CLOVERLEAF Cambridge English Conference

Matthew Siegal (CUP) 

How to get your students speaking at B2 level (plenary talk), 9:00-10:00 London

Getting students to talk in class can, at times, be an uphill battle. Every student acknowledges the importance of speaking, but they are often extremely reluctant to work on this skill in class. These sessions will examine the skill of speaking, why some students appear to be 'blocked' when it comes to communicating verbally and look at methods we can use to get our students to talk more. We will also discuss the speaking part of exams: how to accurately assess our students, what skills are being tested and how to make speaking exam practice relevant, interesting and a little bit more realistic. 

Matthew Siegal (CUP)  

How to assess your student's writing and how to make them better writers (B2), 10.15-11.15 London

Writing is a time consuming skill for both students and teachers. One of the issues I had when I started teaching was how to give my students an accurate assessment of their writing skills. In this talk, we will look at how to use the Cambridge Assessment Scale for writing in order to give your students a better indication as to their level of writing and what they need to develop. During this session I will also highlight some ways to make your students better writers and we will look at some "fun" writing tasks. 

Pavla Štanclová

Let’s Make It Efficient, 10.15-11.15 Dublin

Too difficult. Too boring. Too long… Let’s not complain about our teaching materials, but adjust them to our (and our students’) needs!

In my seminar, I’ll be sharing some of my favourite tricks to spice up teaching materials so that they are more attractive and more efficient. I will illustrate this with materials for students at elementary levels (A1 – A2).

Daniela Clarke (ILC)

The Vocabulary Box (Target audience: upper primary (14+), secondary, exams), 11.30-12.30 Washington

In this practical session we will open a box full of ideas on teaching vocabulary. You will try out activities which help teenage learners effectively build up topical lexis, collocation, phrasal verbs, idioms and functional language, and examine ways to push learners from passive understanding to active use of vocabulary in their speaking and writing skills.

Radka Malá (Pearson)

The Road to Personalisation, 11.30-12.30 Dublin

The terrible moment when your students just stare at you blankly and say, ‘I don’t know much about this topic.’ And that’s all they have to say in the lengthy discussion you were hoping for in your meticulously prepared lesson plan. In this webinar, we’ll have a look at some simple steps to truly personalise your lessons and let your students have a say in their learning process, whether they’re adults or teens. Because every class is different, every learner is unique and there’s more to personalisation than just Find Someone Who activities.

Martin Jelínek (Macmillan)

Mediation: What? Why? And how can I teach it?, 11.30-12.30 London

Expect to hear the word ‘mediation’ a lot in the near future. The CEFR has recently added descriptors for this area of communication. So teachers need to know what it is, why it matters and how you can teach it. Or maybe you already teach the skills needed without knowing it. By the end of this talk you should have a clear idea of what mediation is and how it reflects real-life communication. With examples from Macmillan’s new general English course, Language Hub, we will look at a range of activities – some familiar, some new – that you can use to develop the mediation skills of your own students.

Daniela Clarke (ILC)

Energising Teens with Games, Music and Video (Target audience: secondary, teenagers), 13.00-14.00 Washington

Have you run out of ways to keep your teenage learners focused, motivated and excited about learning? Come and get some new ideas for using games, music and video in the classroom. You will walk away with flexible activities up your sleeve that require little or no preparation, and can be integrated into day-to-day coursebook lessons.

Vlaďka Skopcová (Macmillan) 

Be a Reading Star!, 13.00-13.00 London

This hands-on workshop is primarily suitable for lower-primary teachers who want to help their pupils become competent and enthusiastic readers. While introducing various practical activities, we will move from early reading stages to reading longer texts. As reading is a multiple-level skill, we will focus on understanding of the structure and organisation of texts, making sense of it and critical thinking activities encouraging children to give a personal response to the text. Last but not least, there will be a storytelling section included as well.