MELTA

Tech Talk March
2021-03-20 14:30 - 17:00 (Europe/Berlin)
Why do we call it “hardware”? Because it’s hard to choose and hard to use, or so it seems sometimes. If you want to make a better impression in your virtual live sessions, but haven’t yet found the right equipment, this Tech Talk is for you. We’ll be talking about picture and sound quality, and other factors that influence the way you come across in virtual meetings. And if you’ve already found equipment that makes you look and sound great, please join in and share your discoveries with everyone else.

This Tech Talk will be moderated by our member, Mike Allison, a business English trainer who loves virtual training. He has spent many hours trawling the internet for suitable hardware, but still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. Definitely not a gear geek, he would like to use our time together to share experiences, talk about best practice and, hopefully, come up with recommendations that will help everyone.

Register with: events@elta-rhine.de

When Journalism Meets Language Teaching
2021-03-20 14:00 - 16:15
In 1981, Spotlight magazine was founded with the aim of helping German-speaking learners to improve their English via journalistic content that was more up-to-date and entertaining than course books and also more accessible than regular English-language media.
Forty years later, Spotlight Verlag is part of the ZEIT Publishing Group in Hamburg and publishes six magazines for language learning, including Business Spotlight, which celebrates its 20th birthday in March 2021.
In this workshop, Business Spotlight editor-in-chief Ian McMaster will look at ways in which journalistic and pedagogical elements are combined to aid the acquisition of language and communication skills. He will also discuss practical ways of using Business Spotlight in your teaching/training.
For more details and to register, click here!

Reduce, reuse, recycle – using technology to improve efficiency
2021-03-13 14:00 - 17:00
Being efficient and effective – this is the goal of many teachers. Technology can help, but good organisation is key. When planning or creating lessons, we should ensure we get the most out of everything we do. Take inspiration from the environmental mantra ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle’ – reduce the amount of time we spend looking for materials, reuse the materials we love or create ourselves, recycle students’ contributions to use as future lesson content.
For more details and to register, click here!

Grammar Q & A with Scott Thornbury
2021-03-13 11:00 - 13:00
The role of grammar in overall language proficiency (central or peripheral?), the best way to teach it (e.g. explicitly or implicitly?), and even its very nature (e.g. patterns, structures or constructions?) are issues that continue to engage teachers, course designers and materials writers. In this interactive webinar I invite you to pose your own questions about the teaching and learning of grammar and I will attempt to answer them.
For more details and to register, click here!

Put it another way: developing learners' vocabulary beyond a comfortable core
2021-03-06 14:00 - 17:00
At lower levels, it makes sense to teach a core vocabulary based around the most frequent 2000- 3000 words, but beyond that where do we go? Many students develop a core productive vocabulary that allows them to operate within their comfort zone and although their receptive vocabulary continues to grow, the range of words and phrases they actually use often stagnates.
For more details and to register, click here!

Creating the right impression
2021-02-27 14:00 - 17:00
Impression management is about how we seek to look and sound good when we interact with other people. Successful communicators know how to do this, and use specific language and techniques in order to create the right impression.
The workshop will be in two parts. First we will examine what we mean by impression management and look at its relevance to us in our own roles as teachers. What techniques can we use to make sure that we give the right impression as we interact with our clients, colleagues and learners?
Second, we will look at activities which we might adapt for use in our own teaching contexts, and consider whether or not teaching such impression management skills and language is part of our role as language teachers.
For more information and to register, click here!

Managing conflict
2021-02-20 14:00 - 16:30
Many of us may find it challenging to deal with conflict proactively because we lack fundamental conflict management and resolution skills. Conflict is a natural part of our lives, and, probably, we learned the strategies we do have before the age of 7…
This workshop will offer a range of tools and useful skills to help you handle conflict more effectively, dealing with questions like: What is conflict? What are the common causes of conflict? How do we navigate the intersection of logic and emotion? How can we avoid argument traps?
For more information and to register, click here!

