Podcasts about iatefl

Ready to present at conferences, but don't know where to start? We're here to guide you through the ins and outs of getting your name on the conference program. If you've been attending conferences and you're thinking about the possibility of presenting, we're here to break down the things you should consider. The world needs to hear from you, so make sure your voice is out there!  Check out our advice on how to break into the conference presenting world! Show notes: www.DIESOL.org/119 

On today's show I spoke to Alastair Grant about the Science of Learning. The conversation mentions the recent IATEFL plenary on the subject, and Alastair's follow-up video.

In Episode 13 of Teacher's Coffee, we sit down with Harry Waters, founder of Renewable English, multi-award-winning teacher trainer, writer, and climate activist. As the closing plenary speaker at IATEFL this year, Harry brings a powerful message about weaving sustainability into every aspect of education.

Christopher Graham, the incoming president of IATEFL and an experienced teacher trainer, discusses the realities of teaching in conflict and post-conflict zones. Christopher shares firsthand insights on the unique challenges educators face, from trauma and limited resources to sustaining motivation and professional growth.

Book a free 1:1 to strategize your teaching business goals.  Escaping precarity in ELT? Join our free support group here.   Education is designed around focusing on the learner first and the teacher as a medium to support the learner. Sarah Mercer tells us why this leads to unhealthy teachers.  Sarah Mercer is a Professor of foreign language teaching at the University of Graz, Austria. Her research interests include all aspects of the psychology surrounding the foreign language learning experience. She is co-editor of Multilingual Matters' Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching book series, currently vice-president of IAPLL, and ambassador for IATEFL. In this episode, Sarah expounds on: why connecting with learners is fundamental cell phone addiction and what we CAN'T do about it re-framing what "student-led" means defining "engagement" and pedagogical caring students faking engagement out of respect for their teacher burnout and stress are the result of the systemic element of teacher well-being For more from Sarah Mercer: 1. Visit her website 2. Read her publications  3. Her handbook "Teacher Wellbeing" Thank you for listening. Your support has been overwhelming and we couldn't do what we do without you. We hope this podcast serves as an effective CPD tool for you. If you have a comment or question about today's show, we'd love to hear from you: info@learnyourenglish.com  Ways we can help you right now: 1. Book a free 1:1 chat to strategize your teaching business.  2. 5in30: Get 5 clients in the next 30 days 3. Just starting your business? Get free guidance in our support group.  4. Download our free guides for teacherpreneurs. 

Author Rachael Harris discusses her latest book, Activities for Developing Learning Strategies, and how her experience teaching teens and young learners inspired her to focus on inclusive practices and the importance of strategies to boost students' performance. The conversation explores examples from Rachael's book, emphasising direct and indirect learning strategies that can be applied in the classroom and beyond.Watch with closed captions here.Inspiration Behind the BookRachael shares how her experience with teens and young learners inspired her to write Activities for Developing Learning Strategies. She emphasises the importance of teaching students how to learn, which can significantly boost their performance and confidence.Direct and Indirect Learning StrategiesRachael outlines the two main types of strategies covered in the book: direct strategies (like vocabulary memorisation) and indirect strategies (such as goal setting and motivation). Both play a critical role in enhancing learning and can be applied across different subjects.Goal Setting and Quick WinsOne of the most effective techniques Rachael uses is goal setting, where students break down large goals into manageable tasks. The “quick wins” strategy helps maintain motivation by encouraging students to complete small, easy tasks when they feel stuck or demotivated.Scientific Basis for Learning StrategiesRachael's activities are grounded in research, particularly a meta-analysis that shows the most effective learning techniques. She encourages her students to focus on proven methods like spaced practice and self-testing, instead of relying on less effective techniques like re-reading and highlighting.ABOUTRachael Harris has taught ELT, literature & current affairs in primary & secondary schools in Geneva for over 15 years. Up until recently, she was the joint coordinator for IATEFL Inclusive Practices & SEN special interest group. Her latest book Activities for Developing Learning Strategies is a collection of tried tested strategies, designed to help learners succeed in the language classroom and beyond.REFERENCESDunlosky, J. et al (2013) 'Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology.' Psychological Science in the Public Interest (PSPI) Volume 15, pp. 4–58 Harris, R. (2023) Activities for Developing Learning Strategies. DELTA Publishing. FOLLOWBlog Fab English IdeasLinkedInLove what we do? Say thanks with a coffee.https://ko-fi.com/tesolpopCREDITSProducer Laura WilkesEditor Haven TsangThanks to our wonderful guest, Rachael Harris. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joining Helen to talk about the IATEFL Conference 2024 before, during, and after the week-long event in Brighton are Sandy Millan, TDSIG Joint co-ordinator James Taylor, past TDSIG committee member Fiona Mauchline, and the two 2024 TDSIG scholarship winners: Didar Moldazhanov, winner of the Early Career Teacher Scholarship, and Maryam Mirshahnasab, winner of the Michael Berman Scholarship.Hear all these different perspectives on the conference, the experiences they've had, and what they have taken away, and in some cases, applied in their classrooms right away.Consider applying for an IATEFL TDSIG scholarship for the 2025 conference in Edinburgh before the June 19th deadline.Tell us about your IATEFL Brighton 2024 Conference perspective, experience, and/or takeaways on our social media channels, we'd love to hear from you!

Author Jane Willis answers your questions about task-based learning (TBL). In this episode, Jane provides examples of TBL in practice, explores the difference between task-based and task-supported learning, and closes with suggestions on how the latest technology can fit into a TBL framework.Click here to watch this episode with closed captions.KEY TALKING POINTSDefining Task-Based LearningJane simplifies TBL with practical examples, such as "describe and draw" tasks and planning school rules. She emphasises the following features of TBL: clear purpose, focus on meaning, and freedom to utilise their language.Common MisinterpretationsJane clarifies the difference between task-supported learning, which integrates tasks within traditional methods, and task-based learning, which starts with and focuses on tasks. She explains the three-part task cycle— planning, task, and reporting—and highlights the importance of planning to boost learner confidence and extend language use.Integrating Technology with TBLJane discusses using technology, such as Zoom, to record and review lessons and transcription software to analyse language use. She also talks about using AI tools like ChatGPT to enhance tasks, such as refining story prompts and generating dialogues.Future of EducationJane talks about the possibilities AI and technology bring to TBL while also stressing the importance of cautious and informed use of new technologies.ABOUTJane worked extensively overseas (Ghana, Cyprus, Iran, Singapore) as an English teacher and trainer. In the 1980s, she and her late husband, Dave, met Prabhu and began experimenting with Task-based Language Teaching, writing several prize-winning books. She also taught for 12 years on the TESOL Masters programs at Aston University in UK. Jane now lives in the English Lake District and enjoys fell-walking. She teaches tai chi and is still quite active on the TBLT scene. In 2022, she received the inaugural Distinguished Practitioner Award from the International Association of Task-based Language Teaching. Visit Jane's website here to learn more.REFERENCESWillis - ELT. Task-Based Lesson Plans are available here.Willis, D. and Willis, J. (2007) Doing Task-based Teaching. OUP Willis, D. (2003). Rules, Patterns and Words: Grammar and Lexis in English Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press (illustrates how to teach grammar through TBL)Willis, J. (1996). A framework for task-based learning. Ebook edition 2012 Intrinsic publications available on Google Play and Rakuten Koko.Say thanks with coffeehttps://ko-fi.com/tesolpopCREDITSProducer Laura WilkesEditor Haven TsangThanks to our kind guest, Jane Willis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This special episode is more like an exclusive glimpse into #IATEFL2024! Join us for a captivating episode featuring insights from top speakers and ELT experts! Featuring Dorothy Zemach, John Hird, Boelo van der Pool, Sarah Smith, Thom Jones, Rob Howard, Vicky Samuel, Armanda Stroia, Daniel Xerri, Elona Kolaj, Penny Hands, Susana Galante and our author, Jenny Dooley.

