Future webinars
Thursday, 29th February:
In this webinar, we explore practical strategies for nurturing autonomy in personalised (1-to-1) ESL settings. With more opportunity to develop learner autonomy, through greater personal knowledge and space to focus on individual goals, 1-to-1 English language classrooms also present a unique challenge to teachers to support learner autonomy.
Past webinars
This webinar guides teachers through tasks which help learners to effectively revise and extend ‘learnt’ language, so that learners at this level (and beyond) feel challenged, engaged and motivated. The webinar will suggest easy-to-implement ideas that can be adapted to suit a range of learners and learner groups.
Intermediate learners are able to communicate on everyday topics and have covered most of the ‘chunky’ pieces of English grammar. However, a sense of tangible progress can sometimes feel elusive, often leading to frustration and demotivation.
After looking briefly at word and sentence-level focal activities, the webinar will shift to a more holistic approach, where learners work at discoursal level. This is an area often overlooked in coursebooks. By adopting this strategy in tasks, learners have the freedom to process language at a deeper level, and to explore multiple aspects of language simultaneously and also co-operatively.
In this webinar, we will focus on the complexities of online English teaching, particularly in the context of exam preparation. We identify the unique challenges that teachers and learners face and offer practical solutions to address them.
For teachers, challenges include adapting teaching methodologies to the online environment, managing diverse learning styles, and providing personalised support. Solutions include customising lesson plans, using interactive and engaging materials, and offering individualised feedback. We also provide examples and case studies to illustrate effective solutions in action.
Learners encounter challenges like motivation, self-discipline, technological issues, and language barriers. We suggest solutions such as setting clear goals and schedules, offering tech troubleshooting resources, and providing language support options. Real-world success stories from learners further emphasise these solutions.
We also explore a range of tools for effective online teaching, including Learning Management Systems (LMS), interactive language platforms, and collaboration tools. The webinar concludes with a recap of key points and an optimistic view of the future of online English teaching, where these challenges can be turned into opportunities for growth and success.
This webinar explores how you can teach elementary and pre-intermediate students using graded, authentic resources. We’ll explore ways to use authentic materials effectively with low level learners and how to help students recycle language that they contain.
Authentic resources present language in meaningful contexts, which helps learners to take up and use useful, high frequency vocabulary and grammar. We’ll also see how the authentic, graded content in Sensations English gives learners supported practice at listening to a wider range of accents.
Our teaching English with graded, authentic, global resources webinar series provides teachers with high-quality advice from ELT experts. The webinar series shares engaging ideas, sound theory, and reliable strategies for using authentic resources with your learners and bringing global content into your teaching to support learning. Each expert offers many simple ways for you to enhance your teaching using authentic, graded, global resources.
March webinar – Reading aloud: a useful or useless ELT activity for learners?
The sound of learners’ voices reading aloud echoes around language classrooms all over the world. Though an age-old technique, it undoubtedly has benefits even today.
Some teachers, however, integrate it into English language classrooms without questioning its purpose, its limitations or its genuine value. The effect of this partial understanding is to misplace and therefore misuse reading aloud. Vocalising a text is too often a poor use of classroom time, one which can actually be damaging for learners.
This session aims to guide teachers to a fuller understanding of how to exploit reading aloud effectively. Several practical approaches will be included to support teachers in transferring ideas into the classroom.
This webinar will encourage teachers to advance their own teaching, inviting them to examine their current practice. The rationale for reading aloud, as well as the inherent problems, will be highlighted. The session will provide several strategies for integrating this technique into practice effectively.
February webinar – Students as journalists in English language classrooms
News stories provide a ready-made context for students to produce language in order to express and share their own life experiences and creativity. Beyond guiding and supporting learners to use
critical thinking and practise higher-order thinking skills (HOTS), learners can also engage with the content through their own journalistic activities, such as interviewing, creating headlines and articles, and presenting a news story.
Student journalism also offers an engaging opportunity for student-generated material, mediating meanings and developing sub-skills in speaking and writing. In this webinar, participants will explore
ways of using creative journalistic activities which harness students’ life experiences, interests and cultures to scaffold memorable language development, with examples from Sensations English news
stories. During this webinar, we’ll consider how to approach these resources in a safe and supportive
classroom environment.
January webinar – Using inclusive, global materials in ELT
This webinar explores ways all learners can develop using diverse, inclusive, topical lesson content based around real-world news videos. They provide opportunities for meaningful, context-based learning in English language classrooms and feature positive representations and inclusive values. This connects to learners’ lived experience and the wider world, which raises learner interest, promotes critical thinking and enhances uptake and creative language use.
Such context-based resources often integrate a focus on equality and intersectional perspectives, which enriches the learning experience and encourages learners to make links with their existing language knowledge and usage. However, the challenge of these texts complexity often limits use of these authentic resources to higher levels. When the content is appropriate to the level and experiences of the learner, it gives students the ability and motivation to develop their voices on issues which are important to them or of personal interest.
During this webinar, we’ll consider how to approach these resources in a safe and supportive classroom environment.
October webinar – Handling ELT PARSNIPS using teacher and producer expertise
PARSNIPS are always a concern for English language teachers. Should we exclude them completely, how can we avoid ones that might be particularly problematic for their students. This webinar will show how effective selection of materials combines producer knowledge with teacher expertise.
