Peter Grundy : past president of IATEFL and currently chairs the IATEFL WMS Committee
Strange seas of thought – literal meaning and language teaching
In this talk, I want to consider three hypotheses: 1.meaning comes from the use of language rather than from language itself. 2.we use language to point to thoughts. 3, the real meaning of an utterance isn’t the literal meaning of what we say but the unspoken thought that we intend to communicate and that our utterance points to.
These hypotheses have obvious implications for pedagogy: in mainstream presentation-practice production style, we tend to treat the meanings of words and of sentences as relatively stable and think of language learning as a rehearsal for language use. But what if using a language meaningfully is actually the best way of learning it? Do we dare to ask Prufrockian questions, such as whether most of what we focus on in the teaching of vocabulary misses the real point, and whether our work in areas like corpus linguistics needs serious rethinking?
Sue Palmer: writer and speaker on the subject of child development and education in the modern world
Toxic Childhood
In recent decades, there’s been an explosion in developmental conditions, such as ADHD, Asperger Syndrome and dyslexia, and teachers across the UK report that children in general find it increasingly difficult to focus attention and control their behaviour.
Twelve years ago, literacy specialist Sue Palmer met a researcher who’d discovered an alarming decrease in young children’s listening skills. Her conclusion led Sue to wide-ranging research into the rapidly changing nature of children’s lives. The resulting book, Toxic Childhood, published in 2006, helped start a national debate about the state of childhood in 21st Century Britain.In this presentation, she discusses how rapid socio-cultural change, driven by a hyper-competitive consumer economy, has transformed children’s lives in ways that can affect physical, emotional, social and cognitive development. She also looks at the simple ways adults can work together to ‘detoxify’ childhood – all of which are free...
Catherine Walter: a member of the Advisory Council of IATEFL and of the Wider Membership Scheme Advisory Committee, the Chair of the British Council’s English Language Advisory Group
Should we be planning to teach grammar? If so, how?
Questions about teaching grammar do not go away. Should we forget grammar and only teach vocabulary? Or should we teach grammar, but only the grammar learners need when they can’t express the meanings they have in mind? Or should we plan our grammar teaching in advance? Should we promote learners’ noticing of grammatical features, or just let it happen? Should we teach rules, or should we let the learners figure them out? If we do teach rules, where in the task cycle should we teach them?This presentation will assess the evidence for different points of view on these questions. It will also look at each question in the light of the demands that are made on teachers and learners in classrooms around the world. It will suggest some ways for teachers to think about the questions and to look for answers that are adapted to their contexts.