In this episode, Christian talks with Sandy Millin about the future of Teacher Development from her perspective, especially focusing on the power of blogs and social media. Read Sandy Millin's Blog here: https://sandymillin.wordpress.com/British Council Webinar with Sandy Millin: Professional development through blogs and blogging: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/webinars/webinars-teachers/sandy-millin-professional-development-through-blogs-and Follow Sandy on LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandymillin/

Joining Christian in this latest episode of Developod are Claire Steele and Sarah Smith, Directors of Eltonix. They discuss the future of teacher development with a focus on 'bottom-up' teacher development, and in particular 'classroom-based inquiry' (or 'action research'), which they argue is both more teacher-centred and student-centred than most current forms of prescriptive professional development led by language school institutions.Information about Eltonix:Website: https://eltonix.com/Facebook Group: eltonix connects (a fund, friendly and international TD community)Previous related Developod episodes:Episode 36 Classroom-Based InquiryEpisode 18 Action ResearchEpisode 8 Creating a Culture of Teacher Development (with Silvana Richardson)

The third in the series on 'The Future of Teacher Development in ELT', this episode hears from Silvana Richardson.

I talk about IATEFL 2023 in Harrogate and how AI is being used in English Language Teaching. Will it replace English teachers? Please feel free to share your opinions!Prefer the video version? Watch it here: https://youtu.be/GXARANe3qlMSend me your suggestions, love, and ramblings here to  theprocrastinationpod@gmail.comWARNING: This episode contains swearing. I believe swearing to be an important part of language learning, and language in general. If you don't like it, then this isn't the podcast for you.Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube at "Procrastination with Emma" and "Pronunciation with Emma".You can also follow me on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter at "Pronunciation with Emma" for free pronunciation and English lessons.

Returning and new guests of the TESOL Pop podcast share their experience of the 56th IATEFL International Conference and Exhibition in Harrogate. Listen to guests Marcus James, Gina Rodriguez, Fiachra McCleary, and Claire from Englii_Insta for insights into the conference and talks.ReferencesIchaporia, N 2023, ‘What is the teacher's role in increasingly automated online education?' 56th IATEFL International Conference and Exhibition. Harrogate, UK, 18th April 2023.Lynch, C 2023, ‘What do you meme? Incorporating memetic communication into language learning,' 56th IATEFL International Conference and Exhibition. Harrogate, UK, 19th April 2023.Would you like to get involved and support TESOL Pop?Ask a question or pitch an idea.Sponsor our coffee break.Say hello on Instagram.

The second in the series on 'The Future of Teacher Development in ELT', this episode hears from Richard Chinn and Danny Norrington-Davies, two teacher trainers and developers who have recently published a cutting edge book called 'Working with Emergent Language'.

Teacher Thu Thu Naing talks about her recent experience studying for a master's degree in TESOL with Educational Technology. Thu shares how she chose a course and provider, what the course was like, and what she plans to do next in her career.Catch Thu Thu Naing's talk at IATEFL in Harrogate on Adapting Materials to Teach Speaking in a Virtual Reality Environment on Tuesday, 18th April 2023.Would you like to get involved and support TESOL Pop?Ask a question or pitch an idea.Sponsor our coffee break.Say hello on Instagram.

This episode kickstarts a series of podcasts on The Future of Teacher Development in ELT. The interview is with Gabriel Garcia Maggioli, or "Gabo", the current President of IATEFL. 

Helen, the winner of the Michael Berman scholarship 2022, tells us all about their take-aways from the IATEFL conference in Belfast and offers useful tips for those going to a conference for the first time.https://tdsig.org/scholarship/https://www.iatefl.org/resources

Dr. Gabriel Diaz-Maggioli, International Education Consultant and President of IATEFL,  talks about teacher education, his work with policymakers, IATEFL and how he became interested and involved in Education. 

Teacher Trainer and Examiner Fiachra McCleary shares his experience, takeaways and tips as an attendee of the 55th IATEFL Conference and Exhibition in Belfast (May 2022). To find out more about IATEFL, click here.ReferencesSoltyska, A. 2022. Language assessment and online translation tools: enemies or allies? (University Language Centre, Ruhr University). IATEFL International Conference and Exhibition. 18/05/2022. Belfast.Kiczkowiak, M. 2022. 10 practical activities for teaching pronunciation in the 21st century. (National Geographic Learning). IATEFL International Conference and Exhibition. 18/05/2022. Belfast.Hockly, N. 2022. Teaching live via Whatsapp in low-resource contexts (TCE - the Consultants - E). IATEFL International Conference and Exhibition. 19/05/2022. Belfast.

This morning I spoke with Aleksandra Popovski about her incredible life journey, her passion for teaching and materials writing that engage, educate and empower students, and the future of IATEFL. 

After a bit of a break over the summer (and autumn!), we finally managed to get everyone together for the promised follow-up to our panel discussion on professional development at the IATEFL 2021 annual conference.

Tania talks to our 2021 Scholarship Winner winner Victoria, and to co-collaborator on TDISG, Irene. They chew the cud on a range of diverse issues such as equity, diversity, inclusivity, racism, sexism, emotional education, action research and English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI). They also review their highlights from the 2021 TDSDIG Pre-Conference Event (PCE) and the 2021 IATEFL online conference. TDSIG PCE: https://www.iatefl.org/sites/default/files/TDSIG%20PCE%20Program%20-%20links%20to%20recordings.pdfTDAJ: https://tdsig.org/tdaj-v2n1/ 

Jane Setter joins the show to talk accents, speech prosody, and her new book "Your Voice Speaks Volumes."  Jane is Professor of Phonetics at The University of Reading, UK.  In addition to her new book, she is also co-editor of the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary and the Cambridge Handbook of Phonetics. Jane's research interests include speech prosody in children from atypical populations, teaching and learning English pronunciation, and features of the suprasegmental phonology of global varieties of English, such as Hong Kong and Malay speaker English. *there's some slight static from 5:00 - 12:00 In this episode, Jane dives into: the influences that pushed her into a career in phonology speech classes and how Margaret Thatcher learned to "unshrill" her voice being the first phonetician invited to speak at the IATEFL conference the why and how of (unconscious) linguistic judgement  the significance of four seconds in speech recognition why television shows choose certain accents for certain roles why men can't make their voices sound sexy what it means to have a voice that doesn't represent who you are  Read more about this episode on the LYE blog. More on Jane Setter: Her book "Your Voice Speaks Volumes" The Cambridge Book of Phonetics Twitter: @janesetter YouTube: Jane Setter Email: j.e.setter@reading.ac.uk Podcast Creation: This episode was created with support from Thinkific & Podbean. If you're looking to launch a course or start a podcast, we highly recommend them - and use them ourselves.  As always, thank you for listening. Your support has been overwhelming and we couldn't do what we do without you. We hope this podcast serves as an effective CPD tool for you. If you have a comment or question about today's show, we'd love to hear from you: info@learnyourenglish.com  For more info on what we do at LYE, check out: Join Our Mailing List Join Our Teacher Development Membership Join our Self-directed Learning Portal See Our Online CPD Courses for Teachers Follow Learn YOUR English Follow Teacher Talking Time

Writer and Editor, Eve Conway, talks about this year's online IATEFL conference, the topics and themes that flowed through the event, and future trends in the ELT industry. Editor's correction: Raise up for ELT

