Dear TESOL-SPAIN members,

Welcome back after the summer break! ...and if you're still on holiday, we hope you're enjoying a welcome break!

First off, we'd like to apologise to Renata Agolli for omitting her name as author of the article on TBLT which we published in our May issue.

Secondly, we have just received a plea from a teacher based in New Jersey looking for a class of 16-18 year-old Spanish students to Skype with her class in the States. If you contact Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo. and her class, do let us know how the venture turns out!

We'd like to thank our sponsor for this month's issue Anglia Exams. They will also be present at our regional event in Madrid in November.

We have two books up for review this month, kindly donated by Dr Daniel Xerri and the elt council - Creativity in English Language Teaching - and by Delta Publishing -Teaching Lexically by Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley. We're looking forward to reading our members' views on these cutting edge publications.

Another way you can get involved in the TESOL-SPAIN e-Newsletter is by writing reports on events you have attended. Kelly Dainne Puentes Velasco, winner of this year's Global Grant, shares her impressions of the Annual Convention and how the experience has enriched her on professional, intercultural and personal levels.
This month we're also featuring Anita Lutterkort's report on the regional event she organised on the 23rd April as TESOL-SPAIN Area Coordinator for Castilla La Mancha.                                                                                                                                  If you are going to any of the British Council Teachers' Conferences later this month, why not send us a write-up on the event?

And finally, our featured article this month was submitted by H. Kubra Saygili, S. Esra Saygili, Daniel Brockert and is entitled Communicative Games: Utilizing Story Cubes to stimulate contextualized conversation. In this study, they aimed to promote the speaking strategies of a group of Turkish university students by using communicative games as an effective tool in their language classes. Let us know your reactions to their investigations, and any experiences you have had with your students using communication games.

40th Annual National Convention news:

We are pleased to announce our plenary speakers for the convention: Péter Medgyes, Silvana Richardson and Michael Swan. You can find information about them below. More information about them coming in our October issue.

Take a look at our speaker's grants below and go to the website for more information.

We've just update Travel and Accommodation information. Here

Also take a look at our call for papers. Here

We're looking forward to hearing from you over the new academic year.

Happy 2016/2017 on behalf of all the Board at TESOL-SPAIN!

Gerard, Silvia and Rebecca
Media Team

Dear all,

Anglia Exams and Chichester College, UK will be present at the forthcoming TESOL-SPAIN Madrid Regional Event, to be held on 12th November and we will be very happy to have everyone pop by our stand and find out more about our wide range of international OFQUAL-accredited exams and qualifications as well as about the Study Trips to Chichester College, for students and teachers, we have been organising for over 20 years.

We are really looking forward to meeting you all in November.

The Anglia Local Team
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www.angliaexams.com | www.anglia.org

This month we have two books up for review - here's your chance to read up on the latest developments in ELT methodology and to share your ideas in print with fellow TESOL-SPAIN members.

Dr Daniel Xerri from the University of Malta has sent us a link to his co-edited e-book Creativity in English Language Teaching, published by the elt council.

We would love to hear your impressions of this collection of  articles contact us receive an e-copy of this publication atEsta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.

Delta Publishing has sent us a hard copy of Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley's new book, Teaching Lexically. It's already having good comments made on twitter. You can listen to the authors talking about the book here.

http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/titles/methodology/teaching-lexically

If you would like to write a review of Teaching Lexically for publication in our TESOL-SPAIN e-Newsletter, send your postal address to Rebecca at Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.  and she will send you the book - first come first served!

Eleven hour flight…worth every minute

Last March I had the opportunity of presenting a workshop titled: Media a wonderful ELT resource beyond language at TESOL Spain in Vitoria-Gasteiz and TESOL Greece in Athens. I traveled all the way from Colombia to participate as a presenter and to attend several presentations.

One of the reasons that motivated me to participate was that despite many efforts of EFL teachers in my country, statistics do not show good results regarding English language learning, therefore, as a teacher trainer, I tried my best to take advantage of this opportunity to learn as much as I could in both places. Nowadays, I share what I learned with my students who are in- service and pre-service teachers. This experienced was definitely enriching for me at many levels, especially at the professional, intercultural and personal levels.

Professionally speaking, I had the possibility to learn from what my colleagues are doing around the world. I think that it’s definitely necessary to observe, analyze and get the best from what others are doing beyond my country boarders. I attended lectures, and workshops and I also listened to some research reports, which helped me to conclude that in Colombia, we are doing a good job regarding methodology and research but since the general results are not the best, there is obviously room for improvement, and changes need to be done.

I also I asked many questions regarding methodology, materials, research and the language teaching field in general in Spain, Greece and other European and Asian countries. The answers I heard made me reflect upon what we have and do in Colombia, and to be honest, they made me value many good things we have that we sometimes take for granted.

At the intercultural level, I had the enriching opportunity to interact with people from many countries, which as a language teacher and teacher trainer is necessary and valuable. I was able to understand cultural aspects and to conclude that many perceptions I had were based on stereotypes. I have to mention that it was not easy to meet people and talk to them, because opposite to what happens in Latin America, people did not talk to me if I did not do it, so I always had to break the ice, but it was totally worth it, as soon as I talked to them, they were very nice.

