E-merging forum 5 afterthoughts

I'm finally home and rested after E-merging Forum 5 in Moscow. A week after the end of the forum I sat down to think about it again. Being registered blogger definitely changed my experience of the conference and I'm not sure in which way. On the one hand I feel like I spent most of the forum head down in my tablet trying to type fast on the elusive keyboard. In some way I even feel that the conference kind of went past me :) Although it was tough the first day, I felt upbeat and even jotted down a post in the metro in the way to the conference building. I also have a very tangible proof of my presence there -  6 (!) posts, more than I write in a usual month.
I was trying to compare emf4 and emf5, but soon stopped trying. The first time is always super-exciting and new, I remember being really inspired by the ideas and people I saw a year ago. This time around I also left inspired not so much by the ideas (many didn't seem new), but by the people, teachers who continue to create, write, present, assess and improve.The final presentations left a big smile on my face and continued humming "If you are a stunning teacher.." (search for videos in instagram with #emf5) all the way to Saint-Petersburg. I wish I had had more time and courage to talk to my fellow teachers, but it is something I'll leave for next year...

I looked through my posts again and below you can find corrected versions with added links:
Herbert Puchta "Teaching Young Learners: What's hot and what not"
Catherine Walter "Learning grammar and pronunciation: what do we know and what can we do about it?"
Rimma Chaldymbaeva "10 reasons to use smartphones and tablets at efl classes"
Anna Loseva "Flashmob in elt"
Day 3 Plenary Talks
Day 3 Discussion Groups

Check out other registered bloggers' posts:
prolific Olya Sergeeva on ELT stories
Elena Matveeva on  Language Flame blog
Natalia Almaeva on Natalia's blog
Mura Nava on EFL Notes

and an official blog + interviews with speakers on TeachingEnglish website

Thank you, British Council, for organising this wonderful event and all the teachers that made it worth visiting! Till next year!

E-Merging Forum 4 Memories

I've just got back from E-Merging forum 4 organised by British Council in Moscow. It was my first experience in ELT conferences and so far I'm happy with it.

Ready for the Pub Quiz!

First of all, the conference is free of charge and organization is quite superb I must say. I especially liked that they sticked to the schedule so there were no delays and any changes were reported promptly.
Now the speakers. There were few foreign speakers who held plenary sessions; among them Tony Prince, Nicky Hockley and Jamie Dunlea. After plenaries, participants could wonder off to 5 independent workshops dedicated to Assessment, ESP and EAP, Young Learners, Literature and Culture and Learning Technologies and listen to the presentations of both Russian and foreign speakers.

source

I've visited some very engaging and extremely fruitful workshops as well as few ... less successful ones (which was great experience anyway as it showed me how NOT to present). I guess, I was most impressed by Learning Technologies section which I attended on the last day and where we were actually working on our own presentations.

Here I am presenting on behalf of our group BYOD

Here  are some bits and bobs I carried away with me from the conference:

• "can do outweighs know-how", especially in academic writing. An example of academic writing lesson can be found here (by Zhenya Bakin)
• and on the topic of writing: "there is no good writing, there is only good re-writing" as suggested by V. Zabotkina
• and a formula I'm going to give to my students: essay should be one third descriptive and two thirds evaluative by Tony Prince
• we assess not only student's progress but the learning process itself (summative vs formative assessment - definitely new terms for me)
• great lesson on Pacific NorthWest Tree Octopus (one I heard before though but still amusing).  I will definitely try it with my students one day.
• as well as endless possibilities with hilarious literal videos
• mobiles CAN be a useful device in the class as was proved by our group! I should go back to this idea more often and utilize it as much as possible
• leader boards and badges now have a name - Gamification! I've heard about a positive experience organising studies this way and I should definitely go back to it myself and try it on one of my classes.
• new words learnt:  a four oh four- a problem as in Internet search problem;  to wilf (what was i looking for) - to wonder away in browsing from your initial point
• and finally as our amazing Pub Quiz team proved Napoleon from Orwell's Animal Farm was a Boar not a Pig!
  

Many thanks to British Council for this wonderful experience!

More detailed information on the speakers and talk can be found here.