In this episode we hear from the speakers at our upcoming TDSIG PCE. Uniquely, this year the event will be held after the main IATEFL conference, and it promises to be a great day with Divya Madhavan, Michael Stout, Elena Ončevska Ager and Nermine Abd Elkader providing the talks. Listen to learn more about their presentations, and we’ll see you on the 31st of July!Register at https://tdsig.org/pce/

This episode is the last in a series of interviews with ELT influencers, chosen by our TDSIG competition winners. The Developod host Christian brings together influencer, blogger, and teacher-trainer Chia Suan Chong, with teacher-trainer Başak. They speak about topics including ‘the imposter syndrome’, native speaker - non-native speaker communication, as well as motherhood and how it may change the way one sees oneself as a teacher. For show notes, including blogposts mentioned: http://bit.ly/developod30

This episode is the third in a series of interviews with 'ELT influencers' chosen by our TDSIG competition winners. Nik Peachey talks about his early involvement in technology and the likely forthcoming evolutions in language learning technology including artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality. Nik is interviewed by Christian and answers questions conceived by teacher, trainer and EdTech enthusiast Tamara Parsons, who was one of the TDSIG competition winners. Nik Peachey is Director of Pedagogy at Peachey Publications, an independent digital publishing company that specialises in the design of digital learning materials. He has been involved in Education since 1990 and has more than 20 years experience of working specifically with online and blended learning environments. He has worked all over the world training teachers and developing innovative and creative products and is a two-time British Council Innovations award winner. His customers include British Council, Eton College, Open University, Google Creative Labs and International House. His more recent projects have included two years as pedagogical manager for a 100% online school owned by Macmillan ELT, Head of Content development for EtonX a 100% online school owned by Eton College and content developer for an English and Interfaith Dialogue course designed for the British Council and Al-Azhar University in Cairo. His books include: Hacking Creativity (Shortlisted for the 2020 British Council award for Innovation in Teacher resources) https://payhip.com/b/HDeb Digital Tools for Teachers - Trainer's edition (Shortlisted for the 2018 British Council award for Innovation in Teacher resources) https://payhip.com/b/B34N Thinking Critically through Digital Media https://payhip.com/b/CjXN Digital Video - A Manual for Language Teachers (Winner of the 2016 British Council award for Innovation in Teacher resources) https://payhip.com/b/5n90 Conversation & Listening - A series of lesson for the digital classroom https://payhip.com/b/7fru He also co-edited Creativity in the ELT Classroom and Creativity and the Sustainable Development Goals for the British Council He is editor of the Edtech & ELT Newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/technogogy/ Company Website: https://peacheypublications.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/NikPeachey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikpeachey Tamara Parsons is a teacher, trainer, EdTech enthusiast, conference speaker and founder of ELT.Training, a collaborative organisation with the aim of sharing teacher development ideas. https://elt.training/

*We're reposting this episode from last year because it has disappeared from our feed - enjoy!* This 12th episode brings Christian together with Tania Iveson and James Taylor, forming the new improved version of the Developod team! They introduce a thought-provoking PCE (pre-conference event), from IATEFL April 2019, which was co-hosted by the TD (Teacher Development) and GI (Global Issues) SIGs (Special Interest Groups). The central focus is the somewhat controversial question ‘Are you a social justice warrior?’ The team explores what this might mean, and we hear from a range of speakers and participants from the PCE, as well as the coordinators of the two respective SIGs. Finally, the Developod team mention how they were inspired by other talks at IATEFL and signpost us towards future episodes.

This episode is the second in a series of interviews with ELT influencers, chosen by our TDSIG competition winners. We hear from Jane Willis, who clarifies aspects of Task-Based Learning, for Jo, who is a teacher in Colombia and one of the competition winners. Show notes including Jane's bio. and useful links are available at: http://bit.ly/developod24 PLUS! We'd like to know more about how you listen to Developod, so to help us, please complete the survey at the link below - We'd appreciate it! http://bit.ly/developodsurvey

To mark Mental Health Week in the UK, in this episode Christian interviews Phil Longwell, a teacher, teacher trainer and mental health advocate. They discuss Phil's personal experiences with mental health issues, what ELT employers can do to help their employees, and what teachers can do to manage their own well being. Phil's blog: https://teacherphili.com/ IATEFL Q&A on Phil Longwell’s Webinar on Mental Health in ELT: https://www.iatefl.org/news-views/q%26-phil-longwell%E2%80%99s-webinar-mental-health-elt Screencast Recording from Phil Longwell on Improving the Mental Health of English Language Teachers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFMplEgKWs Blog from Phil Longwell on Covid-19 Mental Health and Wellbeing: https://teacherphili.com/2020/03/21/covid-19-mental-health-and-wellbeing/ Mental Health First Aid Training Courses e.g.: https://www.sja.org.uk/courses/workplace-mental-health-first-aid/ Free courses: Understand the Physiological impact of lockdown on our Wellbeing and Mental Health on Maudsley Learning and Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust’s course (the UK's premier mental health training organisation): https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/psychological-impact-of-covid-19 Help Young People Manage Low Mood and Depression with the University of Reading: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/low-mood-during-covid-19 Manage Mental Health and Stress on Coventry University's course: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/managing-mental-health