It was also interesting and even funny to see people’s reaction every time I said I came from Colombia. Most of them were impressed by the fact that I had traveled such a long distance to participate in a convention, they even asked me how long I had flown, the answer was eleven hours, without counting the stops... Good thing I like flying.

Personally speaking, the experience couldn’t have been better. I was awarded by TESOL Spain who gave me the honor to receive the Global Grant they offer to a speaker from Asia, Africa or Latin America. It was amazing to see my name in the program, not to mention how useful and rewarding the grant was.

I love traveling, and I got to see Madrid, País Vasco, Barcelona, Athens, the Greek islands and I even stooped by Germany, all of them, amazing places. It was great trip for my first time in Europe, because I’m definitely going back. I took many pictures and attended three soccer games, which is another one of my passions. This was my first time traveling on my own, which is something uncommon in my country, it was definitely a challenge and it was great.

I conclude by saying I’m very grateful for this experience. I thank God, every person who helped me and all the people I met because I learned something from every one of them. I especially thank TESOL Greece for giving me the opportunity to present and TESOL Spain for giving me the same chance and also for the grant I received. I hope to participate in the conventions again and I’m currently motivating my students and colleagues to do it as well.

Kelly Dainne Puentes Velasco.
Professor at Universidad El Bosque. Bogotá, Colombia.

4th Regional TESOL-SPAIN Teachers’ Day in Castilla La Mancha

23rd April this year was not just Shakespeare and Cervantes’ anniversaries but also the 4th Regional TESOL-Spain Teachers’ Day in Castilla La Mancha.  A small group of interested teachers and students gathered together in the beautiful Culture Centre in Puertollano to take part in what has become an annual event.

The speakers were first class and the topics ranged from pre-primary activities to secondary education. The event kicked off with Maria Antonia Castro and Silvia Benítez’s talk on listening, an unusual take on this all important skill. The rest of the morning was taken up by Armando Recober and Jorge Ramos who explained the New Erasmus Plus programme that their secondary school has been participating in and finally Hamish Binns with his highly enjoyable talk/workshop on Instruments and Instrument Making as a Means of Multisensorial and Transversal Education.

After lunch the programme continued with Technology for Early Childhood Education by Isabel López Cirugeda where we learned how to incorporate technology into lessons with this age group. Then Roisin O’Farrell gave us a masterclass in teaching the past simple tense, Let’s do the Time Warp!, with step by step procedures to make sure this important aspect of grammar is properly and enjoyably learnt. Next was Raquel Sánchez Ruiz with her lively session on Games to teach English in Primary Education and to close Fiona Mauchline with Integrating Skills, Integrating People, a very interesting approach to making secondary classes more dynamic.

Finally we held the raffle with prizes from the publishers, Express English, Macmillan, Burlington, Vicens Vives, SGEL and other sponsors Hilderstone College and Cyntia Cerrato as well as books from TESOL-Spain and the Cultural Centre.

We are very grateful to the publishers for their support of this type of event, which is very much needed in this part of Spain and of course to TESOL-Spain who enabled the event to be officially accredited by the Ministry of Education.

Anita Lutterkort,                                                                                                                                       Area Coordinator Castilla La Mancha.                                                                   TESOL-SPAIN

Communicative Games: Utilizing Story Cubes to stimulate contextualized conversation
H. Kubra Saygili, S. Esra Saygili, Daniel Brockert,
 

Abstract

This paper aims to provide a solution for the speaking problem of Turkish students by taking this into consideration ‘ Do communicative games help students communicate more effectively?’ Speaking activities have a great impact on teaching English. The reason why most teachers prefer using communicative activities in their classes is that this is closely related to the communicative approach. It is essential and beneficial to involve students in a social context instead of following the same course book every day. Students are able to participate more in the class because the topic is interesting and they are more willing to take part in that process since it contributes to physical activities, creativity, imagination and emotional aspects. The reason why we have chosen communicative activities in classes is the students’ attitudes toward speaking activities. There are 12 students in the class including one student from Syria and another from the Nigeria. The problem is that their proficiency in English is much higher than the rest of the students. Turkish students do not feel motivated enough to participate during the class, hence they feel a little bit shy and do not feel confident enough to express themselves. Occasionally we tried setting up the group activities by including international students in Turkish student groups.

It was designed as a qualitative method. The data was collected through the content analysis by means of rubrics and reflection sheets. With the help of those instruments, the effectiveness of communicative games in promoting the speaking strategies of students in ESP was tested.                                                                                     

In the light of the data analysis, the result and the analysis of the reflection sheets, revealed that participants succeeded in promoting their speaking strategies with the help of the story cubes. More

British Council Spain - Teachers' Conferences 2106

TESOL-SPAIN is once again collaborating with the British Council in their annual teachers' conferences on the 24th September - in Bilbao and 1st October - in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia and Palma de Mallorca.

You can find details of the different programmes here.

If you go along to one of the events, why not write a report and send it to Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo., and we'll publish it in the e-Newsletter?