Pete Sharma Associates

Many Business English language learners need to give presentations for work and professional puprposes. This blog post looks at some of the techniques and technologies they can use.

For the rest of this post, please visit:

Linguarama blog

After running our successful two-day training course on IWBs in Luxemburg, we are delighted to announce details of two new training courses.

For details of our One-day course on IWBs, please download the .pdf here

PSA one

For details of our Two-day course in IWBs, please download the .pdf here

PSA two

To discuss running these courses, please contact our Sales Director, Byron Russell

I’m really looking forward to the BELTE conference this weekend. I’ll be looking at technology training in ELT - with a specific focus on IWBs. Hope to see you there!

Yikes – just visited the Mac site (as you do) and discovered that our Glossary of tech terms is up there!

The site with info on the book is: Macmillan English

The 2-page Glossary of terms (like audacity, infinite cloner, LAT, VLE) is a free downloadable .pdf and would make a good handout at the end of a training session.

As they say oop norf, Take That.

Pete and I were in Stuttgart on Saturday giving a one-day training day on how to use technology to enhance the use of authentic materials in an in-company teaching environment. It was a challenging day for us, not least because 83 trainers registered for the event! These were all trainers for kmp, based in Sindelfingen, Germany, and there was of course a wide range of skills and experience within the group.

The day appeared to go really well, and it was interesting for us to focus specifically on this aspect of using technology. The event went very smoothly, with a great venue. The organisation by kmp was excellent and reflected very well on them as a company. We are looking forward to following this up with feedback, online information and more.

On Sunday I am making my second appearance at the Virtual Round Table organised by Heike Philp and her excellent team. There were a couple of IT issues last time that meant this is really my third appearance as I ended up repeating the talk last time. I think the technology has become reliable enough now that such virtual conferences have really come of age, and the idea that I can lead a workshop online from my little office in a little village on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire, England is still quite surreal for me. While I probably still prefer a physical conference, the fact is that many people do not have the opportunity to attend the major conferences, so a virtual conference gives them this opportunity. And I have to say, I find the experience very enjoyable.

My presentation/workshop is an introduction to Moodle, so if you are interested, Google the Virtual Round Table and join in. There are lots of other interesting talks as well.

We THINK the workshop has started well. Scary!

Enjoying leading people into fog (what is a VLE? cuisenaire rods? dogme or DOGMA?) Then pouring light into their lives……ha ha

One of the things that fascinates me is the way in which EFL teachers appear to be so divided on the subject of using learning technologies (LT). I’m more than a generation away from being a digital native or whatever term you prefer, but it seems obvious to me that, as a professional teacher, it is my duty to conduct my work using effective approaches and methods, and to continue my professional development throughout my professional life. As there is now no serious objective evidence that using LT is anything other than helpful, how come we still see such polarised views, and still a relatively low level of implementation?

I have just started a series of three articles for CALL Review looking at this subject, and I have made it my goal for 2011 to try and investigate this further. I will also be starting a thread on the LinkedIn group, Learning Technologies for Language Teaching, and would really like to see some professional discussion of this topic. The main questions for me at the moment are:

• Why is there a sometimes very hostile rejection of LT in our profession in some quarters?
• Is the level of implementation as low as I think?
• What are the factors in whether a teacher uses LT?
• How can the situation be improved?
• Should it be improved?
• What is being done by professional bodies in this respect?

Clearly, there are factors such as economic situation, politics, culture, etc. that may be relevant in specific parts of the world, but these are scarcely applicable to most of Europe and North America, for example. So, feel free to comment here, or come on over to the LinkedIn group. I would be very interested in any responses.

Kevin