Why Homework gets ForgottenRoss Thorburn: Hi, Penny. Thank you for joining us. I saw you give a talk about homework at IATEFL in Glasgow back in 2017. You mentioned that the reason that you talked about homework or that you did a presentation on homework is that no one else talks about it, really. Why don't teachers and teacher trainers talk more about homework?Penny Ur: Why does nobody talk about it? It's one of these topics like classroom management, and teaching mixed ability classes, and dealing with slow learners, the kinds of topics which are not directly and specifically concerned with language teaching but with teaching in general.I gave a talk recently to teachers. I gave all sorts of topics, things which are problematic in the classroom. I asked them to say which of them were the most important, things like teaching grammar or teaching heterogeneous classes, or classroom management, or homework and so on and so on.The topics they chose were all ‑‑ they chose as their top two or three ‑‑ linked to general teaching pedagogical issues, ones which teachers all over the world teaching all the subjects encounter and worry about.In conferences in the ELT or language teaching literature in general, on the whole, the underlying research and thinking is very much oriented towards applied linguistics, towards language acquisition, specifically.People just don't deal with the general topics like homework, but it is one which very much concerns teachers, which is why, very often, the topics I tackle at other conferences have to do with these things. I think they are neglected. Teachers need them and want them as well as the purely applied linguistics topics.Ross: That's why people don't talk about it. Just how important is homework in terms of helping students to learn a language?Penny Ur: It is extremely important, particularly for language teaching because the amount of language that people learn and the rate at which they progress is very, very much linked to the amount of exposure of the language they get, the sheer number of hours they're exposed to and engaging with the target language.There's no way you can give them the amount of time they need of exposure to and engagement with the target language if you only have classroom time. You need the homework time. You need that time to accelerate their progress.Otherwise, you'll hold them back. This is more important, perhaps, for language learning than for almost any other subject I can think of.Best Homework Activities for Language TeachersRoss: Given then how important homework is, what kind of homework activities do you think are most useful? Is it write out the verb 20 times like I probably had in French class at school?Penny Ur: Did it help you?Ross: Well, I can still conjugate the verb "to be" in French, but I'm not sure how useful that actually is.Penny Ur: Conjugating French verbs comes into its own once you've got the fluency. It is quite useful.Ross: Maybe, if I had the fluency to go along with it, maybe it is useful to practice verbs. Do you think things like preparing for the next class as in flipped classroom or...?Penny Ur: Yes, by all means, anything which has them engaging with a language, basically, and doing things with a language on condition that it's something they can do successfully without a teacher at their elbow.In other words, homework assignments need to be slightly easier than the kind of assignments you're giving them in the classroom. In the classroom, you're there to help. When they're doing homework, you're not there.They need, therefore, to be doing things which are slightly easier, which are what I call success‑oriented. They're likely to be able to complete them and which have them engaging with a language.Reading certainly, extensive reading, writing assignments, preparing, you say, flipped classroom, preparing vocabulary or a text for the next lesson, vocabulary assignments. All these things, I think, are valid.Ross: The standard thing that tends to happen with homework is it gets given out as the bell's ringing, and the students are walking out the door. What do you think's a better way of assigning homework? When is a good time to do it? How is a good way to do it?Penny Ur: A year or two ago, I published a book called, "Penny Ur's Teaching Tips." One of the tips I had there is don't give homework at the end of the lesson. Again, like everything else, never say never. There are sometimes when you do, but in principle, it's not a good idea to give it at the end of the lesson.Not only because giving it at the end of the lesson implies that it's not so important as a sort of afterthought but also because at the end of the lesson, the bell's about to ring or has already rung, and the students are beginning to pack up. Their attention is at a low level. You really want them to pay attention to what you want to tell them.In principle, give the homework immediately after the classroom activity that it is related to. If it's doing comprehension, work on reading text immediately after you've done the reading text or even before.The advantage of giving the homework in the middle of the lesson rather than at the end is not only that you're saying, "Right, this is important. I'm going to spend class time on it," but also you have time to answer questions. You have time to explain things more clearly, time to write it up on the board.Then all you need to do at the end of the lesson is say, "OK, students, it's been a good lesson. Well done. Just remember there's a homework that you have to do. I've already written it up on the board. I've already explained it to you."They're more likely then to remember to do it, although your next question is going to be, how do you get them to remember to do it, right?Ross: Exactly. How do you do that?Penny Ur: The question is, how do I get students to do their homework? You hear teachers complaining all the time, "My students simply do not do the homework. Do you have any tips on how to get the students actually to do their homework?" There's no perfect way to do this. It's really difficult.I was teaching a seminar recently to master's students in a university. They don't do their homework either, at least not as much as you would like them to, so let alone kids in school. Probably, it's very difficult to solve this completely, but things that can help would be fine.Firstly, make sure it is doable in the time that they have. Doable, success‑oriented. I've already said, easy to do. One very useful tip is to tell them, not, "You have to do exercises two, three, and four," but, "Of the exercises two, three, and four, do as much as you can in half an hour."It helps to agree with them in advance that homework will take so much time, half an hour, an hour, whatever the particular framework you're working within sees as reasonable. It's going to take you so long.You do as much as you can in the time and then stop. Your success is according to the amount of time you've spent rather than doing a certain amount of work. Success orientation is one really important thing, easy enough to do in the time allotted without your assistance.Two other things. One is that they clearly see it as relevant to what they're learning. They understand why it's important to do. You may need to spend a few minutes explaining, "I'm asking you to do this because this is what it's going to do for you. This is how it's going to contribute."Lastly, that it's interesting and fun to do, things which they all enjoy doing and find motivating and stimulating to do on their own.Ross: That's how to get students, maybe, to do the homework. After they've done it, is it important to go over it in class, or to mark it, or to do something with it?Penny Ur: Yes. You've reminded me of something I didn't say in response to the previous question, making sure students give homework. That is, it's so, so important to give feedback on the homework.I remember students telling me when I asked them about homework they remember doing as children in school. They said, "When the teacher didn't bother to look at our homework, we just stopped doing it."It's important if the students are going to do their homework that the teacher relates to it, gives feedback on it. Another useful tip about this incidentally, which also I forgot to say in response to the previous question, is that it's healthy. Doing homework is part of their final grade.In other words, 15 percent, say, of the final grade goes on, "Did you do your homework, or didn't you do your homework?" which, of course, obliges the teacher to keep careful records who has and has not done it.Your question was how to check it in class afterwards. What do I do about going over or giving feedback on the homework? One thing I've also seen from observing teachers is that in more than one case, I see half the lesson being wasted or being spent on going over yesterday's homework before the teacher has even got to what they planned to do in today's lesson.We've got to think about ways to check students' homework without taking up too much lesson time which I want to use for proactive teaching. One tip is try to avoid the ping‑pong teacher‑student interaction which consists of, "Who can do number one? Raise your hand. Yes, Jack, what's the answer? Yes, no," and then so on.One has to run through the questions because that takes up an awful lot of time and does not produce very much learning. Alternatives to that are just dictate the answers and tell the students to self‑check. Ask students to check each other. Ask if there are any which they had problems with and relate to the ones they had problems with. Otherwise, just move on.The best possible way of checking homework from the point of view of good learning by the students is to take in their notebooks and check them at home. The problem with this, of course, is it's very time consuming.If you have large classes and lots of lessons during the week, there's no way you can do it every time. Do it as much as possible because there's no substitute for it. It gives the personalized feedback. It's the caring, and it ensures learning. It ensures that students do do their homework better than any other strategy I know.Homework in Teacher EducationRoss: We've mainly been talking about how to make homework successful with students up to this point, but what about getting this more into teacher training and teacher education? What do you think we need to do to make teachers more aware of the importance of homework?I was a teacher trainer for a long time. I don't think I ever saw this being part of any teacher training course. Certainly none of the practicums that I worked on was homework, maybe part of any assess lessons.I've never seen it be part of any continual professional development anywhere I've worked. What do you think we can do to make teachers more aware of the importance of homework?Penny Ur: Not much I can add to what you said. I agree with what you said. It's a topic which is unjustifiably neglected in teacher training courses all over the place and something we need to devote time to.There's also not that much research on it. There is research, but not as much as I would have expected and hoped. It is so important, as I said before, so important for language learning.Ross: Presumably, homework should be something that's part of the planning process just as much as planning tasks, activities, and anything else in your lesson. I guess it shouldn't be something that you think about as you're walking into the classroom, should it?Penny Ur: Absolutely. It's part of your lesson plan. Also, as I hinted before, part of assessment. It should be part of the way you assess students, how they've done their homework and how much of their homework they've done.

In Episode 13 of Developod, we follow up on our previous episode on social justice by focusing on *the need for greater* diversity and inclusion in ELT materials. Firstly, we hear from Sergio Durand, a teacher from Mexico, who explains the current situation. Then, Tania speaks to Ilá Coimbra, co-author of Raise Up!, a new inclusive coursebook. And finally, Christian speaks to Tyson Seburn, TDSIG coordinator and someone who has some views to be heard on the subject of representation. They discuss how teachers can teach more inclusive lessons and Tyson's own materials that he'll soon be sharing. Links: Tyson’s blog: http://fourc.ca/somewhere-in-the-middle-cross-post/ Raise Up!: https://taylormadeenglish.com/raiseup/ ALx (Re)Coded: https://joshuampaiz.com/ John Gray at IATEFL: https://youtu.be/zdkR0cz3nlQ

Welcome back to The TEFLology Podcast – a podcast all about teaching English as a foreign language, and related matters. In episode 87, Rob discusses the work and ideas of MICHAEL LEWIS, Matthew leads a conversation about the use of VISUAL AIDS, and Matt presents reflections on IATEFL from Sandy Millin, Yasmine Abdelhamid, and Neil McMillan.  The book by Clark and Miller mentioned in Matt's section can be found here.  Our book - Podcasting and Professional Development: A Guide for English Language Teachers can be bought here. For other great titles, visit The Round. Email - Ask us questions, give us feedback, tell us what you think of the show. YouTube - Stream all of our episodes. Facebook - Like and share our page with your colleagues or friends. Twitter - Follow us and retweet us. iTunes - Subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. Also available on Acast / Stitcher Radio / SoundCloud / TuneIn / iheart Radio and more!

