Pete Sharma Associates

We are delighted to announce the launch of our latest eBook, Apptivities for business English.

At the back of the Teachers’ book, you get a CODE to pass on to your students so they can download a copy of the Students’ book!

http://the-round.com/resource/apptivities-for-business-english/

You can buy the book on Amazon or Smashwords. Smashwords provides versions for a range of different eBook formats.

You can download a sample if you want to have a look!

Tell your students about the ideas in the student’s book!

Enjoy!

I scoured the Rich List at the weekend, looking for my name. Sadly, I failed to find it but found many others…from Abramovitch to McCartney. Fascinating reading, as ever…

For the full e-lesson blog, with ideas for classroom discussion and links, visit:

http://www.businessenglishonline.net/resources/in-company-second-edition-resources/elessons/

Delighted to read this resource. It is available as a free .pdf

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/C526_Blended%20learning_FINAL_web%20only.pdf

I was also amazed to read the introduction – we are quoted a good number of times.

Made up for the fact that I couldn’t get into the session at IATEFL Liverpool as it was already full!

I really enjoyed giving the talk

Dealing with differentiation in Business English teaching

with Louis Rogers for Richmond last week at IATEFL, Liverpool.

Great to see so many familiar faces in the audience.

As promised, the Bibliography.

Handout

Epigeum. It’s not a name that will automatically be familiar to those of you who know the old faces of UK ELT, but it’s about to launch a brand-new suite of EAP courses for Universities using a radical collaborative publishing model – which makes it a very exciting place to be for HEIs (Higher Education Institutions).

Epigeum has actually been around for a while; it’s a spin-off from Imperial College London, and up until now has published a range of wholly online courses for university teaching and management, which are aimed at blended delivery. According to their website, 65% of UK HE institutions have purchased their courses, including 95% of Russell Group members and 9 of the top 10 UK universities.

The unique aspect of Epigeum’s offer is that they don’t just throw a product together and hope it sells. Instead, everything they produce is a collaboration between leading institutions and specially-commissioned authors and advisers. Technical development is managed in-house – the final product is then deployed on each institution’s own LMS, so no need to mess with annual contracts, subscriptions and multiple logons, the bugbear of third-party products like Macmillan English Campus and English360.

The process kicks off with invitations to participate sent out to key prospective partners, and leads to a workshop (often held at Imperial) where the basic framework of the programme is discussed and the outline is finalised. The company then commissions the materials, all of which are peer-reviewed on the go by the consortium. The end result is a product which truly reflects the needs of higher education, and which enables the consortium members to obtain a finished, class-leading product which would be excessively costly otherwise, both in terms of financing and staff time.

Epigeum has just launched its latest collaboration, English for Academic Studies (if the link is broken paste http://www.epigeum.com/component/programmes/?view=programme&programme=73 in your browser) - a comprehensive blended programme which, judging by the outline on its website, should be of massive interest to all universities and places of higher learning  including international  business schools. Not only will the (limited number) of consortium participants have an outstanding, appropriate educational tool at the end of the process, but they will also have the opportunity to network with other major international institutions.

Epigeum is to be congratulated on putting together a proposition which eschews the usual EAP book-based model and which is driven by peers, not publishers. Check it out.

Oh – and one of the lead advisers is our very own Pete Sharma!

Byron

The amazing Roadshow has come to an end. Wow. What an experience…… could I ever forget……:

Jujuy….how do you PRONOUNCE it? spell it? agonising over whether a carnivore should or shouldn’t eat cuddly animals llike llamas…can you resist llama kidneys in white wine……

Salta….agonising over whether sucking coca leaves is (or isn’t) legal….

Running (by the grace of heavenly powers, and the kindness of Maria Jose) a session from the Universidad Catolica for a conference in Madrid

Tucuman….hot,hot,hot….taping a polystyrene makeshift screen to the wall, and the world’s cutest projector…

Santiago del Estero….and the reaction to us ordering a taxi in the rain….“A taxi! ha ha – sorry, it’s RAINING!!!!” (Can you imagine that in England ha ha)

……or asking what time a restaurant will open….’Nueve y algo….” (My favourite time: neuve y algo. Can you imagine that in Germany?)

