Conference Reports

Against Dogma: Peter Medgyes at TESOL Spain 2017

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Saturday, March 4, 2017 - 13:15
Against Dogma: Peter Medgyes at TESOL Spain 2017 - hancockmcdonald.com/blog/against-dogma-peter-medgyes-tesol-spain-2017

Peter Medgyes brought to TESOL Spain a quirky plenary which somehow managed to be poetic, theatrical and intellectual at the same time. The performance amused and enchanted the audience, myself included – I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, it left some puzzled as to what it was about. As one teacher commented to me, ‘What is ELF, and why is it important?’.

“The Customer is Always Right”? Silvana Richardson at TESOL Spain 2017

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Sunday, March 5, 2017 - 13:30
“The Customer is Always Right”? Silvana Richardson at TESOL Spain 2017 - hancockmcdonald.com/blog/%E2%80%9C-customer-always-right%E2%80%9D-silvana-richardson-tesol-spain-2017

TESOL Spain 2017 finished up with a compelling plenary from Silvana Richardson on native-speakerism and bias in ELT. She covered the topic from many angles, but out of all of them, I would just like to focus on one – the use of the phrase “native-speaker teachers” as a pull-factor in advertising language courses. Why has this come to be seen as a good thing - if indeed it has been?

TESOL Spain interviews

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Event date: 
Thursday, March 24, 2016 (All day)
Conference Reports - hancockmcdonald.com/blog/topic/conference-reports-0

On the TESOL Spain website (click here), you can now see videos of various speakers from the 2016 conference in Vitoria, conducted by Gerard McLaughlin.

Hot Topics in Prague

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Hot Topics in Prague - hancockmcdonald.com/blog/hot-topics-prague

The 4th International Conference on English Pronunciation: Issues & Practices (EPIP) was a three day event in Prague.

Pronunciation at IATEFL 2015 - some reflections

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Pronunciation at IATEFL 2015 - some reflections - hancockmcdonald.com/blog/pronunciation-iatefl-2015-some-reflections

I can’t remember ever having seen so many pronunciation-focused talks on an IATEFL programme as there were in Manchester this year. Too many to fit into a single PRONSIG strand day. What’s more, many of them were so over-subscribed that there wasn’t even space to sit on the floor, as I found out to my own disappointment. I did get to see a fair number, nevertheless.

Stephen Krashen at TESOL France

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Event date: 
Saturday, November 15, 2014 - 18:00
Conference Reports - hancockmcdonald.com/blog/topic/conference-reports-0

For myself and many other ELT professionals, Stephen Krashen is a legend. In the words of Wikipedia, for instance ‘He is credited with introducing various influential concepts ... including the acquisition-learning hypothesis, the input hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis, the affective filter, and the natural order hypothesis’. So naturally, he is a big pull at a conference.

Carol Read at TESOL France

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Event date: 
Saturday, November 15, 2014 - 10:00
Conference Reports - hancockmcdonald.com/blog/topic/conference-reports-0

Carol Read’s plenary at TESOL France was titled, ‘Reflections on How to be a Highly Effective Teacher’. I’ve seen her give a number of conference presentations, but for me this was the best – a broad view of the field underpinned by good references, and a vivacious delivery.

Bringing the corpus back to life? Reflections on McCarthy on spoken grammar

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Event date: 
Saturday, October 4, 2014 - 11:30
Conference Reports - hancockmcdonald.com/blog/topic/conference-reports-0

Mike McCarthy gave the opening plenary at English UK Academic (North) conference last Saturday (Oct 4 2014), revisiting the topic of the grammar of spoken English. Spoken language, he pointed out, is in no way an imperfect, poorly realized version of the written form.

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