We're back after our conference enforced mid-season break. In this episode we are post-IATEFL and more significantly post TEFL commute games night. We took our recording stuff with us so this episode features amongst others Ceci, Ceri, Chia, Craig (our new number one fan :-)), Graham, Daniel, Dennis, Mike, Olga, Tyson, Sandy, Vicky, and lots of games!

Fiona Mauchline is a freelance materials writer, teacher, trainer and conference speaker. She is currently based in the UK after three decades in Spain and other parts of Europe. She has published courses for secondary, and resource books for teachers, and her main areas of interest are motivation, collaborative learning, vocabulary learning, cognitive development of teenagers and neuroscience as applicable to ELT. She also has a love of photography, art, creative writing and theatre, and this spreads to her work. She is the co-founder of EVE: Equal Voices in ELT, and a committee member of IATEFL’s TDSIG & MaWSIG. 2019 sees the arrival of her summer course for teens, Dive In! (Delta Publishing) as well as ETpedia Vocabulary (Pavilion ELT) which she has co-written with Julie Moore and Stacey Hughes.

In our second of two special long from podcasts recorded at IATEFL Liverpool, we speak with our favorite podcast guests Matt Courtois, Simon Galloway & Dave Weller about how teachers and trainers can challenge themselves.

In a special long form episode, we talk about our highlights from IATEFL 2019 in Liverpool with our favorite guests, Dave Weller, Matt Courtois and Simon Galloway.

At the IATEFL last Monday 1st April, I met Andy Cowle who has been working in the English Language world for over 20 years and I had a really interesting conversation with him. It was great to hear about teaching methods and materials from a different perspective as Andy has not only the experience of being a language trainer but also he is a specialist in publishing and provides talks and workshops for companies in the ELT sector, as well as presentations training for those in any publishing field.We also explored a little the aspect of coaching. Join me and discover what we said :)About AndyAndy Cowle studied German and English Linguistics at the University of Newcastle and qualified as an English teacher in 1989. Since then he has taught all ages and levels of English students, mostly in Germany and the U.K. and has worked in the field of English Language Teaching publishing with many companies in over 40 countries. He is a business development consultant and international conference speaker, focusing on motivating teachers and closing the gap between the classroom and the real and changing world of English. He grew up on Merseyside and lives with his family in Glasgow in Scotland.

In this 10th episode on Experimental Teacher Development Christian talks about 'Positive Discipline' with Tina Wu, who is teaching young learners in Taiwan. Plus we hear from Tyson, with news from TDSIG.

In this 8th episode Silvana Richardson, Head of Teacher Development of Bell schools UK, talks about creating an organisation-wide culture of teacher development and the importance of this. Silvana zooms in on a few elements of the teacher development programme which listeners may be less familiar with, namely ‘supported experiments’, ‘lesson study’ and ‘learning walks’. She also gives an overview of the idea of ‘INSPIRE’ development, which was the title for a talk that Silvana delivered with Gabriel Maggioli at IATEFL 2018. 00.57-10.27: Establishing and reviewing a culture of CPD 10.27-26.25: Supported experiments, Lesson Study, Learning Walks and other tools for CPD 26.25-29.27: ‘INSPIRE’ teacher development

In this 5th *bonus* episode Matthew Noble introduces an interview with Gerhart Erasmus before the IATEFL 2018 conference, as well as Gerhart’s reflections post conference. Gerhart was the winner of the TDSIG Michael Berman scholarship for 2018. Matthew gives you an overview of how you can apply for the 2019 scholarship.

