It was a great success. Thank you to all of those that attended and made it such a wonderful experience! 
 

 

 

Closing plenary:
Yves Henri Robillard
Co-founder of the New World Lyceum, Alternative Education
 

 

We would like to thank everyone who attended our Spring Day event, which took place on Saturday May 17th, at Télécom ParisTech. We enjoyed a fabulous day with a variety of presentations and workshops related to inspiring the teaching and learning of Young Learners and Teens.

 

June 16th 2012. 9:00 - 19:30
Télécom ParisTech
Paid up TESOL France members can attend at the reduced £55 rate. Walk ins are welcome.
Plenary Speaker: David Crystal plus over 20 other Business English speakers
Further information on BESIG's website

 

Saturday April 21st 2012, 9:00am to 5:30pm
Pole Formation CCI, Strasbourg
234 Avenue de Colmar 67100 Strasbourg, France

Further information:

This conference includes seminars on:

Program:

 

 

June 18th, 2011 9am-7pm
Télécom ParisTech
Plenary Speaker: Ken Wilson

Further Information:

This conference includes seminars on:

Program:

Download the program to read more about the speakers

 

 

May 21st, 2011 2pm-6pm
Télécom ParisTech

Further Information:

Led by: Ros Wright, co-author of Good Practice
Guest speaker: Virginia Allum co-author of Cambridge English for Nursing
Cambridge University Press: Terry Elliot

Program:

14:00-15:00: Medical English 'Debunked' (Ros Wright, with Virginia Allum)

Emphasis placed on the therapeutic nature of medicine means our learners, more than others, have a very real need to communicate effectively from day one. Theorists from the field of medical communications highlight the need for comprehensible pronunciation, active listening skills, non-verbal communication and the ability to bridge professional and lay language. Many ELT trainers 'fear' or at best are wary of the Medical English classroom and its occupants: concerns about inadequate knowledge of medicine, grappling with terminology and generally feeling 'unsure' of their role and the benefits such a collaboration might bring. But what of the reality? Just what is entailed in training professionals from the field of medicine? The relationship between medical professional and patient is not dissimilar from that created in the ELT classroom. Developing and maintaining rapport in a 'safe' environment, eliciting information, promoting a patient-centred interview, including the patient in the decision-making process, managing communication breakdown, interpreting body language as well as understanding cultural background and its possible impact on the patient's ability to communicate effectively, are all part and parcel of daily interaction in a medical context. The presenters will give an overview of teaching medical communications in English and hopefully debunk a few of the myths.

15:30-16:00: Cambridge University Press Presentation

Terry Elliott will take you for a short 30 minute tour of the Cambridge University Press resources in both paper and on-line form.

16:30-17:30 (Room B310): Medical English 'in Action' (Ros Wright)

The perceptive 19th-century physician William Osler believed medical students learned best by doing and that medicine is learnt by the bedside not in the classroom. One way to replicate the 'bedside' is by using video. Through exposure to authentic scenarios of patient interactions, learners experience examples of authentic language in an authentic setting. Being able to visualize a practicing clinician in real time broaching a sensitive issue in a manner that avoids offence and remains non-judgmental is essential if the learner is to develop the skills necessary to benefit the patient. This workshop will look at how video can be used to meet the real needs of medical professionals; illustrating how the medium enables trainers to highlight and develop understanding of all the elements of communication as well as their implications for effective doctor-patient interactions in English.

16:30-17:30 (Room E200): Teaching Low Level (Pre-Int) and Multi-level English for Nursing Groups (Virginia Allum)

English for Nursing serves several purposes. Increasingly, Nursing is seen as a global profession with procedures and practice becoming more standardized. As Nursing 'training' is no longer hospital-based but more likely to be delivered at degree level in universities, there is a greater need for Nursing Research and the sharing of data amongst practitioners. Accurate verbal and written communication skills are essential at ward level to ensure safe practice. Specialised English is often needed for Nursing Research which is becoming of greater importance as we head into challenging health times. This workshop will look at the levels of English language required by nurses working in a healthcare setting such as a hospital, Care Home or Community Centre. We will look at ways to tackle medical terminology and develop dialogue templates for the most common nursing practices. Templates for activities such as handovers can be modified for students with higher language skills. Other avenues for extension will be presented to assist students who are more confident speakers.

Speaker Bios

Virginia Allum, co-author of Cambridge English for Nursing (Cambridge University Press) currently works as a staff nurse in a Ramsay Health UK hospital in Devon. After obtaining her TESOL Certificate, she taught English for Nursing at vocational training institutions in Queensland, Australia and was nurse facilitator on the diploma course.

 

 

March 5th, 2011 9:00 - 5:00pm
Pole Formation CCI, Strasbourg

Further Information:

Conference Program:

 

 

May 29th 2010 - 9am - 8pm
Télécom ParisTech

Further Information:

TESOL France, in association with the ELT Leadership & Management SIG, is pleased to present The Spring Day on Managing Students, Teachers and Yourself.