We’ll explore how to identify suitable resources and approaches to take which safeguard students and teachers alike. With these tools in mind, PARSNIPS can be allowed to grow and flourish in the classroom and enable teachers to teach in a way which fulfils the British Council’s guidelines for Equality Diversity and Inclusion.
June webinar – Integrating phonology into your English language classes
This webinar covers a number of ways to work with pronunciation in the ELT classroom and feel more confident in this teaching role. It will support you in raising learners’ awareness of various phonological features, helping to enhance spoken fluency, and improve users’ ability to listen and comprehend effectively. The main focus will be on how to work on prominence and tone units in the context of skills-based lessons, which are key aspects for intelligibility. The session also offers practical ways to integrating work on word stress into classes. The session content largely aligns with preparing learners for using English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), equipping learners to speak and listen effectively with interlocutors who may or may not have English as their first language.
March webinar – Effective blended learning essentials for ELT
The use of digital technology has brought fundamental changes to teaching and learning. In this context, the ‘flipped classroom’ and ‘blended learning’ are becoming more familiar terms. This webinar explores effective approaches to blended learning which help to scaffold students develop higher-order thinking skills. In the process, we’ll also consider how, and in what ways, blended learning is effective. Learners’ active involvement in knowledge acquisition and construction as they participate in and evaluate their learning is a vital element of teaching. Flipping and blending support these goals by offering essential, additional time and space for students to explore, experiment, practise and analyse to deepen their understanding.
February webinar – Classroom research, personalised CPD and ELT
This webinar explores several easy ways to use classroom research to improve our own teaching, intuitions, and understanding of our learners. We’ll focus on simple ways to guide our classroom practice with easy-to-manage research techniques, data gathering and data analysis. As teachers, we develop and rely on our intuitions, reflections and classroom monitoring to understand learners’ needs and evaluate our work. However, so much happens in our classrooms that we can’t notice and reflect on everything as we go.
January webinar – The Art and Scope of Retelling in ELT: an invaluable task type
This webinar will help teachers to support learners’ speaking development using retelling. This valuable and flexible task type provides many opportunities for learners to enhance their oral fluency. Retelling based on written, audio or visual narratives offers huge scope and rich potential – it raises learner engagement and, most significantly, enables learners to speak for considerably longer turns than we often expect. This is because the content is already provided, so the cognitive load remains manageable on the second and third iterations. During the webinar, we will explore how to use retelling effectively, experiment with the range of variables available, and examine the benefits it brings both learners and teachers.
November webinar – Cultural festivals, intercultural communication and ELT
This webinar will explore how we can help learners’ develop as effective, intercultural language users. We will see how sensitive, supportive, person-centred resources and lesson activities about cultural and religious festivals enrich learners’ language learning, translingual practices and self-expression. Festivals are part of what defines our identity and our humanity and are a wonderful opportunity to develop language, interpersonal and intercultural skills in the language learning classroom. Each religious and cultural festival is specific and unique, but people engaging in such rituals and festivals are a common feature of human society and culture. They represent a valuable part of how people interact and share connections.
COP26 Special Edition: Climate, sustainability and ELT
The COP26 UN Climate Change Conference provides an excellent opportunity to bring sustainability and climate issues into learners’ ideas, intake and production. Through new vocabulary, analysing language, discussion, cooperative tasks, projects and in-class research activities, students connect with meaningful issues and develop their thoughts and voices. This webinar will guide you through several teaching frameworks based on task supported teaching approaches. It will include two weeks of lesson plans and resources to help you make the most of the COP26 Climate Summit in your classroom and simple ideas to build social action within your class or school. Our relationship with the environment will be an important topic long after COP26 has finished, so the resources also provide great ways to integrate environmental issues and sustainability into students’ learning in general.
Webinar Series 1: Using video in ELT
Our Using video in ELT webinar series provides teachers with high-quality advice from ELT EdTech experts. The webinar series shares engaging ideas, sound theory, and reliable strategies for using video with your learners. Each expert offers many simple ways for you to enhance learning using video resources.
Teachers can use video resources in many ways to engage learners, develop language skills and systems knowledge, build learners’ confidence, explore identity, and develop critical thinking skills.
Video resources can inspire projects, inform students’ own research and enhance their worldview, and they bring more real-world contexts into learning, but teachers often don’t receive clear guidance and support on exploiting video for learning.
Our first series of Sensations English webinars for teachers explore using video effectively in English Language Teaching. We want to help teachers feel confident and empowered using these powerful resources.
Each webinar is presented by a leading expert in video pedagogy. They share useful insights and demonstrate practical strategies to give you more confidence and develop structures for teaching using video.
- Get expert advice on ways to add to your students’ learning using video.
- Build your skills on how to use video in your classes.
- Explore the impact of video news resources on engagement, intake and critical thinking.
Sensations English is passionate about providing teachers with quality resources, guidance, and support to teach inspiring lessons, and now we’re a British Council ELTons 2021 Finalist!
Get British Council ELTons award-nominated resources and timesaving teacher tools to use in class with our Sensations English Teacher’s Edition. To celebrate our place in the finals of the 2021 ELTons, we are offering you 50% off Sensations English Teacher’s Edition – just sign up today!
When you sign up, you can also join our teacher communities on LinkedIn and Facebook to get alerts about new resources and more teaching ideas. This is only available to teachers using Sensations English Teacher’s Edition.