Do teachers of different races get treated differently? Do schools prefer white teachers? Do students care what color their teacher's skin is? We Discuss with Asia Martin.Tracy Yu: Hello everyone, welcome to our podcast.Ross Thorburn: This week, we're going to talk about racism.Tracy: Wow, that's a really sensitive topic.Ross: Have you witnessed much racism when you were a teacher?Tracy: I don't think I experienced or witnessed a lot, but I definitely heard people talking about racism when I became a manager.Ross: Me too. I did notice at least when I was a teacher, for example, that a lot of schools I worked in, all the foreign teachers were white. Yeah, I agree with you. It's only since becoming a manager that I heard things.For example, somewhere I used to work, I asked the person in charge of recruitment, "What are companies' requirements for hiring teachers?" The person said to me, "Teaching experience, not black."Tracy: Wow.Ross: Today, we can look at this from two different aspects. One aspect is we'll interview Asia Martin, who used to work at Shenzhen about her experiences on the receiving end of racism.Tracy: The second part, I'm going to basically interview you, Ross, about your research paper and recently published in IATEFL about racism in teaching recruitment.Interview with Asia MartinRoss: Hi, Asia. Thanks a lot for coming over to the podcast. How are you doing?Asia Martin: I'm doing all right. I'm getting over a cold. I may sound a little nasally.Tracy: Asia, do you want to introduce yourself?Asia: My name is Asia Martin. It's been about six or so months since I last left China. I had been there for about two years working as a English teacher at a language center. I was stationed in Guangdong Province, China.Ross: Do you want to start off by telling us before you came to China? What were you expecting from the experience and how did that measure up to reality?Asia: I did a bit of research. I had a friend, he was black and he had worked in China a few years before I even went. I asked him about his experience. Without me even asking, he did warn me.He said, "Just be mindful that some of the things that you might hear or see in regards to your skin color is out of pure ignorance. You might just the first person that they've ever seen close up." I said, "OK." I was like, "So what do you mean?"He told me the story about how he was out of school and he took a drink from a cup. One of the Chinese girls walked up to him, who was a student, and said, "Teacher, your color didn't come off."When I got there and those things happened, I was open in the beginning. When people were asking, "Oh, can I touch your hair?" It didn't bother me at first. It began to bother me though, however, when certain individuals came up and were very negative about it, and they did make comments.I no longer was as accepting it being to close up a little bit. I was more so prepared for accidental things, not people who purposely had an issue with my skin color.Tracy: When I was working in training school, I got involved in those management meetings. I often heard sales staff talking about how much they prefer to have white teachers. When I was allocation manager, that's what my general manager and also the sales manager basically told me very directly, because it's good for our sales.Have you ever noticed yourself being treated differently by sales staff?Asia: It became very clear with amongst the staff that there was a slight hints of...I'm not sure if I would say that it is racism, but I would also say that it's a bit of colorism because it's more so based on the paler you are, the farther you can go with selling to students.The racism did come into play maybe with people watching me and not really wanting to get to know me as much maybe as teachers who were fairer skinned.Ross: What you noticed and what you experienced in China, how is it different to maybe what you'd experienced with regards to racism in the US?Asia: You really have to leave whatever you learned about racism and intercultural interactions in your own home. Not all of it, because of course, a lot of things did help me navigate being in China ‑‑ common sense and things like that, and just common decency with people. Not everything that's happening in America was occurring in China.A lot of things that people said to me, in the beginning I was like, "Was that really trying to be racism?" I found out, "No, it's more so colorism. They have with beauty standard that they have."They don't even see me as a threat. In the US, a lot of times, black gets associated with being the threats. I did witness that in China, but it was more so people were not really afraid of me. It was just they were afraid of me as a foreigner.You just have to really go on with as an open of a mind as you can and really listen to people when they're talking to you and realize that the way they learned English is not necessarily how you learned English.A lot of times, people use one word with you. You already associate it as a negative word, but they have not learned it culturally as a negative word. They're not thinking there's a cultural definition going on of how you understand the words that you're talking, that you're speaking. That plays a lot into it as well.Tracy: Can you tell us a bit more about the other foreign teachers that you worked with and what their attitudes about this issue?Asia: I had to learn how to process a lot of things. Even my colleagues working with me, at first, as being the only black person in the office, people thought I was adding drama or where drama wasn't.Over time, it was interesting, because when students would say certain things about black people like, "Oh, black people steal," is when another American teacher came to me and she said, "I couldn't believe that the student said that."In a way, I was somewhat like, "Well, finally, you got a piece of evidence [laughs] that proves that I'm not sitting up here making stuff up for the hell of it." Once that happened, I noticed people began to see I'm not sitting up here making up stuff.Ross: Do you have any advice then for anyone listening who might be working with someone who is on the receiving end of racism or maybe some other kind of discrimination? They might be the only person going through that in the school. How do you think it'd be best? Should they leave that person alone, try and engage them, or what?Asia: In my personal experience, it's best to definitely not allow that person to be isolated, because when I felt isolated, meaning no one heard me, I definitely no longer felt like I could really share because I was being judged simply just for expressing a negative incident that happened.I no longer really wanted to be a part of the team, because at that point, it's like, "This is happening to me in the classroom and no one wants to really validate it."You just have to listen. You have to validate it. Don't argue with the person. It is OK to ask questions about what exactly happened and you can say like, "Oh, I'm not quite sure if that's racism or not."There are times where I get that people exaggerate stories and I do understand that. If it sounds like I'm using dramatic language, it's probably because it really hurt my feelings. That's why you ask questions. You don't try to call them a liar.Tracy: Like I mentioned earlier, I think a lot of decisions were made by management. I'm sure managers play a really important role in this topic. What about your managers? Did they help? How did they help? Do you have any advice for those managers on this topic?Asia: My first manager was quite open and supportive. He would give me examples of other teachers who was going through what I was going through. That was comforting to know that he had been through this as a manager in his office before.He didn't see me as a problem. He was just like, "Here, you can go talk to this person. They went to the same thing that you went through and things like that." That was helpful.My second manager unfortunately made it very clear that she did not like talking about race and thought that was insignificant. At least that's how I felt, probably because of her attitude in the things that she would say in response to me talking about racial issues in office.For example, if I said, "That is the student who would cause trouble on my classes and would say things about my race," an then in response, that particular manager would say, "Do you feel that that really is important right now?" That response let me know, "I'm not going to hear about anything racial whatsoever."Managers cannot be afraid, especially when you're dealing with an employee who is dealing with racism. If they're coming to you to talk about it, it's because they're feeling something about experiencing it in the office. Otherwise, they wouldn't come and they wouldn't say anything about it to you.Ross: Asia, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Really appreciate you sharing your experience on what's [inaudible 10:35] the difficult topic and some tough experiences. Thanks so much for doing that.Asia: Thanks, bye‑bye.Racism in TEFL recruitment Tracy: Ross, what made you want to do the research about racism in teaching recruitment?Ross: Two things. The first one was that a long time ago, I read in "Freakonomics" about how people had researched racism in other fields using ethnic names, a name which sounds ethnically black and a name which sounds ethnically white.They use the two names and they put them on the top of very similar CVs or resumes, send them out to hundreds or thousands of companies, and then see which name gets the most replies. From that, you can see how people are discriminating.I read about that years ago. More recently as a manager, I'm hearing or seeing more racism in terms of recruitment. I spoke to friends about it and people said to me, "Oh, you know, if you think China's bad, Korea's worse."I wonder how bad it is. If you are white, how much more likely are you to be able to get a job than if you're black in TEFL?Tracy: How did you start doing this survey? You send out the CVs to different companies?Ross: I basically made two CVs. One had a photo of a white person [inaudible 12:08] , one had a photo of a black person. I went on this job board website and applied for 100 jobs in China, 100 in Korea, and 50 in Europe. I did fewer in Europe, just because there were fewer jobs being posted for European countries.Tracy: When you started applying for those jobs, when you're started receiving responses from the different companies, is there anything that make you really surprised in this process?Ross: Yeah, it was pretty surprising. I expected there to be a difference, but I wasn't expecting the differences to be this big as they were.In Europe, the white teacher and the black teacher both go at exactly the same number of responses. In Korea, the white teacher got 33 percent more post of responses than the black teacher. In China, the white teacher got 64 percent more positive response than the black teacher.In other words, if the black teacher got applied and got 100 positive responses, the white teacher would have received 164.Tracy: Wow, that's a huge difference.Ross: Absolutely.Tracy: Why do you think this happened?Ross: I think what most people would assume is that the recruiters are racist, but I actually found some research that said that it might not be the recruiters' racism. It's almost that recruiters are scared that parents and students are racist.The study this came from, they found that recruiters discriminated against black applicants when they apply for jobs for people who are facing customers.They found that when black candidates applied for management jobs or jobs that were not customer‑facing, there was almost no discrimination at all. That's also a possibility here that recruiters and schools are afraid that parents and students want white teachers.Tracy: This week, we actually have discussion about a controversial topic. Obviously like Ross and I, one is a white person and another one is Asian. I'm not the expert actually to talk about this topic. I really hope all this information that we talked about, there's something might be useful for teachers and who are actually going through this.Ross: We thanks very much for listening everyone.Ross: We'll see you again soon.Tracy: Bye.

In this, the second episode of the TDSIG podcast, Christian Tiplady asks a number of teachers at varying stages of their careers to share with us their new beginnings and teacher development resolutions!

The third Developod Episode from IATEFL’s TDSIG. The theme is ‘Keeping up your Mojo’ and we hear from Maria and Duran on how they have been keeping up their teacher development.

In this 4th episode in the Developod Series, Adrian Underhill talks about his learning at IATEFL 2018 (in Brighton, UK), about emancipatory teaching, and about the difference between communication and expression.

The second of our two-part special from the 2018 IATEFL conference in Brighton. We chat with our friends, fellow teacher trainers and returning podcast guests David Weller, Simon Galloway, Fifi Pyatt and new guest and DipTESOL candidate Will Ferguson.

Didn’t make it to Brighton for this year’s IATEFL conference? We chat with returning guests and friends Dave Weller, Simon Galloway and Felicity Pyatt and new guest Will Ferguson about the best ideas and concepts from the IATEFL’s 52nd annual conference.

