TESOL France

This event is FREE to TESOL France members. Non-members are kindly asked to pay the 8-euro registration fee at the door. If you like, becoming a member of TESOL France on the day will also be possible.

Télécom ParisTech - 46, rue Barrault - 75634 Paris Cedex 13 - tesol@enst.fr

TESOL France - English360 Hands-On Workshop

March 26th, 2011
2:00pm to 5:00pm

Venue: Telecom ParisTech
Room: B310
Presented by Valentina Dodge and Byron Russell

Important: Be sure to bring your laptop computer and an ethernet cable to connect to the Internet on the day.

Developments in learning technologies and trends in blended course delivery pose new challenges to educators and learners in terms of maintaining the flow and pace of personalised learning paths. This workshop will give attendees first-hand experience of how the tools available on the English360 web-based platform can personalize learning, keep learners motivated, forward-bound and "on track" to achieve their own goals.

Using blended modes of delivery to provide learners with introductory or follow-up activities, revision exercises, core or supplementary language activities, educators often find that the additional course-related information and communication channels used to support face-to-face or distance learning programmes can create new learning opportunities whilst also making it more challenging to keep learners on their individual learning paths. In this session, we will consider how educators can keep individual learners, whether in-group or one-to-one scenarios, engaged and on track when supplementing courses with authentic materials from the web or extending discussions beyond the four walls of the classroom.

The workshop will be hands-on and focus the English360 "learning path" tools that can be used for:

• Goal setting: identifying learner aims via integrated needs analysis tools and needs tagging,
• Personalising ready-made content : pulling content from a range of sources (the web, re-purposed CUP books, Creative Commons courses already available in English360),
• Ongoing course design: flexible, dynamic course creation made possible by online tools such as the course organizer and the draft/publish mode,
• Performance monitoring: giving learners control of flow and pace, in conjunction with course moderator. Instant access to scores, answers and records of results, to promote self-direction motivating and increasing learner involvement : suggestions on supporting teacher-learner and peer interaction,
• Creating activities around user-generated content: using the self-authoring tools to seamless deliver relevant exercises and consolidation tasks.

Find out more about English360 ahead of the session.
Watch an introductory video:

Valentina Dodge is Learning Manager for English360 where she oversees content, pedagogy, teaching, and academic matters for English360. She works closely with educators and school owners on a global scale to help them provide personalised English learning programmes to meet their student and customer needs. She collaborates with and supports English language teachers all over the world to help them publish and share lesson and courses for blended or online delivery. She organizes training sessions and support forums on instructional design and blended course organization to allow educators to combine their own materials and lesson plans with high quality course material from Cambridge University Press.

Byron Russell started his career as an ELT teacher back in 1985, and subsequently moved into publishing. He has since spent more than twenty years in sales management, working with global UK and US-based educational and trade publishers. He first became involved in the business development of web-based learning materials in 1999, and since then has supported the growth of some of the innovators in this rapidly-expanding field.