Learner Independence SIG
e-newsletter
2007/2

Recent Events

Tactile Tasks and Technical Tips 5

The fifth annual Tactile Tasks and Technical Tips Event in Abu Dhabi took place on 21 April at the Petroleum Institute, birthplace of the TTTT.

The 'tech' workshops this year included: a double session on features, techniques and applications of class blogging led by Vance Stevens, podcasting (Alan Pollock), Phil Cozens and Jeff Knowling on Moodle, a double workshop given by Jim Buckingham entitled "The IT Toolkit' which gave an overview of essential (free) tech tools for the up-to-date teacher, as well as workshops on graphics, Teach-nology, Discovery School and Filamentality.

The tactile thread was again immensely popular with practical presentations on classroom games, text manipulation, tasks and experiments leading to report-writing, activities to motivate students, and Jaye Zivkovic's intriguing 'Men are from Mars and Women are from Snickers' session! One highlight was the presentation given by 2 lady students from the PI. Sara and Fareeda demonstrated games which their class used to aid vocabulary learning. The teachers who attended were intrigued and stayed long into the break to learn more from them. Unfortunately for EFL in the UAE, these ladies are training to be engineers not language teachers! Still, it aptly illustrates that we, as teachers, need to listen to our students! Well done, ladies!

It was a hugely successful morning, enjoyed by 140 delegates. Our thanks go to the PI for giving us access to their great facilities and for providing refreshments.

IL Morning, Al Ain

Our last event of the year! (Hurrah!) On May 5, LI-SIG co-organised a small event with the Al Ain Chapter at Al Tawafaq Model School. This consisted of an introduction to our SIG and a demonstration of IATEFL's Aberdeen Online Conference site, followed by 4 workshops.

Hilda Freimuth, UAEU ILC Coordinator, gave a session on teaching world knowledge. This is definitely a necessity for our students here in the UAE as their frame of reference varies considerably from that often assumed by textbooks produced in the Western World. This, unfortunately, can even affect their answers to questions in exams such as the PET!

Ahmed Mustafa, from the IAT Al Ain, led a computer workshop on blogging in which he gave participants an overview of the potential of blogging and then helped his group to create blogs. The second computer session was given by Phil Cozens. This focused on online activities and concordance programmes which could help students not only to practise and record vocabulary but also to tackle the Academic Word List.

Heather Baba continued her investigation into the acquisition of independent learning and study skills. On this occasion she asked her group to think about which skills were appropriate at the various levels of schooling, which provoked a great deal of discussion. Heather is planning to create a wiki about this series of presentations and ongoing research, so watch this space!