SUMMER SEMINAR 2014 ABSTRACTS

Friday 22 August

Session 1

Eva Rein – Department of English, University of Tartu – Child Perspective on Adult World in Nancy Huston’s Fault Lines (Literature) (Room 207, 90 min)

Nancy Huston’s novel deals with the issues of identity and history by telling the story of a family through four generations. While the themes and the family story make it a captivating read, it is the narrative perspective that makes Fault Lines truly thought-provoking. The family story unravels in a most fascinating way – it is told through the eyes of four children of successive generations. The presentation analyses the powerful effect of the child perspective in Huston’s novel and also enables the audience to engage in a discussion of its implications.

Kärt Rummel – Tallinn University of Technology; The Estonian Information Technology College –

Learner-learner relations explored: The value of peer response in English academic writing instruction. (Room 208, 90 min)

This presentation explores the value of peer response in discourse-oriented EAP writing instruction on student-writers’ communicative competence and representation of writer identity. It reports on some of the findings of a study conducted in three tertiary settings of Estonia - Tallinn University of Technology, Educational Advising Center of Northern American Universities and Estonian Information Technology College - with students at two L2 proficiencies (Levels B2 and C1, CEFR) in two test samples taught in an experimental discourse-oriented EAP writing course and two control samples taught under traditional L2 instructional methods. In the test samples, peer response sessions involved students in a variety of process- and task-oriented, integrated-skills, social, cognitive and linguistic activities. In the control samples, peer response was not applied. Research methodology included examining and analysing data obtained from student pre- and post-course questionnaires, oral and written peer feedback and analyses on student texts, and teacher observation reports of the students' behaviour during peer response activities. The data suggest a positive impact of peer response on L2 students’ communicative competence in writing. Peer response can improve the communicative quality of student-writers texts as it encourages writers, at different levels of L2 proficiency, to view writing as a social construction of meaning and expand their concept of audience. Focus on meaning rather than language can provide an opportunity for L2 student-writers already at school to discuss and formulate ideas in an authentic content-specific context as well as assist each other in developing their English writing skills.

Key words: academic writing, L2 students, peer response, text and discourse

Evi Saluveer – Institute of Education, University of Tartu – Making the Most of Newspaper Headlines (Room 212, 90 min)

/ What do the following have in common – “a pun, a double meaning, a deliberate jokey misspelling, a literary or historical reference, a clever neologism, an ironic put-down, a cunning rhyme or amusing alliteration“ (Fox, 2004)? The answer is, of course, they can all be found in newspaper headlines. Catchy newspaper headlines both tell and sell. In addition, a wide range of linguistic features makes them a valuable teaching resource. What is more, they are easily available, suitable for any age group and lend themselves to various language activities. The workshop looks at some features of newspaper headlines and offers practical suggestions for using them in the classroom.

Session 2

Gareth Davies – OUP – Getting the words off the page (Room 207, 60 min)

Vocabulary can be seen as a list of words to be learnt for a test or it can be viewed as bundle of words to be used and consumed, a tool to help you express yourself and your imagination. In this session we will look at ways to encourage students to take the words off the page, to play with them and use them creatively, helping to make vocabulary learning not a daunting prospect but an inspiring and motivating one.

/ Meeri Sild – Flipped classroom and tools to support it (Room 208, 90 min)

Ene Alas & Kaarin Truus – IELTS Writing and Speaking (Room 212, 90 min)

Tracey Sinclair – ELI Publishing – When playing turns into learning (Computer lab, repeated from 21 August)

/ This workshop will use some of ELI Educational Language Games to show how a ‘game’ can be used to practise and enhance the learning of a foreign language…..and have fun while doing it! Learning becomes almost secondary to having fun. This could be understood as ‘how to trick a student into learning’, and why not?

