2018 September Workshop

Timings: 

Registration and mingle: 14.00-14.30

First session with Kara Waggoner: 14.30 – 15.20

Second session with Bryan Hale: 15.30 – 16.20

Coffee and chat: 16.30 – onwards (at a nearby coffee shop)

Preregistration is available here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1leRkn04sxJb2g4zQ5A19rSJ0ZL5IghnfnXvQV-o...

First Session with Kara Waggoner: Five Ways to Teach the Alphabet in Your Classroom

Teaching young learners poses its own unique sets of challenges and rewards. One of those challenges is starting with the most basic building blocks of learning a language: the English alphabet. By knowing the most basic of literacy skills, students can gain confidence to then move on to phonemic awareness, phonics, and eventually gain full literacy. With this workshop, attendees will learn simple strategies they can use in their own learning environments to assist students in learning the English alphabet. We will be up and moving around a lot as we see different techniques that do not involve typical worksheets or drills. In addition, attendees will have time to develop their own alphabet learning strategy and share with others.

Kara Waggoner has worked at Sookmyung  Women’s University in their Young Learner TESOL teacher training program for the past four years, where she specializes in curriculum design and management.   For the past twelve years, she has taught in the United States and Korea, teaching a diverse range of ages and language proficiencies.   Her areas of interest include  ESL  policy, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and poverty and its effect on education.   To contact, please email her at kara.waggoner@sookmyungtesol.info.

Second Session with Bryan Hale: Playful Activities for Unreal English

Do you feel like you’re trapped uncomfortably between traditional and communicative language teaching methods? Are you frustrated that traditional methods don’t lead to real communication skills, but communicative methods just don’t ‘gel’ with your learners and can be an imposition on them? In this session, I hope to convince you that a playful approach to language practice can help us and our learners wriggle free and get communicating! Together, we’ll try out several activities which use language playfully, and we’ll discuss the nature of playfulness and its potential benefits. These benefits include letting us balance form and meaning, allowing real (or ‘unreal’) motivations to emerge even for learners who ‘don’t need English’, and encouraging experimentation and risk-taking in ways that work for learners in Korea. This session includes activity ideas suitable for all age groups, from a presenter especially experienced in teaching reluctant adolescents.

Bryan Hale currently teaches at Yeongam High School in Jeollanamdo. He has worked with all age groups, but especially tweens and teenagers, and previously spent several years teaching elementary and middle school students in both public and hagwon settings. Bryan is treasurer of the Gwangju-Jeonnam KOTESOL Chapter and also national co-facilitator of the Reflective Practice SIG. bryan.english.teacher@gmail.com