Must see talks at IATEFL 2019: Primary and Secondary

IATEFL is back! And with it, the perennial problem of trying to decide which of the hundreds of talks on offer to attend. Luckily for you I’ve painstakingly scoured the programme for potential highlights. So, if you’ll be joining us in Liverpool and you’re having trouble choosing your schedule, you could do worse than check out my selections. In this post— what to see if you teach primary or secondary students!

Learning through play

Amongst YL-themed talks in this year’s conference, a couple of topics stand out. The first is the idea of learning English through play, or ‘ludic’ learning. The first day of the conference sees an introduction to this area from Cambridge University Press researchers Delia Kidd and Dr Roxana Herescu in their talk Developing life skills and learning through play.

Happening at the same time, there’s a forum (three talks combined) on teaching teens, which includes discussion of role play games and movement games. Plus, Friday’s forum on early years and primary learners also features two talks on play in ELT. There’s even a talk on how you can incorporate LEGO into teaching! Richard Venner of Chaucer College Canterbury leads that one on the Thursday.

Life skills

The other hot topic in YL teaching is soft skills, or life skills – outlined in the Cambridge Framework for Life Competencies – an increasing part of YL courses and teaching materials. Some of the talks on life skills focus on thinking skills, such as Carol Read’s session Promoting high-quality thinking in the early years, or Simon Pounder’s talk Using debates to promote critical thinking in the secondary classroom.

Others deal with emotional development (eg. Katy Kelly’s Developing emotional literacy with young learners) or collaborative working (eg. Kid’s Box and Power Up author Michael Tomlinson’s talk Collaborate, learn and develop confidence: Project-based ideas for primary classrooms, or Daniel Vincent’s Today’s teens together: Collaboration, project work and skills for life).

Classroom management

In addition to these there are talks on more traditional YL subjects such as classroom management. Niki Joseph’s Liquorice allsorts: Teaching mixed-ability teenage classes and Rachael Harris’ How to develop positive discipline with teens and young learners stand out here. Also, storytelling – highlighted by Aydan Ersoz (Storytelling and dramatization for young learners: A sample lesson) and Annett Kaminski (Goldilocks revisited – from folk tale to picturebook in primary EFL).

Technology

Technology is as relevant to YL teaching as it is to other contexts. Its increasingly controversial role in schools is discussed by LT SIG Coordinator Sophia Mavridi, in her talk Rethinking the use of mobile devices in the classroom. It’s also covered by Janet Harfield in Getting teens talking in the age of social media.

And for teacher trainers keen to offer more YL support for those beginning their careers as teachers, two talks are especially relevant: Sinem Daridere’s session on Making the YL session on Cambridge CELTA courses meaningful, and Martin Goosey’s locally-themed talk The Liverpool way: Training young learner teachers in a rush!

Summarising

So there’s more than enough food for thought over the four days of the conference for teachers of under 18s.
Two final sessions also deserve a special mention here. The first is Aleksandra Zaparucha’s plenary talk on the Thursday, focusing on CLIL teaching, which is becoming an increasingly important part of school curriculums worldwide.

The second is Graham Stanley’s talk, which isn’t specifically aimed at YL teachers, but appeals to the aspirations of children everywhere with its title Escape the classroom! Hopefully after absorbing and applying all the insights from these talks to your teaching, your young learners will want to do anything but!

View the details of the talks mentioned below. We’re also holding talks with some of our favourite ELT experts over the 4 days at IATEFL, plus lots of on stand activities throughout the week – find out more. See you there!