It was, as always, delightful to share an hour of relaxed and productive chat around telfy topics. Thanks to all for coming and sharing. I hope these notes are a good record of the hour and prove useful to all.
We shared that we’re all feeling very busy with one thing and another… the start of the academic year for many of us and the build up to “conference season” too, InnovateELT is just around the corner (at the time of writing!)
We talked about the differences between online and f2f conferences. There was general opinion that after a couple of sessions we’re generally done and that it’s so hard to keep energy up as we’re essentially just watching TV (the only time we might do something similar is series binge on Netflix! And as much as we love ELT, conferences don’t quite work like that for us!). We feel a bit awkward about being at home and being at a conference, our partners and families are around us and it’s not like going away for the day or even a whole weekend, generally we preferred one-off webinars. We also agreed that we’ve all got loads of webinars and conference sessions lined up to watch later, but do we?
One fabulous idea was, in the situation where a number of colleagues are going to an online conference, use your school as a venue and project the sessions in the classrooms. Attendees can then move between the rooms, compare thoughts, have breaks together and it can become a shared experience, coffee and snacks could also be provided, along with the traditional beer at the end!
We got a sneak preview of Michelle’s session, 10 wishes for the ELT primary classroom, which she’ll be presenting in the Hub next week. We touched on a few topics and went deeper into others…these notes reflect the conversations and thoughts of the group and the ideas are the group’s thoughts.
Wish 1. We wish more people would use different approaches with primary groups towards more project based and enquiry based approaches which would be more inclusive in learning differences.
Wish 2. We wish we could connect more with our learners.
Wish 3. Assessment. We wish more people would embrace alternatives to testing. We wish there was less focus on exams, it seems to be killing the enjoyment of learning. It would be great to have more freedom in primary ELT classes where the stakes are generally less high stakes than at school. Let’s enjoy our primary classes more! It would fab if we could teach and assess around higher order thinking skills rather than the regurgitation approach! We hope there are post pandemic possibilities… We also wondered if the focus on exams has led to our students accessing higher levels more quickly, we thought that there were a number of factors involved there.
Wish 4. More money. We wish there was more money in ELT in general, it’s tough for so many of us financially and teachers should be paid more!
Wish 5. We wish there was more support available for new teachers. There are a number of great programmes in some schools but it’s never quite right!
Wish 6. We wish more people were aware of the potential to develop their own careers in ELT.
Wish 7. We wish “native-speakerism” would disappear. Things are improving but very slowly!
Just a few wishes to get us going… a wonderful source of inspiration and reflection. Thanks all!