This Spring Day will include seminars on:

Program:

Download the program to read more about the speakers

 

 

June 20th 2009
Télécom ParisTech
Plenary Speaker: Jeremy Harmer

Further information:

This June Day will include seminars on:

Program:

Download the program to read more about the speakers

Panel Discussion:

Andrew Wickham, a consultant at Linguaid, will also lead an informative round table discussion on Staying Afloat: The challenges English language teachers face today and tomorrow.

The panel members include:

 

 

June 7, 2008
Télécom ParisTech
Joint event with IATEFL BESIG

Further Information:

Download complete Best of BESIG 2 Program (includes speakers' abstracts and bios)

Following the success of the Best of BESIG 2006 in Paris, TESOL France and IATEFL BESIG came together for a second time.

Best of BESIG 2 included:

Program:

9:00 - 9:30
Registration and bookshop open

9:30 - 10:30
Plenary session by Andy Hewitson

10:30 - 11:00
Coffee break and visiting bookshop

11:00 - 12:00
Anna Cowper (Macmillan) Have You Got What it Takes to Get Published?
Maurice Claypole (LinguaServe) Translation in the Business English Classroom
Sab Will (TESOL France) Internet in the Classroom

12:00 - 13:30
Lunch with coffee

13:30 - 14:30
Adrian Tennant (IATEFL) Method or Madness?
Vanessa Street (Université du Littoral) Transferable Skills: From private business language training to public university education
Ann Claypole (LinguaServe) Teaching Business English in a Virtual World

14:30 - 14:45
Short break and visiting bookshop

14:45 - 15:45
Ian Bell (TESOL France) Teaching Trends: What and how should we be teaching?
Bob Dignen (York Associates) Intercultural Competence - leveraging the world's diversity
Eric Baber (Cambridge University Press) Move Along, Now: From Web 1.0 to 2.0 - and back again?

15:45 - 16:15
Coffee break and visiting bookshop

16:15 - 17:15
Stephen Ferron (IATEFL BESIG) Life After Business English
Duncan Baker (Lydbury English Centre Ltd.) Negotiating in English
Anthony Green (Bari University, Italy) Business English Listening and Reading Skills - let's separate them

17:15 - 17:30
Short break

17:30 - 18:30
Pecha kucha

18:30  - 20h00
Cocktail and making dinner plans

 

March 29th, 2008
In association with RANACLES, APLIUT and SAES.

Contributors include: Alain Cazade, Dennis Davy, Marie-Annick Mattioli, and Laurel Zuckerman In addition, Vera Dickman's informative presentation on "How are teachers trained for today's French National Education system?" is also available for download. Click here to download.
Télécom ParisTech

Further information:

This event took the form more of a bilingual French-English round table followed by interventions from guest speakers from the floor and ended with a question and answer session.

The event had two main objectives:

The event was held in both French and English. Participants were able to speak in the language of their choice.The Panel members included representatives of the education industry in France including:

Vera Dickman, head of the language department at Telecom ParisTech, also lead an informative discussion on the background of the concours system.In addition to the panel speakers, representatives of teaching associations spoke from the floor followed by a Panel-to-Representative discussion.

The final part of the event was devoted to the Panel answering questions from the floor.

Role of the Organizers, Associates, and Panel Speakers

The organizers from TESOL France and their associates from APLIUT, RANACLES and SAES did not take a position on the concours system. Mr. Quayle's views were in no way representative of the views of the agrégation externe jury. Their role was limited to facilitating the discussion and ensuring that the discussion was equitable and that all sides of the argument were equally represented.

Panel Speaker Biographies

Alain Cazade
Alain Cazade is a professor at the University of Paris Dauphine. He passed the CAPES and the Agrégation in English in 1974, and obtained a PhD in Contemporary Poetry (David Jones, Poet of the Revelation) from the Sorbonne in 1984 and a Habilitation to direct research (Research-Development in Language Multimedia Pedagogy). After directing the Training Centre for Computer Science Pedagogy at the Academy of Créteil at the University of Paris 13, he sold multimedia pedagogical language software: "Help Yourself" to the Ministry of Education. Author of a management tool: "Following Language Learners" and numerous publications (articles, reviews, etc), Alain Cazade was also a member of the CNU (Conseil National des Universités) for several years. As a specialist in language pedagogy, languages for specific purposes (LANSAD: Languages for Specialists of Other Disciplines), an analyst for corpora for specific purposes, he is involved in and is a member of several research centres including CERLACA and CICLaS at the University of Paris Dauphine in bringing together the DILTEC of University of Paris 3 Sorbonne. As the president of RANACLES, Mr. Cazade is also the joint director of the "Master of Languages for Specific Purposes" at the University of Bordeaux 2 - Dauphine, researcher and developer of multimedia pedagogical language materials, and designer and writer of the software for Windows: "Help Yourself."