We meet with Dave Weller to discuss the issues surrounding native and non-native English teachers such as attitudes of parents and teachers, the responsibilities of language schools and how to change opinions.Tracy: Hello, everyone.Ross Thorburn: Hi, folks.Tracy: Today, we've got our regular podcast guest...Both: Dave Weller.Ross: Hello, Dave.Dave Weller: Hello, everybody. I was trying not to say hurrah again.[laughter]Dave: Regular listeners will know what I mean.Ross: Dave's here this week to talk with us about a rather controversial issue...Tracy: Which is native English speaking‑teachers versus non‑native English‑speaking teachers.Ross: Today, we've got three questions. The first one is what's all the fuss about? Second...Tracy: What do the parents and the students think about it? The third one...Ross: What can managers and schools do about it?What’s the “Native” / “Non native Teacher” debate about?Ross: Guys, what's the debate about?Tracy: Based on my understanding, just schools, parents, teachers and students feel a different mode of English ‑‑ native or non‑native...They've got advantages and disadvantages. So it seems more people, native English‑speaking teachers and have a better model of English.Ross: As well as that, it seems like there's a bit of a tendency in the industry that native speakers who are teachers will tend to get paid more. Native speakers who are teachers will tend to be given more opportunities.Dave: Actually, I read about a study that looks at higher education institutions in the UK. They found over 70 percent of them made hiring decisions for staff based on whether they were native or non‑native speakers.Ross: That doesn't surprise me a lot. It's almost like our whole methodology and approach to teaching language, doing everything in the students' L2, is almost based around having native‑speaking teachers, right?Dave: Definitely. It goes really deep. Again, there's different levels of it. It's fine if it just stayed as an opinion, but once it turns into action, policy and systems, that's where discrimination kicks in. It becomes distinctly unfair and entrenched within our industry. Despite being what a lot of people think of as a very nice and liberal industry, it hides quite a lot of trade dark secrets.Ross: Interestingly, if you do any reading on this, you find that it becomes very difficult to define what a native speaker actually is. One thing that you can't deny is that the person grew up speaking English, but when you start to look at other criteria, they're very, very woolly.It tends to be things like they can be creative with language, they don't have a foreign accent, they're aware of the culture of the language. All these things, which clearly, it's possible...Dave: Of course. Non‑native speakers have that as well.Ross: Ultimately, you get to this point where, really, the only difference between the two is that one of them grew up speaking English, and one didn't. Which, if you're learning English from someone, is pretty irrelevant, isn't it, what language or what they did in their childhood. Who cares about that?Dave: Precisely. All you really care about is how good they are as a teacher, how well then can connect with you in the classroom, they can motivate you, and all the other things that go into making up a good teacher.This whole argument actually needs to be rephrased into clearer lines. Silvana Richardson mentioned in her IATEFL that we need a new word for non‑native speakers. For me, that word would just be English teachers.There's no point devolving that word into finer detail. You should actually go back up the chain. We're all English teachers. Just some of us have different skills and backgrounds than others.If we were to do that, it would solve a lot of these problems. When you talk about a teacher, you can, "OK, which language can they speak and at what level?" That way, you can say, "Well, in the old parlance, there's this native‑speaking teacher who can speak a little bit of the learner's L1, but not to their level."Then there's a native speaker who can't speak any. Then there's a non‑native speaker who is local to the area. Then there's a non‑native speaker that isn't local from the area."Ross: Part of it is linguistic determinism. The Sapir‑Whorf hypothesis, made famous by the recent movie ‑‑ "Arrival." This idea that because of the language that we use, that we have to describe the teachers as native and non‑native teachers or speakers, that's the thing that we end up focusing on.If we changed it, and say, we called them monolingual or bilingual teachers, then which of those would you have a preference for?Dave: I agree to a point, but this is why I might be against that. I can't say everything goes as you plan. Then in 20 years' time, you actually might get a reverse situation where there's prejudice against native speakers because of the bilingualism versus monolingualism.All I think you should do is revert back to the phrase teachers and then what skills does that teacher have.What do parents and the students think about “Native” / “Non- native Teachers”?Ross: Interesting in that the research I've done on this and the survey where I looked at parents, students, teachers, and sales and service staff, and asked every group, I had a bunch of different attributes in there.For example, attitudes, qualifications, personalities, relationship with students, being native speakers, what people look like, their nationality, and their ability to speak the student's L1.The number one thing was definitely not being a native speaker. That ranked about number three or number four in people's preference. The native or non‑native speaker is...people use that as a proxy.It's something that if you don't know anything about the industry, then you can relate to that very, very easily, but if you're a parent and you don't know anything about language learning, you're not going to know what qualifications the teachers should have.It's very difficult to see what the teachers' attitudes are or their personalities, if any, or of those things. It is quite simple to check. Is this person a native speaker or not?Dave: I find it fascinating. To go back to non‑native speakerism for a second, I was reading some of Adrian Holliday's work. He said that it started out as almost a marketing ploy from various aid agencies back in the '60s to propagate the idea that native speakers were the best model.In which case, that obviously links up to the idea that Silvana Richardson said in her plenary that we can change the perception in the industry. All it takes is a little time.With research that backs this up ‑‑ research coming out that actually says that it's not just OK, but beneficial to use L1 in the classroom ‑‑ you put those things together, then this is the way forward to actually eradicate bias in our industry.Ross: Let me play you that quote from Silvana now.Silvana Richardson: Employers always have choices. Collusion with inequality and prejudice is a choice. Discrimination is a choice. As Rajagopalan says, "In our neoliberal world, who will dare challenge what the market dictates?"The answer to this is, just because the market is demanding certain things, it does not mean that the market itself cannot be made to perceive things differently.Ross: Do you think that's true? Is that realistic though, that the market can be made to perceive...Dave: Of course, it is. Yeah, definitely. If you look on an individual on a mass scale, how many times have we changed our minds over the course of our professional development over the last 10, 15 years?Precisely, it's the same thing with the industry. Industries change, ideas change, views change. It happens usually, I would argue, from the ground up rather than direct from above, especially in an industry such as ours which is quite fragmented and has no overarching body to dictate the standards.Tracy: I still think there is a huge market, because you just look at the education companies doing online or offline. The business...they create the scenario, and having native English teachers is the better choice.Ross: In that case, do you think it's an easier or difficult or a long or short task to change the way that Chinese parents and students see local teachers?Tracy: It's going to be a long way. I have to say all the non‑native teachers need to work really hard, because if you constantly made the mistakes, and you constantly misspell the word, and you constantly use the utterances or expressions that people don't normally use, and use those language to teach your students, there is a problem.Ross: It's so unfair, because I see a lot of really bad native‑speaking teachers [laughs] who don't get picked up on making teaching mistakes or methodological mistakes.Dave: Or even language mistakes of teaching language which is highly improbable, possible but doesn't often get used. They end up teaching...It's, maybe, not going technically wrong, but you'll hear people teaching language that never gets used.Ross: They're from one particular part of the Deep South in America and they use a phrase that only them and their family and the people in that village use and are like, "I've never heard it before."I don't see them getting picked up on those mistakes. They tend to get a free pass because they're a native speaker. That's really unfair.Tracy: A lot of teachers or parents always say, "Oh, I want my student or my child to speak Standard English," or "All the students should learn Standard English."Dave: There's no such thing anymore, is there?Ross: I don't think so. Is that a cultural concept that exists in China? There is a standard Chinese, but there's no Standard English.Dave: Let's play devil's advocate just for a second. I can clearly understand what they mean though. Even though we're looking at it from a technician's point of view, we're looking at it from a point of view of professionals in the industry. What parents mean...it's almost like the shadows on Plato's cave, to take it deep for a second.The concept of a horse, despite all horses can look slightly different...Again, they're using that term as a proxy of an English that will be understood around the world. No matter where they go, it'll be effortless to be able to communicate with other English‑speaking teachers and not be hindered in any way through pronunciation or grammar or phrase. That's shorthand for what they're trying to say.Ross: Indeed, but is it not also the case that a very, very small percentage of learners will learn English or an accent or something to the point where they're at that level of, "Oh, I want to sound English" or "I want to sound American," but, really, for most of the students I've taught, even after years, they sound Chinese, because...Dave: Maybe your students, Ross.[laughter]Dave: Sorry, that's such a flippant answer. No, I completely agree with your point. In fact, I'd even add to that and say, it's not about increasing their level. It's about teaching the skills to grade their language if they do encounter another non‑native speaker who has trouble understanding their accent, maybe because they're from a quite different culture. Again, you're arguing against a perception and a belief.What can managers and schools do about “Native” / Non-native Teacher” discriminationRoss: Can we talk for a minute about language schools and, maybe, what language schools can do about that? I've got another Silvana quote for you. Do you mind if I play this briefly?Dave: Please do.Silvana: This is part of the California/Nevada's position paper opposing discrimination against non‑native English speaking teachers. It says, "Teaching job announcements that indicate a preference or requirement for a native speaker of English trivialize the professional development teachers have received and teaching experience they have already acquired.Such announcements are also discriminatory and ultimately harm all teachers ‑‑ native or not ‑‑ by devaluing teacher education, professionalism, and experience.Ross: To what extent do you guys agree or disagree with that?Dave: 100 percent. Again, I really speak with authority from my background, which is as a native speaker. Again, it does trivialize my experience and the amount of work I've put in over the last 15 years of professional development, studying...Ross: Getting qualifications and things...Dave: Precisely. The extra work I've put in ‑‑ thousands of hours ‑‑ and then to be reduced to being called, "He's a native speaker. He'll do."Ross: It still happens so often. Tracy, you had something like that a few weeks ago over organizing a teacher training thing here. Again, you've obviously got your diploma, you're studying your MA, you've been a tutor and a course director on accredited courses.The people running the course said, "Oh, can you make sure there's a native speaker or foreigner for at least half the course?"Dave: Who's just finished a 40‑hour online course, perhaps.Ross: Or maybe not even that. Isn't it fascinating that that still persists?Tracy: They even didn't care about what qualifications or experience they have. Also interesting, the person from the organization even asked me, "Can you tell me more about this trainer?"I said, "OK. Maybe I can ask this person to send the CV, send the training, teaching experience." She said, "We really don't care about it. Just tell me his age, which country he's from, and also if he's white or black."Ross: What about on the flip side for a minute then, Dave? As someone who used to be a director of studies before in a school where you had to make hiring decisions, where's this balance? Were you ever in some tough situations there?Dave: [laughs] Yes.Ross: How did that work out then?Dave: The thing is, as a manager ‑‑ anyone who's been a manager, I'm sure, can relate to this ‑‑ you have to pick and choose your battles. That was the one that I'll actually go to bat for.If you had several candidates and various degrees of discrimination in different things as one that Tracy mentioned earlier about someone's skin color, also about non‑native speaking teachers, you just go and not actually ask if these persons' qualified, they're capable, they've gone through the interview process, and that they would be a good fit for this team, they'd be a good fit for this country, and they'd be a great fit for our school.Then you'd put your foot down. You'd have an argument, almost, with the culture of the school. If you won ‑‑ sometimes you did, sometimes you didn't ‑‑ often, unfortunately, it depended on how badly the school needed teachers, and how many classes waiting you had, how many students waiting to start class.Unfortunately, it was usually the deciding factor. Once the teacher arrived, whereas the students after a few lessons, would be delighted with the experienced teacher, the parents would turn and become delighted and insist on having that teacher as a future teacher for their children.What’s does the future hold for “Non-native English teachers”?Dave: It's always sad that we actually have to do this, or that it's something that we do have to get passionate about. Do spread the word on.I'm very optimistic about it. I like to think there are enough people out there that people will go back, spread the word, and take small actions. There will be this groundswell of people that do this.Ross: All right, Dave, thanks very much for coming on. It was a pleasure talking to you again.Dave: It's a pleasure to be here, as always. Thank you.[background music]Tracy: Thanks, Dave. Bye, everybody.Ross: Bye.Tracy: For more podcasts, videos, and blogs, visit our website...Both: Www.tefltraininginstitute.com.Ross: If you've got a question or a topic you'd like us to discuss, leave us a comment...Tracy: If you want to keep up to date with our latest content, add us on WeChat @tefltraininginstitute.Ross: If you enjoyed our podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

