Job Discussion Forums

[mmcmorrow]

Every year, TESOL organises online workshops on a range of topics in Jan-Feb; the event is called Electronic Village Online (EVO). This year's event, EVO2016, includes the following workshops:

Classroom-Based Research for Professional Development
DREAM Act: What Teachers Can Do
Educators & Copyright: Do the Right Thing
EVO Minecraft MOOC
Flipped Learning
ICT4ELT
M4T
Media Resources and Emotions in Teaching and Learning
Teachers as Designers
Teachers Creating Digital Textbooks
Teaching EFL to Young Learners
Teaching Pronunciation Differently
Techno-CLIL for EVO 2016
Village 2016

Registration is from Jan 3rd to 10th and the sessions run from Jan 10 to Feb 14th.

More information at the conference website and wiki.

Martin McMorrow, Massey University, New Zealand

[GKD]

That conference and some of the topics sounds great, I will register in January! I have actually been thinking about my professional development recently, and I am not sue how best to proceed. Perhaps you could give me some pointers.

I am CELTA qualified, with a BA and MA in English Literature. I've been working in Spain for nearly 4 years. I can honestly say that I love my job, which is teaching just adults (and the odd teenager) in an academy and in private classes.

I feel that after 4 years I have gained a lot of experience and developed my teaching style, which is based on lots of talking activities, role-plays, debates, discussions etc. I like to blend some 'Teaching Unplugged' ,focusing on style emergent grammar, with using the text books. And lots of task-based learning ie. create and present a business idea.

I have read lots of books, mainly , from well-known authors like Thornbury, Hamer, Swan, Luke Meadows etc. I have watched hours and hours of conference talks on Youtube. I try to attend as many workshops in my city as possible, which is only really 2-3 a year.

I have thought about doing an MA in TESOL but I dont feel it is the right move for me, as here in Spain I am not sure how it would advance my career ( I am very settled here). I have been thinking of starting a blog to reflect of my teaching.

Could anybody suggest anything to me? Free Professional Development courses, or at least cheap ones, good websites or books?