Pierre Coatrieux
After taking a licence and maîtrise in English, Pierre Coatrieux studied for the CAPES and Agrégation d'anglais at the University of Paris Sorbonne. Instead of pursuing an academic career, he went on to take an accounting qualification and worked in several international companies, most recently Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young, where his clients were multinational companies with branches or subsidiaries in France. He now works as a Financial and Organizational Consultant advising companies looking to expand outside France.

Dennis Davy
Since 1993, Dennis Davy has been a lecturer, teacher trainer and researcher at the University of London Institute in Paris, formerly known as the British Institute in Paris. Dennis studied French and German at Oxford University, English Language Teaching at Lancaster and English and Applied Linguistics at Cambridge. His professional career in TEFL spans more than 25 years, teaching English and training teachers in Europe, the Far East, North Africa and the Middle East. His research interests include lexicology, language testing/evaluation, the teaching of spelling, the role of pop music in language learning, language teacher education and English for Special Purposes. Dennis has published articles on the British education system, lexical learning and word-formational processes in English, as well as running practical workshops on a wide variety of topics and giving lectures and papers at conferences and colloquia. His most recent paper, entitled "Comment évaluer la compétence lexicale ?", was presented at the Collège de France. He has worked on the editorial committee of the academic journal "Franco-British Studies" and was involved in the organisation of an international colloquium on Second Person Pronouns, hosted by the Forum des Langues Européennes à Paris.

Marie-Annick Mattioli
Since 2001 Marie-Annick Mattioli has been an active member of the APLIUT (association of language teachers in IUTs), of which she now is the president. She teaches English at the IUT Paris Descartes as a lecturer. Her research essentially concerns women on the job market in Britain and the introduction of the identity card in Britain (history + repercussions on ethnic as well as sexual minorities).

François Poirier
François Poirier was educated in Paris, graduated at the Sorbonne in 1968 and passed the "CAPES" in 1970 and the "agrégation" in 1971, which gave him a tenure as a secondary school teacher. Associated from its inception during the summer of 1968 with the experimental university of Vincennes (now Université Paris 8, in Saint-Denis), he was appointed lecturer there in 1976 and moved to a professorship at neighbouring Université Paris 13 in 1993. Though heavily involved in the organisation of European exchange programmes, he has published extensively in academic journals on issues related to British labour history and British politics, leading up to a book in 1992, Génération Thatcher Ñ La culture politique de l'Angleterre, and to his habilitation thesis in 1993, Aspects de la conscience ouvrière en Angleterre depuis la Réforme de 1832. He has at the same time developed a comparative dimension so as to critically take into account the cultural bias of any national approach and contributed in France as well as in Britain to general publications on comparing the two countries (such as "La Grande-Bretagne et la France: un long face-à-face", pp. 35-110 in France Grande-Bretagne, Paris: Ministère des Affaires étrangères, April 1996 (2nd edn), 144 p.) or to more specific ones on social policy (such as "Liberty, Property and Community", pp. 77-89 in John EDWARDS et Jean-Paul REVAUGER (eds.), Discourse on Inequality in France and Britain, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, xii+208 p.) or politics (e.g. "General Election 1992: A French Republican View", pp. 669-682 in Parliamentary Affairs, vol. 45, n¡ 4, October 1992; "Le Parti travailliste britannique: grandeur et décadence", pp. 55-89 in Marc LAZAR (ed.), La Gauche en Europe depuis 1945. Invariants et mutations du socialisme européen, Paris: PUF, 1996, 704 p.).

Nigel Quayle
Professeur Des Universités
Ecole Centrale de Lille
After qualifying to teach and a period as a French teacher in secondary schools in the UK, Nigel Quayle worked his way up through the French system, first as a student and then as a teacher of the CAPES and the Agrégation d'anglais. He has sat on the jury for the CAPES externe and the Agrégation interne and is currently a member of the jury for the Agrégation externe.

Laurel Zuckerman
Laurel Zuckerman first became widely known after publication of her controversial French "docu-fiction" Sorbonne Confidential (Fayard, 2007), an account of an American trying to obtain the agrégation in order to become an English teacher in the French public education system. Juxtaposing statistics and anecdotes, Zuckerman explores the competitive exam industry and its impact on the teaching and learning of English in France. The book's wickedly comic portrait of the system has generated considerable debate.
Originally from Arizona, Zuckerman has a BA in "liberal arts" (phi beta kappa) and is a graduate of the HEC School of Management. After working for 18 years in logistics and information technology, she decided, like her fictional heroine Alice Wunderland, to try to become an English teacher by passing the agrégation d'anglais. Married, with two children in French public schools, Zuckerman lives in Bry-sur-Marne, France and is a member of the local city council. Her second book is slated to appear in French in October 2008.