And finally, Cordoba….ten minutes before the plenary and the door is locked and you haven’t hooked up the MacAir to the projector – but am I worried? worried I am not. It’s Argentina time…..hang loose and all will be well…..and it was!

Wonderful memories of superb organsiation (thanks, Calum), great co-trainers (Ricardo / Rosa; Ceci; Ana; Lucia and Jen); sharing and input….

Here are my plenaries as Handouts:

Plenary 1 -plenary1

Plenary 2 -plenary2

Nice travelling out with Nik Peachy, and meeting Nicky Hockly and Gavin Dudeney on the way back. a truly amazing professional (and life-enhancing) experience. Thanks, British Council.

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying preparing sessions for the British Council Roadshow in Argentina and learning a lot about Social Media. I’ve just joined Instagram and Pinterest…….

The latest e-lesson blog from Macmillan is on Pinterest, and possible applications in the business world. You can download it here:

http://www.businessenglishonline.net/resources/in-company-second-edition-resources/elessons/

It might inspire you to join the social meeting site that is so much in the news at the moment! Enjoy – hope you find it (er) Pinteresting….

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was attending this conference in Madrid this weekend (9 February 2013) in person, and Pete was hoping to do his presentation from a computer in Argentina. I was very much hoping that everything worked, as doing somebody else’s presentation is not easy. The night before the conference, we were still unsure where Pete would do his presentation from. The hotel connection was too poor, so he was going to take up an offer from a student of his in Argentina to use the broadband at her home (at least that was how he explained it!). In the end, he was able to use the facilities at the local Catholic university. In the meantime, we had arranged that we would do a test at 2.15 Madrid time in the lunch break. After 45 minutes with the willing and able assistance of Gerry Lerner, we finally managed to get an Internet connection on my laptop – the login page for the hotel didn’t like Firefox! After that, technically it went perfectly, and the immediate response to the talk was very positive as well. I had to disconnect the sound and the projector from the laptop quite quickly to allow us all to make generally celebratory noises because it had been such a success!

When I write all, I must make special mention of Cornelia Kreis-Meyer. She donated her Adobe Connect room, her time and her expertise without complaint, and without her it would not have happened, so many thanks from us.

From a general perspective, this was a nice conference. The range of talks was very interesting, and I attended one that was probably the most exciting presentation I have ever attended. Borja Uruñuela, of the St. James Language Center in Seville, may have solved a question I have been grappling with for years. I can’t say what, but hopefully I can write more on this in the future. The conference was well-organised, the organising team were friendly and always willing to help. It was a good atmosphere, and when I finally got there, lunch was good too. The coffee break was even better though – a wide range of beverages, and some of the best pastries I have had for a long time.

It goes without saying that the majority of EFL teachers are also writers.

Many of us have ambitions to be published, or (increasingly) to publish themselves, but it’s a big wide world out there and budding writers – with whatever goal they ultimately have in mind – need support and advice.

With a group of colleagues (Karen Spiller, Karen White, Sue Kay, Jill Florent and Nick Robinson) we’re putting together a new IATEFL SIG  group for all who are interested in exploring ways to write better materials, either for your own class or for wider publication. It doesn’t matter whether you are new to writing or an experienced author with practical knowledge to share – whichever end of the spectrum, this SIG is for you.

MaW SIG – yes, that’s its name – will share and promote best practice among authors and materials writers, encourage new authors, and disseminate information regarding professional writing opportunities among members.

There is no commitment (financial or otherwise!) needed at this stage, just register your interest and we’ll do the rest.  If you feel this new SIG could be for you, email us on MaWSIG@outlook.com and we’ll be in touch! And watch out for us at IATEFL Liverpool 2013!

Byron Russell

All Macmillan’s apps – including IELTS Skills – are on offer this week..

Just a quick heads-up to start the week…Macmillan Education is running a sale on all their mobile apps this week. This includes the premium version of the excellent Sounds app, all 5 IELTS Skills apps, and the Macmillan Diccionario Pocket. Apple and Android versions are included.

All apps are available for a fixed price of £1.99/$2.99/EUR 2.69, via the usual app stores. Grab yourself a bargain, as they say on eBay.

Byron