A conversation with Andy Johnson, talking about the IATEFL teaching conference, millennials, more tales of Andy's appearance and the possibility of a WWE wrestling match between Andy and me. Episode page http://wp.me/p4IuUx-7BO 10% off all courses at London School Online - use offer code LUKE10 http://www.londonschoolonline.com 

We discuss how much we should change our approach based on our students, the importance of connections and to what extent courses like the CELTA and CertTESOL meet the needs of new teachers.

In this episode 6, Shaun and Lindsay talk ELT conferences. They discuss the first conferences they went to and spoke at, the benefit of going to conferences and their conference stories. Our audience members share their conference mishap stories and we also hear from lots of conference attendees who share their advice and their reasons for being at the recent IATEFL conference.

June’s podcast introduces my new co-host, Chris Wilson, who spoke to Paul Braddock on the flipped classroom. The show also features Cecilia Lemos on oral correction, Vicky Loras talks to Wiktor Kostrzewski, and Katy Davies lists her top ten reasons for going to the IATEFL conference. For ELTchat updates, go to: eltchat.org, join our facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/eltchat/) and follow @ELTchat (twitter.com/ELTchat) on Twitter. Thanks to our contributors and guests: Paul Braddock (https://twitter.com/bcnpaul1, http://bcnpaul1.blogspot.com/) Cecilia Lemos (https://twitter.com/CeciELT, http://cecilialemos.com/) Vicky Loras (https://twitter.com/vickyloras, http://vickyloras.wordpress.com/) Wiktor Kostrzewski (https://twitter.com/Wiktor_K, http://www.16kinds.com/) Katy Davies (https://twitter.com/KatySDavies, http://lessonsfrommystudents.wordpress.com/) The show was produced and presented by James Taylor (https://twitter.com/theteacherjames, http://theteacherjames.com) and Chris Wilson (https://twitter.com/MrChrisJWilson, http://eltsquared.co.uk/).

The #eltchat podcast is back, thanks for your patience! In this month’s podcast we present a recording from this year’s IATEFL conference. ELTchat moderators Shaun Wilden and Marisa Constantinides hosted a session entitled “Autonomous Professional Development Begins At Home” as part of the Teacher Development Special Interest Group of IATEFL. For ELTchat updates, go to: eltchat.org, join our facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/eltchat/) and follow @ELTchat (twitter.com/ELTchat) on Twitter. The show was produced and presented by James Taylor (https://twitter.com/theteacherjames, http://theteacherjames.com).

The second and final part of eltknowledge's round up of IATEFL 2012, hosted by Rob Mair and English Teaching professional's Helena Gomm.

eltknowledge editor Rob Mair speaks to English Teaching professional's Helena Gomm about her highlights from IATEFL 2012.

Because the podcast has been delayed by production issues (I went on holiday!), I thought I'd share some great interviews and recordings from IATEFL Glasgow. Sandy Millin shares her first international conference experience with us, Dina Dobrou interviews some teachers new to Twitter and ELTchat, and I speak to Sharon Hartle and Shaun Wilden.

This month the ELTchat podcast comes from the IATEFL conference in Glasgow. In this special edition podcast, you’ll hear from a whole range of ELTchat people, including the man who tweets as OUPeltglobal.

On this week's ELTchat podcast, listen to the uncut interview with Shaun Wilden as he talks about ELTchat's plans for the IATEFL conference in Glasgow.

February’s bumper podcast features a round up of the months chats, an interview with moderator Shaun Wilden about the upcoming ELTchat symposium at the IATEFL conference, a look back on last month’s blog challenge with Tara Benwell and the announcement of next month’s challenge with Bethany Cagnol. There’s also an interview with Yitzha Sarwono. For ELTchat updates, go to: http://eltchat.com/ Thanks to our contributors: Sandy Millin, (@sandymillin, http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/), Vicky Loras (@vickyloras, http://vickyloras.wordpress.com/) Elinda Gjondedaj (@ElindaGjondedaj, http://magicineducation.wordpress.com/) Shaun Wilden (@shaunwilden, http://shaunwilden.com/) A big thank to our guests: Tara Benwell (@tarabenwell, http://my.englishclub.com/profile/EnglishTeacher, http://www.tarabenwell.com/) Bethany Cagnol (@bethcagnol, http://freelanceteacherinfrance.blogspot.com/) Yitzha Sarwono (@yitzha_sarwono, http://yitzhasarwono.posterous.com/) The show was produced and presented by James Taylor (@theteacherjames, http://theteacherjames.blogspot.com/). Some of the music stings are taken from http://incompetech.com/