Wordwall workshop: Custom activities for your classroom
2021-02-20 10:00 - 12:00, 2021-02-06 10:00 - 12:00
Since language classes have been forced to move online, we’ve been confronted with so many tools claiming to be the one tool you need for your classroom or course. From Kahoot!, Miro, Padlet, Quizlet and Wordwall, how do we know which tool to use? Is it really worth paying for a subscription for any particular tool, and if so, which subscriptions are good investments?
This interactive two-part workshop is going to take a look at Wordwall. In the first session we are going to look at how Wordwall can be used both in online as well as face-to-face classes. This is important as we want to invest in something not just for the present situation, but also for a time when we return to classroom teaching. We are going to look at the types of activities you can create, go through the basics of Wordwall and create your account and possibly, first activity. In the follow-up session, you will have the opportunity to share your own Wordwall activities with the group, test other activities and give and receive feedback on these.
No extensive knowledge or experience is needed. All you need to bring is your enthusiasm to try something out and your willingness to share your experiences. It would help if you could familiarise yourself with the Wordwall website in advance. You do not have to attend both sessions but if you are new to Wordwall, do try to attend them both. We will be working with Zoom and you’ll get the best out of the workshop if you join the meeting on your laptop or computer.
Khanh-duc Kuttig was thrown into a very challenging teaching situation when her university went online in April 2020. From never having heard of Zoom, she zoomed her way through 15 weeks of the summer semester, bumbling at first but with much encouragement and enthusiasm from her students, she taught 8 classes a week entirely online. Now in her second semester of full online teaching, Khanh-duc is honing her digital skills and is actually enjoying being able to teach from home. She has taken numerous courses in online teaching and learning and believes that once you know the basics of any programme, software or platform, it can be a valuable teaching tool. Khanh-duc is also the events co-ordinator for ELTA-Rhine and TESOL’s 2021 Teacher of the Year.
To register, please send an e-mail to info@melta.de

Dogme in ELT
2021-02-13 14:00 - 17:00
Born from an article written by Scott Thornbury almost exactly 21 years ago which sparked the emergence of a global, grassroots collective counter-movement against both the prevailing waste and excess in ELT courseware and the lack of genuine conversation in classrooms, 2021 is – literally – the year in which Dogme ELT, also known as Teaching Unplugged, comes of age.
What better time, then, to look back a little at the roots of this … what, exactly? This movement, this mindset, this method? What better time to take stock of where we are now, in this radically disrupted point in the history of our profession, and ask ourselves how, despite – or perhaps precisely because of – current pressure to embrace technology and tools to “deliver learning”, an analog approach like Dogme ELT is more relevant today than ever.
For more information and to register, click here!

The Pilgrims Café
2021-02-13 14:00 - 16:00
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How to Learn from Communicative Activities
2021-02-13 09:30 - 12:30
The excitement generated by the arrival of the Communicative Approach all those years ago included attention to activities in which students had a communicative purpose, focused on content rather than language form, and encouraged students to use all and any language at their disposal. But how useful are such activities in reality? Do they genuinely help students to ‘get’ new language items or even practise previously encountered grammar and lexis? In this talk we will revisit the concept of communicative activities and try to see how to re-fashion them so that they are communicative learning activities.
For more details and to register, click here!

Resources & ideas for teaching English to children
2021-01-30 14:00 - 16:30
This event will provide a large variety of ideas & tips on how to teach English to young children, as well as an introduction to the Young Learners series and resources by Cambridge English and Cambridge University Press.
Click here for all the details, and to register!

Online workshop: Developing Resilience in our Personal and Professional Life
2021-01-30 10:30 - 13:30
From Klett Sprachen: In cooperation with MELTA we are delighted to invite you to our online workshop “Developing Resilience in our Personal and Professional Life” with Patricia de Griese, on Saturday, 30th January 2021, from 10:30 to 13:30. The workshop will take place via zoom.
Please sign up for the workshop by sending an email to: veranstaltungsservice@klett-sprachen.de
Click here to see all the details about the workshop
