Pete Sharma Associates

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

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 trying to collate all the apps mentioned by participants at the end of my session on Apps at the BESIG conference in Stuttgart …. so far to no avail! Thanks to the generosity of participants, there were so many of them!

Finally, here’s the collated list! BESIG apps apps-handout2

I’d be keen to invesitigate many of them further, and will continue to do so as Barney and myself finalise our forthcoming e-book on Apps!

In the meantime – hope this one-page Handout gives a flavour of the incredible range of Apps out there. The next questions are – which are best suited to the needs of our business English learners, and how can they best be exploited? Keep your eye out for news on our next book…..

I had a great trip to Colchester last week to work with teachers on using IWBs. We had a very interesting look at pros and cons – lots of food for thought which is currently feeding into the training materials I am writing.

Here are some useful post session links:

Template for writing activities for the IWB template

Article from MET: 10 things to do with an Interactive whiteboard IWB

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Izmir, Turkey last weekend. Hard eating choices – meat or fish? Luckily (like Blended Learning) I managed the best of both worlds.

Thanks to everyone for coming to my talk – here are the References, as promised. References

I’ll be back in Turkey (sponsored by Macmillan) in December for the conference on technology in ELT – really looking forward to it!

Pete

It was really great to meet everyone in Chile last week. I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions covering 40 practical ideas – run in Vina del Mar (Thursday) and Santiago (Friday). On the personal front, it was fabulous to have a chance to take photos in Valparaiso [left].

As promised, here is a Handout with a pdf version of the PowerPoint.

practical_ideas

Hope it’s useful guys! Don’t forget to get your school to buy our new book – there’s 360 more ideas there!!

Hasta ahora…….

Webinar: 400 Ideas for Interactive Whiteboards

Here are all the LINKS  and MATERIALS from today’s webinar:

Download Barney Barrett’s fantastic lesson using Google Earth – Directions giving directions

Watch the authors of 400 Ideas on Macmillan ELT’s YouTube channel

Download a template for generating ideas for use with an IWB template

Read Wayne Trottman’s insightful review of our sumptuous tome http://www.waynetrotman.com/wp/?p=643

Download free updates to Blended Learning http://www.macmillanenglish.com/methodology/books/Blended-Learning.htm

Read out about future IWB webinar from Barbara Gardner on the IATEFL Learning Technology webinars http://ltsig.org.uk/

Find out about the English UK training day on IWBs in London next February http://www.englishuk.com/en/training/training-days

Find out 1 and 2-day training courses in IWBs for ELT from PSA (aka acronym city) http://www.psa.eu.com/training/courses/three-hour-modules

PSA one

PSA two

Visit iTILT Interactive Technologies in Language Teaching http://itilt.eu/

Read a version of the article ’10 things to do with an IWB’ published in Modern English Teacher Vol 19 Number 1 January 2010 IWB

Don’t forget – if you have any post-webinar thoughts or questions, you can always use the Comment box below!

Here’s all the LINKS  and MATERIALS from my conference talk:

Download Barney Barrett’s fantastic lesson using Google Earth – Directions directions

Watch the authors of 400 Ideas on Macmillan ELT’s YouTube channel

Download a template for generating ideas for use with an IWB template

Read Wayne Trottman’ brain-melting review of our sumptuous tome http://www.waynetrotman.com/wp/?p=643

Download free updates to Blended Learning http://www.macmillanenglish.com/methodology/books/Blended-Learning.htm Update 10 on IWBs – coming SOON!

Find out about the IATEFL Learning Technology webinars http://ltsig.org.uk/

Find out about the English UK training day on IWBs in London next February http://www.englishuk.com/en/training/training-days

Find out 1 and 2-day training courses in IWBs for ELT from PSA aka acronym city http://www.psa.eu.com/training/courses/three-hour-modules

PSA one

PSA two

Visit iTILT Interactive Technologies in Language Teaching http://itilt.eu/

Read a version of the article ’10 things to do with an IWB’ published in Modern English Teacher Vol 19 Number 1 January 2010 IWB

STOP PRESS!!!!

How does YOUR country score of Hofstede’s Uncertainty avoidance dimension? Find out here Hofstede

Definitely not flawless but great insights for a lesson on cultural awareness……

What would be in YOUR list of ’10 favourite apps for language learning’? I decided to put a list together in order to run a session on M-learning last week.

In fact, it was a great trip  – driving down through the beautiful Cotswolds in autumn to Linguarama’s residential centre. I couldn’t remember the last time I was there!

It was lovely to see so many familiar faces – thanks to everyone who forgave my ‘memory lapse’ when it comes to names! Folk from days in Finland, Prague, Berlin…..

My list includes an ELT dictionary, Sounds The pronunciation app, Google Goggles and more….I expect the list to change dramatically in the next few weeks as I go to BESIG in Croatia and learn more about the fast-moving world of M-learning….

So, here is the 2-page handout constructed for the session – my current ‘Top 10′: The wonderful world of Apps

Look forward to meeting everyone at Cheney Court again…..soon!

Back from Brighton and BELTE with a stick of Brighton Rock and good memories. I was blown away by some of the graffitti, too!

Thanks to everyone who came to me session – it was great to see so many people!

If you wanted definitions of some of the more evil tech terms, here is a Handout with a suspiciously daunting name. Algorithm

If you wanted a mind-map of technology in ELT – it’s here! New technology in language teaching

If you missed the session, here is the Worksheet

worksheet

and here is the Handout.

Handout

Some people were interested in our new IWB one-day and two day training courses - you can access the information on our website. PSA Training days.

In the session, I think I mentioned my IWB SKILLS was lower than my KNOWLEDGE. That’s true! Mind you, there was a slight touch of irony there, too. Interpret the English phrase ”I’m not quite an expert user” as “I’m actually pretty OK using this stuff in most situations”! We are a tad modest, after all. Thanks to Richard Turnbull who was there when the kit started to play up! In the continuing spirit of teacher development, I’m off to Cambridge to deepen my knowledge of IWB use now…..!!!