4d content english

IATEFL BESIG Weekend Workshop: The Politeness and Pragmatics of ELF – English as a Lingua Franca

mercedesviola — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:30:41 +0000

The Politeness and Pragmatics of ELF

Early approaches to politeness in academia, ELT materials and our language classroom have focussed mainly on our learners emulating the native speaker (NS) models of politeness and although non-native speaker interactions (NNS<->NNS) now take prominence in a global world where English is used as the predominant Lingua Franca (ELF), few have attempted to investigate the NNS perceptions of fellow NNSs’ requests. Does the non-native speaker’s choice of language affect the impressions they are creating? Would ELF users evaluate the politeness of these requests in the same way that a native-speaker does? This talk seeks to discuss what and how we choose to teach, and reports on the results of the research I have done on the subject.

Speaker:

Chia Suan Chong is a graduate in Communication Studies and has an MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT from King’s College London. Currently running Business and General English classes, in addition to teacher training (CELTA) courses, at International House London, Chia is passionate about Dogme, Systemic Functional Grammar, Intercultural Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics. She speaks English and Mandarin as her first language, and Japanese, Italian and Spanish as her second. Active on Twitter, Chia loves a good debate and blogs regularly at chiasuanchong.wordpress.com.

Date:

This workshop will take place on Sunday, 05 February 2012 at 16.00 (CET). You can check your local time by clicking here: Local time

How to join the workshop:

The event takes place in the IATEFL online conference room. Please use the link below to enter the room. Before entering the room you will be prompted to “Enter as a guest”. Please use this model to enter your name:

Mike Hogan (Germany)

This will make it easier for Chia to identify you and answer your questions. Click on this link to enter:

Workshop with Chia

Once in the room, you will be able to communicate with other attendees and the speaker using the text chat window at the bottom of the screen.

BESIG Online Team (BOT)

Members of the BESIG Online Team (BOT) – Carl Dowse, Mike Hogan, Mercedes Viola, and Andi White – will be present to moderate the event.

IATEFL BESIG LESSON PLAN COMPETITION – Deadline January 31

mercedesviola — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:35:03 +0000

IATEFL BESIG, along with Cambridge University Press are delighted to announce a new lesson plan competition that gives business English trainers the chance to have their ideas published on the CUP website, Professional English Online for the first time.

The idea of the competition is to recognise teachers who demonstrate creativity and high professional standards through their development of unique lesson plans related to business English.

The competition is open to anyone who has not previously had any teaching materials commercially published.

The closing date for entries is January 31st 2012 and winners will be announced at the IATEFL Annual Conference in Glasgow on March 22nd 2012 as part of the BESIG Open Forum as well as on the IATEFL BESIG website and the Cambridge University Press ‘Professional English Online’.

For more information click here or here

Good luck!

BESIG SATELLITE EVENT – Montevideo, Uruguay

Andrea — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:25:31 +0000

IATEFL BESIG Satellite Event

Montevideo, Uruguay

BESIG the Business English Special Interest Group of IATEFL is having the 2011 Annual Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia over the weekend 18 – 20 November.

Click here to find more info about the global event.

As part of this event we have the unique opportunity to participate in the BESIG Satellite Event in Montevideo, Uruguay

When:

November 19, 2011

Where:

Colegio y Liceo San Juan Bautista

Cavia 2830

From: 8:00 to 4:00

Registrations:

The event is free, however registration is needed: Click Here

mercedes.viola@besig.org – Register now! - Places are limited.

Certificates will be awarded!

Sponsors:

Overview of the event:

7:30 to 8:00: Registration opens

8:00 to 9:00: Title: “Doing decision-making: Using real meetings for Business English training.” Speaker: Dr Almut Koester

9:10 to 9:40: Title: “Delivering workshops to our clients – a way of enhancing their learning experience.” Speaker: Mercedes Viola

9:40 to 9:50: Transatlantic discussion Exchange opinions between audience in Uruguay and audience in Dubrovnik

10:00 to 10:30: Local Speaker Title: “Time Management, the Cure for Procrastination and Stress” Speaker: Prof. Fernando Cid

10:30 to 11:00: Coffee break and exhibitions

11:00 to 11:45: Title: “Influencing.” Speaker: Steve Flinders

12:05 to 12:50: Title: “Shall we Coach? Coaching or 1:1 Teaching, That Is The Question.” Speaker: Alison Haill

12:50 to 13:25: Lunch Break and Exhibition

13:25 to 14:10: Title: “Go with the Flow! Just-in-time language input for communicative tasks.” Speaker: David Bonamy

14:10 to 14:30: Coffee break and exhibitions

14:30 to 15:30: Title: “Power in PowerPoint: Creative uses for PPT in the BE classroom.” Speaker: Kees Garman

15:30 to 16:00 Closing Ceremony and raffle

Click here for the full programme

IATEFL BESIG Online Conference 2011

Conferencia Internacional para Líderes y Directores en la enseñanza del inglés

mercedesviola — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:33:52 +0000

La XII Conferencia Internacional de ABS para Líderes y Directores de Inglés se realizó en Montevideo el 3 y 4 de Setiembre.

El objetivo de esta conferencia es ofrecer herramientas a sus participantes para convertirse en mejores líderes para su gente y sus instituciones.

