurture emergent language with Lewis Jaquest
2026-03-21 14:00 - 17:15
Click here to watch the podcast episode ‘The Power of Emergent Language in the ELT Classroom | Lewis Jaquest’
Working responsively with emergent language can feel challenging or even overwhelming when teachers want to be both credible and confident in the moment. Snapshots of Learning presents teachers with a set of practical, sustainable reflective tools designed to help them notice and nurture emergent language more effectively. Drawing on insights from the first beta run of the Emergent Language Toolkit course, this workshop introduces simple but powerful strategies and tools that support real-time decision-making and foster sustainable learning. Participants will explore a range of interactive, easy-to-adapt activities including reflective warmers, micro-review cycles and tracking tools that make learner language visible and give teachers clear next steps for developing it. By the end of the workshop, teachers will leave with a suite of ready-to-use reflective tools that boost confidence, support reactive teaching and help learners take charge of their own progress.

Saturday 21 March 14:00 – 17:15 on Zoom
Free for members of ELTAU or other German ELTA
30€ for external guests
Register here by 10 March 2026

About the speaker

Lewis Jaquest has worked in ELT since 2007 and now runs wordsmithery.elt, where he helps teachers become more credible, confident and sustainable in the way they work with emergent language. His approach blends practical tips, creative tools and reflective strategies that support real-time noticing and responsive teaching.
Following his IATEFL 2025 presentation on the Emergent Language Toolkit, Lewis has just completed the first beta run of the accompanying teacher course, guiding a cohort of experienced teachers through frameworks and hands-on practices for working creatively with learner language.
He also writes The Creative Business, a monthly newsletter for teachers exploring reflective tools for noticing and nurturing emergent language and ways to build sustainable, confidence-rich teaching habits.
