News Archives - Page 2 of 11

All we need is fun? A review of InnovateELT 2018

January 30, 2020June 7, 2018 by Tim Gifford

When I saw the word “fun” in the title of this year’s Innovate conference, I’ll admit I was skeptical. It reminded me of an article I’d read a few months previously entitled, ‘Millennials Don’t Want Fun; They Want You To Lead Better’, which got me thinking: if we replaced ‘millennials’ with ‘students’ and ‘lead’ with ‘teach’, would that be a fair reflection of the needs of our students today? Moreover, could we extend this viewpoint to incorporate teachers, namely that they also don’t want fun at conferences, and instead want their practices to be challenged?

Learning, design and sustainable development

January 31, 2020May 30, 2018 by Tim Gifford

“For an activity to be engaging, it needs to be meaningful; for that meaning to endure, it needs to be memorable.”

Zahra Davidson and her work with Enrol Yourself is challenging our vision of lifelong learning. This award-winning social enterprise has been exploring the potential of peer groups to maximise individual and collective progress. Zahra shared her thoughts on the future of learning and assessment at the IATEFL event ELTjam co-organised with Cambridge Assessment English.

Big data, trust and the future of language assessment

January 30, 2020May 29, 2018 by Tim Gifford

“Educators and examiners perform an array of functions that, as far as I’m concerned, make them irreplaceable.”

During the recent IATEFL conference in Brighton, ELTjam and Cambridge Assessment English hosted a series of talks exploring the future of learning and assessment. Below is the transcript of the talk given by Pamela Baxter, the Director of Cambridge Exams Publishing.

Do students really want fun in the classroom?

January 30, 2020May 18, 2018 by Sarah Priestley

“By ELT emphasising fun I think it undermines our professionalism and distorts the image of what language learning and teaching should look like.”

This is the transcript of my plenary ‘Do students really want fun in the ELT classroom?’, that I gave on Saturday 12th May 2018 at InnovateELT.

10 things I wish I’d known before my first IATEFL

January 30, 2020April 25, 2018 by Anna Neil

Here’s a rundown of my top takeaways from my inaugural IATEFL, as well as a few tips for other teachers thinking about checking it out for the first time …

What is the Jobs To Be Done approach to product development (and why does ELT need to care)?

February 4, 2020March 19, 2018 by Tim Gifford

It is not what you are selling that is important, it is the result of what you are selling that customers care about.

To eLearn, or not to eLearn?

January 31, 2020March 16, 2018 by Tim Gifford

According to Blended Learning consultant Richard Osborne, language trainers need to take a hard, objective look at their reasoning for considering eLearning as a meaningful tool for their training.

Translation doesn’t teach language

February 10, 2020February 16, 2018 by Katie Nielson

Dr. Katie Nielson, Chief Education officer at Voxy, gives her take on the translation approach to language learning.

5 of the top EdTech trends in 2018 (and the companies behind them)

February 10, 2020February 13, 2018 by Tim Gifford

Here are five trends in educational technology that are already making serious waves.

What is GDPR and what does it mean for ELT?

February 10, 2020January 23, 2018 by Tim Gifford

Businesses across Europe are gearing up for the 25th May 2018 when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) finally comes into effect and there are some significant changes to be made.

Taking part in the EdTech revolution

January 31, 2020December 19, 2017 by Anna Neil

I could clearly see the how EdTech was starting to affect ELT and I wasn’t going to resist it or surrender to it. Instead, I wanted to get engaged. The question was … HOW?

An interview with Scott Granville of Chasing Time English

February 10, 2020November 28, 2017 by Tim Gifford

We speak to Scott Granville, award-winning writer and producer, about his mission to create dramatic narrative videos for English language learners …

5 things we’ve learned from running the LXD Meetup

January 31, 2020October 11, 2017 by Jo Sayers

Over the last six months we have partnered with Enrol Yourself to run three LXD Meetups in different places in London. In organising these events, we’ve realised how much more there is to know about LXD and how helpful it is to share experiences and ideas with others in the group. This post looks at five of the key things we’ve learned already and invites you to join us for the next one.

The speaking situation: an interview with Dr. Claire Dembry

January 30, 2020September 29, 2017 by Tim Gifford

ELTjam sat down for a chat with Dr. Claire Dembry, Principal Research Manager in ELT at Cambridge University Press, to talk about how the wide-ranging research she was engaging in was impacting the conversations that were taking place around CUP’s products … especially when it comes to learners actually speaking …

The pronunciation problem: an interview with Laura Patsko

January 30, 2020September 12, 2017 by Tim Gifford

All things considered, it seems there is still some way to go before ELT course materials – and the teachers that use them – are able to address pronunciation in class appropriately and effectively.

Laura Patsko is a language consultant specialising in the practical applications of linguistic research. In this post, Laura addresses how pronunciation is currently being addressed by ELT publishers and content creators, and what could be done to better support English learners.

English for the underserved: Alternative technologies to bridge the digital divide

February 11, 2020July 19, 2017 by Michael Carrier

This post is based on Michael Carrier’s talk at InnovateELT 2017 in Barcelona, English for the underserved – technology to close the digital divide. Much of our work in ELT technology helps ‘first world’ kids with first world tech access. This post looks at the other world – the next billion learners, in rural areas of Africa & Asia. These learners and communities have difficulty accessing electricity, connectivity, textbooks – we can fix that with new EdTech.

Changing Perspective: LXD with ELTjam

February 10, 2020July 14, 2017 by Katy Asbury

ELT editor and materials writer Katy Asbury gives us her take on ELTjam’s Learner Experience Design training and the impact it had on her perspective on teaching.

One facet of product design is knowing your audience inside out through User Personas, a clear set of personas setting out goals and needs of different Users, which guides your design. How could we use this approach to help our different learners? I decided to create my own set of Learner Personas and apply these to my digital product to consider how and where improvements could be made.

Innovate EdTech Conference 2017

February 11, 2020July 12, 2017 by Berta Rojals

We are thrilled to announce a new Innovate event in London this autumn, the Innovate EdTech Conference 2017. The theme of the event is The Age of Learner Experience and it will be held in East London on Saturday 11th November 2017.

Machine Learning Summer School – Day 5

February 10, 2020July 7, 2017 by Jo Sayers

Today was the final day of the ALTA Machine Learning Summer School in Crete and it was spent with a practical session looking at the Write & Improve API, and then a reflection on what we learned from the week and some practical steps we can take when back in the real world next week!