During the first 20 minutes, participants will gain an introductory understanding of the basic theory behind the current form of TPRS as of its developments this past year, 2020, originally created by Blaine Ray in the late 1980s - early 1990s. Participants will also receive technical explanations of the main ingredients of a TPRS lesson: adding a detail or character, circling, triangling, and "Describe the Situation". The next 40 minutes will be devoted to a student experience of a TPRS German lesson in which participants will gain microfluency in German through interaction with the presenter by answering questions in German and retelling the story in German using their own words, supported and scaffolded every step of the way. The final 15 minutes will include a debriefing period for reflections as well as Q&A to deepen the experience from both the student and teacher perspectives. MYSTERY EASTER EGG

This session explains the MA TESOL, MA Applied Linguistics, and the Micro-credential currently offered by the University of Birmingham. The programs are part-time, asynchronous learning so that your studies can fit into your schedule. The presenter, Joanne McCuaig is a graduate of the MA Applied Linguistics and a current Doctoral Researcher in the department. She will present the information about the programs and explain her personal experience as a distance based learner. She is also able to answer questions about the PhD application process and her experience as a PhD student.   Click here for details about the program: https://canvas.bham.ac.uk/courses/11732   Alternatively you can send your questions to the department using this email address: ELALpg@contacts.bham.ac.uk MYSTERY EASTER EGG

For many years, academics, psychologists, teacher trainers and teachers have been trying to define how to motivate students. We read about these techniques every day but we never find out if they are finally implemented or work out.

The assumption that, maybe, instead of trying to find out how we motivate “students”, we first try to find out how to motivate “people” will be primarily discussed. The speaker will also try to demonstrate that the motivation we are seeking for learning a language is the same that we need in our everyday lives. We also need to be aware of the “dark side of motivation” as a pitfall that teachers may be falling into often without realizing it. All these assumptions and ideas will be accompanied by suggestions on how they can be positively transferred through ELT tasks.

Let’s help any teacher transform from an educator into a motivator. MYSTERY EASTER EGG

In this seminar, I will give shortcuts to graduate students, recent graduates, and developing professionals on how to design research and publish quickly. My talking points will emanate from personal experience, literature review, and interviews with research associates. To this end, I hope to provide strategies to help others graduate and publish on time. Attaining a graduate degree is an early step in starting a professional career in academics. However, graduate supervisors cannot always find time to help students with research designs and write-ups. Further, graduate degree programs often focus more on coursework than writing which creates an abundance of graduate degree holders ill-prepared for publishing in their careers. To remedy this, my presentation will explore solutions to research and academic writing challenges reported by graduate students and early professionals, including issues related to work-life balance, the co-author relationship, the write-up, and the strategies to publish in academic journals. The interactive component of this workshop entails voluntary participation in designing your own moc (or real) research projects which we can critique together. MYSTERY EASTER EGG

If you’re struggling with online teaching, or thinking about how to improve it, reflective practice is for you! Among the best reflective tools are tasks, particularly observation tasks. However, most of these were designed with the traditional classroom in mind. Can we still use these tasks? How? The purpose of this session is to address these questions.

This workshop will be in two parts. After briefly rehearsing some terminology, the facilitators will present tasks from some of the standard resources categorised according to their applicability to ‘the new normal’: tasks that can be used, those that can’t, and those that require adaptation. The bulk of the time will be spent in the second, highly interactive, section. Participants will work in small groups to create tasks for their own contexts. The takeaways will be tasks participants can either use or adapt as, as well as ideas for self-designed tasks. MYSTERY EASTER EGG

The research addresses English teachers’ attitudes towards the socioeconomically diverse ELLs affecting their academic practices in rural Bangladesh. The study explores five elementary and high school English teachers’ perceptions about the diverse student population's skills, aptitudes, and achievements. Primary data on teacher beliefs were obtained from interviewing the EFL teachers working in northern Bangladesh using semi-structured forms. Later, the author observed some of their recorded online lectures to understand how teachers’ beliefs and attitudes influenced their strategic preferences and teaching practices. Results show teachers’ attitudes are powerful predictors of pedagogical choices and actions. Insufficient resources, technology, and learner motivation affect teachers' beliefs and ideologies about diverse students. These non-native teachers need better training to teach a foreign language effectively and indiscriminately to the rural poor learners. Therefore, the research calls for rethinking the local teacher preparation programs to address teachers' negative attitudes towards ELLs in non-Anglophone contexts, including Bangladesh and Korea. MYSTERY EASTER EGG

As traditional publishers have moved more towards global coursebooks and series, a wave of small presses have appeared, with an interest in innovative, experimental, or niche titles. This panel features a variety of authors from Wayzgoose Press talking about their different paths to publication and why they chose a small press over a larger publisher or self-publishing. We’ll also talk about what kinds of projects are best suited for a small press and how to approach one with your own ideas. MYSTERY EASTER EGG

The COVID-19 pandemic has led the world into an online teaching mode that has impacted every aspect of education. This presentation will explain the importance of how reflective practice on teaching online can lead to successful learning outcomes and better teaching practices. The reflections come from the presenter’s own writings while teaching writing online during a virtual camp for middle school students, which have helped in self-awareness and increased confidence when converting to a new platform of teaching. Through observing the progress of students while collaborating in class and submitting their assignments on Google Classroom, and receiving feedback through surveys about the overall impressions of the class, the teacher could see the development of his students. Finally, the presentation will highlight the reflections of the instructor on mental health amid teaching during the pandemic and how managing the complex challenges of online teaching has helped him improve his teaching. MYSTERY EASTER EGG