Oradores de Argentina, Perú, El Salvador, Estados Unidos y Uruguay presentaron sus ideas, compartieron y discutieron sus experiencias en un ambiente cálido y abierto.

El programa se puede ver aquí

Mercedes Viola, una de nuestras directoras, realizó un taller sobre Indagación Apreciativa en el trabajo en equipo. Puedo leer sobre este taller aquí.

Andrea Sintas, Nicolas Celedon, Andrea Ponti, Adriana Craviotto, Elina Rydstrom y Mercedes Viola participaron de este evento y se enriquecieron con esta oportunidad de desarrollo profesional.

TEDx Montevideo – 22 de junio de 2011

mercedesviola — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:10:57 +0000

El evento anual de TEDx Montevideo se llevó a cabo el pasado 22 de Junio en el Teatro Solís.

TED es un evento anual donde algunos de los pensadores y emprendedores más importantes del mundo están invitados a compartir lo que más les apasiona. TED significa tecnología, entretenimiento y diseño, tres grandes áreas que en conjunto están dando forma a nuestro futuro. Hoy en día, el evento le da cabida a muchas más disciplinas bajo la consigna de mostrar ideas que “vale la pena difundir”

En el espíritu de ideas que vale la pena difundir, TEDx es un programa de eventos locales auto-organizados que unen a la gente para compartir una experiencia tipo TED.

En un evento TEDx, videos de TEDTalks y oradores en vivo se combinan para generar discusiones profundas y conectar a la audiencia con los participantes. Estos eventos locales auto-organizados se denominan TEDx, donde la x denota que es un evento TED organizado de manera independiente.

Visite el sitio de TEDxMontevideo aquí.

Eduardo Mangarelli se pregunta por qué enseñamos. Desde una mirada práctica y en el contexto de la formación de técnicos y profesionales, indaga en las razones que nos llevan a enseñar, a compartir conocimientos y experiencias, y a despertar en otros la generación de conocimientos.

Carlos Pacheco considera que “La invención” es propia de la condición humana y que todos somos potencialmente inventores, pero también cree que desarrollar un invento genial no es suficiente para que sea un gran negocio.

Pablo Casacuberta – ¿Por qué nos gusta el arte?

The 45th IATEFL Conference in Brighton – April 2011

mercedesviola — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 23:31:49 +0000

Having won the BESIG Facilitator Conference Scholarship, I could attend and give a presentation at the recent 45th Annual International IATEFL Conference & Exhibition which took place in Brighton from 15-19 April 2011

The possibility of attending such an extraordinary event was one of the most exciting and enriching moments of my professional career. It was an extraordinary opportunity for learning, sharing, networking and getting to know many excellent ELT professionals. You come across colleagues from so many different teaching backgrounds that you come to realize how much there is to learn.

When I arrived I could not believe that I was actually there. At first I felt overwhelmed with all the people I could finally get to know face to face after so many online interactions and exchanges, with all the diverse talks and workshops to attend and with the big turnout for the conference.
You can find the programme here.

I realized how much time many, many people devoted to make it happen. In a world where ‘money talks’ it is really stimulating to see people do things just because they believe in it.

I attended the BESIG Pre Conference Event on Friday. We discussed and reflected, shared and learned. There is no doubt, we grow and learn through interactions with others!
Thanks to all the BESIG team that made that amazing event possible!!!
Thanks to Carl Dowse for the recordings

At the Scholars’ Tea I had the chance to meet other scholarship winners, the IATEFL presidents and committee members, staff members, the scholarship working party, and the editor of IATEFL Voices. It was a truly emotional moment. There was also a Scholarship Winners Stand in the Exhibition Hall where we can all meet up and see photos and memorabilia from our countries.

I delivered a talk at the BESIG Programme Day on Sunday. (programme).
Some of those talks were recorded by the Brighton Online Team.
• Rachel Clark: Doing business with a spoken corpus: Grammar in action – video
• Steve Flinders & Ian McMaster Communicating internationally in English – video
• My talk: The many roles we perform as business English trainers – video

The day closed with the Open Forum; the latest information about what is happening within BESIG, the new online possibilities and a preview of the upcoming events were shared. There were different raffles and I won a year institution subscription to English360!

One of the most exhilarating and hilarious moment was David, Hillary and Ben Crystal’s performance on what writers have to say about the English language – A thousand years of words and words. They are truly marvellous storytellers and I felt honoured to be there.

The Pecha Kucha evening was unbelievably fun. The presenters were amazing!!!
http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2011/sessions/2011-04-17/pecha-kucha-evening

It is incredible how many blogs and sites you can find now where different ELT professionals from different parts of the world give their impressions and opinions about the event Truly global!

Business Spotlight
Karen Richardson
Anthony Gaughan
Scott Thornbury
Chia Suan Chong
Yordanka Brunet

Mike Harrison’s collection of blog posts

I want to thank IATEFL and BESIG for this truly amazing opportunity; it was a dream come true.

I’m honoured to be part of the BESIG Online Team!

Photographs: Mike Hogan, Candy van Olst and Mercedes Viola – thanks Mike and Candy

El inglés global con David Crystal

mercedesviola — Mon, 30 May 2011 12:38:01 +0000