Session 3

Anu Joon – The first steps in introducing English spelling and phonetics (Immersion in primary English) (Room 206, for Young Learners, 90 min)

The presentation concentrates on a particular teaching program- total immersion - focusing on teaching the first and second level students. It demonstrates one possible way how to approach systematically to introducing English spelling and phonetics to our young learners.

Tracey Sinclair – ELI Publishing –Yes, Readers can be fun ...and a useful tool (Room 207, repeated from 21 August)

This workshop will look at the new series of ELI readers (as well as some of their oldies and still ‘goody’ series) and how to use readers and reading in general in class through a variety of practical, stimulating, easy to set up activities. Students, not to mention teachers, need a variety of levels, styles, genres in addition to activities, so, let’s do that. Come along and have fun with books.

SteveLever – Express Publishing – I THINK, I FEEL, I LEARN (Room 208, Primary level, repeated from 21 August)

/ Students should not be taught what to think but how to think. This should be one of the major goals of any school curriculum. Teachers of today need to be aware of how to promote these skills in the class, and not just focus just on content.
Emotions are crucial and form an intrinsic part of a learners’ identity, affecting their behaviour and receptiveness to learning. Some students need to feel emotionally engaged and secure before they can start any cognitive or critical thinking skills development, which is why teachers should place special emphasis on tasks which offer an opportunity to learn from a more emotional perspective.
In this seminar, we will discuss students’ thinking processes and classify these according to Bloom’s taxonomy. We will consider some of the most common ‘thinking style’ theories and see how they can inform classroom activities to help students practice the target language in a creative and inspired manner.

Kristel Kriisa – Foundation Innove, English Language Specialist – National Examinations in English (Year 12 + Year 9) in 2014 (Room 212, 90 min)

/ As the new National Curricula for Basic Schools and Upper Secondary Schools are much more clearly related to the CEFR levels than the old curriculum was, 2014 saw the introduction of fundamentally revised national examinations — the Year 9 exam is now at level B1 and the Year 12 exam is a bi-level exam that attempts to measure students’ language proficiency within two levels on the CEFR scale (B1 and B2). The presentation will discuss the results of the national examinations in the English language that took place in spring 2014.
Biodata: Kristel Kriisa graduated from Tallinn University and became a teacher of English in 2005. Since then she has been teaching English at Jüri Gümnaasium. She also has an MA in translation from Tallinn University. In 2012, she started working at Foundation Innove.

Session 4

Jason Finn – Non-fiction and the literature classroom (Room 206, 60 min)

Some students say it, many students think it: history class is dull, current events are just reading an article and writing a summary; boring. Well, no longer. Engage your students with non-fiction using activities that will get them thinking and writing about the real world in a profound and creative way.

Biodata: Jason Finn, Ed.D., is a former U.S. Fulbright recipient, an author, educational writer for Paradigm Magazine, and English teacher of adolescent youth where he crafts lessons full of sublime stupidity with whimsical abandon since 1994. Many scrumptious offerings can be found at his website: www.tinyurl.com/finnteach.

Gareth Davies – OUP – Learning to Fail Failing to Learn (Room 207)

Did you know Steve Jobs was ousted from Apple in 1985 or that JK Rowling first manuscript was rejected by 12 publishers? Scratch the surface of any great success and you are likely to see a catalogue of failures. So why are we so scared of failure? Why are we so focused on the right and so terrified of the wrong? Sometimes we need to get something wrong just so we can see where we are making the mistake. In this talk we will look at how we as teachers can help our students learn how to fail by teaching them to address problem and how to learn from mistakes. That will mean our students will be more willing to make mistakes, more willing to take risks and help themselves fail to learn.

Steve Lever – Express Publishing – EXAMING EXAMS (Room 208, Secondary level, repeated from 21 August)

As methodology has changed and expectations about what language learners actually need to learn have evolved, there has been a (gradual) concomitant change in exams. Rather than teaching for the exam, it would appear that quite a few exams are coming into line with teaching.

