Fourth Plenary Speaker Announced

We are delighted to announce that our fourth plenary speaker for the 21^st ELTA Conference will be Rob Dean, who has been involved in ELT as a teacher, director of studies and teacher trainer since 1994.

Plenary:

From Slates to Books to Screens: A Voyage Through ELT Past, Present and Future

English Language Teaching was not always full of the Cs that we take for granted today – competencies, communication, creativity, collaboration and even common sense… This talk will take the form of a light-hearted journey through the last 100 years of English Language Teaching – from the grammar-translation methods of the 19^th century all the way to the task-based and lexical approaches of the 21^st. Our journey will look at where all the Cs came from and how methodologies and ideas were born and developed into what we use today – or, in some cases, quite rightly confined to the dustbins of history. We will conclude by speculating what the future might hold in terms of language teaching methodology.

Workshop:

Using A Flipped Classroom Approach to Create IDEAS: Individual, Differentiated, Encompassing Autonomous and Successful Learning

No two learners are alike. Each has different needs, goals, interests, and learning styles but also constraints. The ‘one size fits all’ approach rarely, if ever, works in the 21st-century learning environment. Accommodating such variety can present a huge challenge for teachers. This session will investigate some of these common differences between learners before moving on to look at how the Flipped Classroom can provide a helpful and effective teaching scenario.

The focus will remain clearly on showing how the Flipped setting opens up opportunities for success for all learners, whatever their characteristics. At the same time, we will show how it optimises the work teachers do without the need for a massive amount of additional work on the part of the teacher.

Rob has been involved in ELT as a teacher, director of studies and teacher trainer since 1994. During this time, he has taught a wide variety of ages and levels in numerous countries in Europe and South East Asia and is based near York in the UK. Rob now works as a teacher and independent international teacher trainer and methodology consultant and travels widely (when possible!), delivering talks, workshops and seminars – as well as online webinars – to teachers all over the world.