Multilingual matters - mini event

Watch the recordings and download the handouts of four practical webinars with expert teachers on the theme of multilingualism in ELT. This event took place on February 15, 2024.

A multilingual adult class with four learners

About the event

This event took place on Thursday February 15, 2024 and featured four webinars with expert ELT teachers from around the world. All webinars help English teachers think about how they nurture, support and celebrate multilingual learners in the classroom. The webinars are for teachers of primary, secondary and adult English language learners. 


About the webinars


Session 1: A practical guide to connecting and creating genuine engagement with your multicultural learners

Speaker:

Amy Newsome (South Africa)

Time and date:

13:00 - 14:00 (UK time) February 15, 2024

Session information:

The focus of this workshop is to be exposed to different cultural situations that could arise in the classroom, and to give you the tools to create a safe classroom rapport for you and your learners. We will look at some examples of some typical communication and learning errors that students make when learning English, and how to best guide them by building rapport, trust, and respect, and learning about intercultural communication. The final stage of the workshop will give you practical ideas and tips to help identify areas of conflict, and how to best resolve them.

Click or tap here to download Amy's handout


Session 2: Using poetry to teach pronunciation and promote linguistic diversity

Speaker:

Victor Carreão (Brazil)

Time and date:

14:15 - 15:15 (UK time) February 15, 2024

Session information:

This webinar will give you some practical ideas to help you work with pronunciation by using poetry. First, we will talk about raising students' awareness on syllables and sound articulation. These factors are key elements to ensure intelligible pronunciation, and help students to self-assess their pronunciation. Next, we will check some examples of poetry and will focus on how short poems are easier to read/write and how they may engage learners at different levels and interests. We will finish by showing how linguistic diversity portrayed in poems helps celebrating different cultures.

Click or tap here to download Victor's handout


Session 3: How to intentionally integrate intercultural competence as a learning outcome in your lessons

Speaker:

Amina Douidi (UK)

Time and date:

15:30 - 16:30 (UK time) February 15, 2024

Session information:

Intercultural competence is meant to help the learner communicate more effectively and appropriately with people from different backgrounds. In this webinar, we will start by looking at the knowledge, skills and attitudes required from our learners to navigate their world. We will then examine different activities and tasks that target intercultural learning outcomes. The overall aim of the webinar is to help you bring intentionality to your practice of promoting interculturality in the classroom.

Click or tap here to download Amina's handout


Session 4: Challenges and benefits of teaching English to bilingual or multilingual children and teens

Speaker:

Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert (France)

Time and date:

16:45 - 17:45 (UK time) February 15, 2024

Session information:

The workshop will start with a brief overview of bilingualism and multilingualism. Participants will work through scenarios showing some challenges of bilingualism and multilingualism, such as when home, school and society languages are perceived as having more value or importance within the family circle/friends or peers, when children can ‘ lose’ or stop using one or more language. The second part of the webinar will focus on the many benefits of bilingualism and multilingualism.

Click or tap here to download Suzanne's handout


About the speakers


Amy Newsome is a specialised communication professional, with a diverse background in tertiary adult education. She teaches extensively in the areas of Professional Communication, Intercultural Communication, Pragmatics of Language, and the acquisition of English as a second language in adults. She lives and works in Johannesburg, as an Accounts Relationship Manager of Exams for the British Council. 

Victor Carreão has worked in ELT in Brazil in varied educational contexts for more than 15 years. He is a PhD candidate in Linguistics and has also worked as a speaking examiner for international exams and as an assessment designer for higher education.

Amina Douidi holds a doctorate degree from the University of Southampton where she investigated the intercultural potential of Algerian English textbooks and their use in the classroom. She is an EAP teacher and a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) consultant for publishing houses.

Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert has written two books on bilingualism and has participated in many conferences on this topic. Suzanne worked with young refugees and multilingual teens and adults in England and currently teaches young learners at the British Council in Paris. As a parent of bilingual children she has experience of supporting language transfer, maintaining a parental language and backing up language learning with cultural knowledge.

 

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