Posts tagged elt
Do ELT course books still have a future?
May 25th
The answer to my question proved complicated, here are my presentation slides from the IATEFL Conference in Birmingham in April 2016, in which I revisited research into the future of the ELT coursebook that I started in 2010.
In my research I found printed coursebooks continue to be widely used, and the take up of digital alternatives has been slower than I predicted in 2010.
Teachers and students: online outside the classroom, offline inside the classroom.
[Publisher comment]
I also found that the publishing sector is struggling to make money from coursebooks and digital alternatives, as governments cut budgets, consumers expect content for free, and the result has been very challenging for people involved in the sector, particularly authors. There are some interesting developments and initiatives, but important pedagogical issues still need to be resolved.
The Janus Moment in (BAL)EAP
May 11th
I attended BALEAP’s biennial conference at Nottingham University 2013, which was a great opportunity to catch up with the world of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). I was there with Epigeum to meet potential clients and authors for its forthcoming English for Academic Studies courses. The conference theme was “The Janus Moment” in honour of the Roman god Janus, who presided over the beginning and ending of conflict, and thus war and peace. In this case, the organisers were less interested in war, more interested in the analogy of looking back at the development of EAP over the past 40 years, and also looking to the future with the growth of English as a medium of instruction in Higher Education, EAP is becoming an increasingly important area. The conference was busy, lots of participants and great sessions, which you can see from the conference programme, but I was only able to attend a few, More >
IATEFL Failure Fest
May 2nd
I’m ashamed to see how long it is since I last updated this blog, I’ve been busy on some very exciting e-learning projects, and working as a member of the IATEFL Conference committee. One of my highlights was working with Ken Wilson to organise the Failure Fest evening at the Liverpool conference, and reading the various reviews made me feel very proud. I was inspired to suggest the Failure Fest event after attending a similar event of that name organised by Nesta late in 2012, in which presenters shared their experiences of failure and learning in various educational contexts. You can see the video of our event at IATEFL Online.
Is there an app for getting language learners reading
Feb 14th
My Guardian Weekly article on the opportunity that mobile devices offer for graded readers is available in today’s issue. In the article I review the OUP “Bookworm” iPhone/iPad apps and discuss the opportunities and challenges that publishers face in making mobile versions of their graded reader titles.
Mobile learning presentation webinar
Dec 14th
I’m greatly looking forward to my mobile learning presentation this weekend for the IATEFL Learning Technology SIG, see details on their web page. I will report on a survey of language learning apps carried out with Paul Sweeney, and the features that we liked and those we didn’t and describe how I have applied this learning in two mobile app projects that I am working on.
The first is an arcade style iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad vocabulary learning game called Word Carrot that I have been working on the past few months with three colleagues in our new company, LearnAhead Ltd. The app will appear on the Apple App store in early January 2012.