Win a free place on an online course worth £480!
Following the success of courses held in 2013 for groups of university teachers from pedagogical institutes in cities across Kazakhstan, in June NILE welcomed to Norwich a third group of 25 teachers for a similar course, designed “to set participants on a clear pathway towards Continuing Professional Development”. The course programme included sessions in four main areas: Modern Approaches to Teaching and Learning, Professional and Linguistic Development, Assessment and Evaluation and ICT in Teaching and Learning.
Participants once again felt that they had gained a great deal from their stay in Norwich: “The quality of teaching was great. I was impressed with teachers’ professionalism”; “I learnt so much…which I will use”; “All trainers’ preparation and planning for the course sessions are quite perfect”.
A specific interest that emerged from some participants during the course was the place in education of Guilford’s (1967) concept of ‘divergent thinking’. Consequently, Gulnar Balakayeva (whose report on one of the 2013 courses was published in the Winter 2013 edition of the NILE newsletter) and her colleague Saule Zeinolla wrote a paper about ways of enlisting the hierarchy of categories in Bloom’s Taxonomy to encourage the development of divergent thinking:
Criteria and evaluation tasks aimed at the development of divergent thinking for university students
We are delighted to announce the line-up of visiting speakers coming to NILE over the summer months.
Maria Heron has put together a brilliant and varied programme of some of the leading minds from the ELT world. These presentations are an integral component of the courses in Norwich and take place on Wednesday afternoons in July and August.
All our guest speaker events are open to the public. If you would like to attend any of the presentations, please contact us to arrange your free ticket.
| Date | Guest Speaker | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Jul | Ann Margaret Smith | Language Learners and Specific Learning Differences |
| 16 Jul | Sandie Mourão | Pictures, Words and the Gaps Between |
| 23 Jul | Ben Goldstein | Building the Speaker Skill |
| 30 Jul | Jeremy Harmer & Hugh Dellar | What Exactly are Teachers for? |
| 6 Aug | Alan Maley | Let's Write Something Interesting for a Change |
| 13 Aug | Tony Prince | The Effect and Affect of Culture on Learning and Using English |
| 20 Aug | Mike McCarthy | Collocations: Problems & Puzzles |
| 27 Aug | Rachael Roberts | More than just a Worksheet: Writing Effective Classroom Materials |
This year, for the first time, all of our guest speakers' presentations will be made available to view in the NILE Library Online, to the benefit of all current and future NILE students.
Carole Robinson's blog post on the events at IATEFL Harrogate this year is live now.
A promised during his talk "PEELIng back the layers" you can find Alan Mackenzie's 'handout' and powerpoint here.
The deadline for Erasmus+ funding applications has been extended to 24th March, giving you an additional week to finalise your application.
Following the difficulties that organisations have been experiencing in particular with the Participant Portal over the last period and although no technical blocking problems exist anymore at this point in time, the deadline of 17 March 12:00 midday has been postponed until 24 March 12:00 midday (Brussels time) to give applicants more time to finalise their application. This is according to the Erasmus+ EC website (see below).
This prolongation concerns the following actions managed by National Agencies:
KA101 – School Education - staff mobility
KA102 – Vocational Education and Training - learner and staff mobility
KA103 - Higher Education - student and staff mobility
KA104 - Adult Education - staff mobility
KA105 - Youth – mobility of youth workers and young people
KA108 – Higher Education - Accreditation of Higher Education Mobility Consortia
Submissions in this period will be marked with the flag “LATE” in the application forms. However, applicants should not worry: even with this flag, applications submitted until 24 March 12:00 midday (Brussels time) will be considered as formally eligible with regard to timely submission.
You can read the full announcement on the European Commission's Erasmus+ website.
Our Registrar Alison Lake is happy to answer any last minute queries.
The new NILE ELT Glossary is a free resource for English language teachers and trainers providing in-depth definitions and explanations of ELT-specific terminology.
Try out the ELT Glossary here
We have created this resource to support course participants on all NILE Online courses, including Delta and Master's programmes.
Terms have been selected by course designers and as well as definitions and examples, each term is accompanied by suggestions for further reading around the topic.
Definitions were written by Mary Spratt and co-edited by Alan Pulverness and Thom Kiddle.
We are pleased to be able to make this resource available to course participants and non-participants alike and we hope you will find it useful.
Members of the NILE team will attend a range of ELT conference around the world over the next few months.
This week, NILE's Deputy Director Thom Kiddle is giving a presentation called 'Alternative Assessment of Oral Skills - Can the CEFR help?' at the NELTA Conference in Kathmandu, Nepal.
The following week, Senior Teacher and CELTA Centre Manager, Maria Heron will be in Madrid running a workshop called 'Getting Learners Speaking' at TESOL Spain. To see Maria talk about her workshop, watch this video.
NILE will be represented by Assistant Academic Director Alan Pulverness and Tony Prince as two of the main speakers at the British Council E-merging Forum in Moscow, where delegates also have the chance to win an online and a face-to face NILE course in the conference prize draw.
For a full schedule of ELT Conferences we'll be attending in 2014, click -Read more...
The Erasmus+ KA1 application form for Staff Mobility is finally live!
See our Erasmus+ Funding information page for hints and tips on how to apply, and hurry, the deadline is only a month away!
The new application form can be found here: Erasmus+ KA1 Application Form for Staff Mobility (British version). Find yours through your National Agency.
Read the NILE Erasmus+ Sample Application Form as a guide to filling in the form.
We are of course happy to answer any questions you may have. Contact Alison on Registrar@nile-elt.com.
Extra dates have been added for the Norwich-based Teaching English for Academic Purposes (TEAP) and the MA Teaching English for Academic Purposes (MATEAP) courses.
Course Leader Tony Prince has confirmed today that he will be running both the CPD and the MA elective module on 17th-28th March 2014.
Participants will explore and analyse current approaches and methods in teaching English for Academic Purposes and develop key skills for materials design.Read more...
The European Commission has recently announced significant changes to the way professional development funding is provided for teacher and trainers.
Funding for teachers and trainers from all EU Member States as well as Iceland, Turkey, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland is now available under the new name, Erasmus+.Read more...