In this session we will explore what elements of exams are changing and why that might be. As part of this, we will think a little about testing theory, but also about how we can use what has been learned about learning to help us prepare our learners in terms of language, but also in terms of strategies and thinking skills.

Ene Alas, Ph.D. – Tallinn University – The Speaking Part of the National Examination in the English Language 2014 (Room 212, 60 min)

Kristi Vahenurm – Free sound recording tools for EFL teachers (Computer lab)

The workshop provides practical solutions for developing students' speaking skills using a range of free and easy-to-use sound recording tools.

Saturday 23 August

Session 1

Jason Finn – The power and the passion: how music rocked the world – a course in social and political change through music (Room 206)

Kick out those jams! Ever wonder what role music plays in changing the world in which we live? Ever ponder what lasting impact Elvis, The Beatles, punk or hip-hop have on society? Explore how music influenced social, political and culture change. Was music the catalyst or the result of the change?

/ Erika Jeret – Fresh flavoursome food for brain (Room 207)
Learning a language commonly includes aspects of culture and history. This hands-on presentation will look at practical examples of culinary vocabulary enhancement tasks and exercises to do with food, ingredients, preparation methods (from julienning to searing) and qualities of taste. Granivores, carnivores, foodies and anyone else lean and hungry are welcome.

SteveLever – Express Publishing – I THINK, I FEEL, I LEARN (Room 208, Primary level, repeated from 21 August)

/ Ülle Türk – Estonian National Defence College / University of Tartu – Scotland (Room 212, 90 min)

Session 2

Ene Eisenberg-Lindqvist – Pärnu Ülejõe Gymnasium – Florida State and the Conch Republic (Room 207, 60+ min)

Due to its location between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, Florida State, the orchard of the US, consists of many cultural layers.

Its beaches of coral sand, nature and wildlife are amazingly diverse, whereas its cities are booming, perfectly clean and surprisingly well controlled. The one who likes to live in an organised world would love it to bits. From Miami skyscrapers to the Everglades alligators, the American Dream factory works with full power. One could only wonder how different the landscape, cities and people in it can be. There is no doubt that the Americans work hard and nothing happens by pure chance. Some of the lovely peculiarities of the American life, however, seem too irresistible not to be talked about.

The presentation embraces facts about history and facts, symbols, geography, fauna, agriculture, transport, architecture, cities and people of Florida State, a preliminary questionnaire, videos and pictures.

Rob Dean – Pearson – …And They All Learned English Happily Ever After! Fantasy, Fun and Computer Games in the Primary Classroom (Room 208, 60 min)

Once upon a time, there was a classroom full of energetic and happy pupils, who no matter what their background, no matter what their ability, all enjoyed learning English. They loved their classes, and were thrilled when their teacher included the magic of stories, fun characters and exciting activities – and even computer games in the lessons. The teacher was rather happy too, as s/he could see quite clearly how beneficial such ingredients could be to successful learning, and how in turn the right contexts and activities could have a positive effect on smooth and effective classroom management. The teacher was even more thrilled to discover that Pearson’s renowned Fly High and Our Discovery Island courses had been making all this possible. Is this all a fairytale? No, it’s reality, and this highly practical workshop will show just how real it all can be in YOUR classroom

/ Rob Dean Biodata: 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 currently based in Poland. Rob has taught a wide variety of course types, from primary to adult, including exam preparation, EAP and English for business and professional purposes. He has numerous interest areas within the world of ELT, including teaching young learners, teaching with technology, language and culture and task based learning. Rob now works as an independent international teacher trainer and academic consultant, and travels widely delivering talks, workshops and seminars – as well as online webinars - to teachers all over the world. Over the years, Rob has covered a wide range of topic areas including methodology, language, practical teaching ideas, classroom management, motivation of learners and blended learning to name but a few.

Daniela Clarke – Macmillan – Chalk and Cheese: Teaching teenage mixed ability classes (Room 212, 60 min)