Our current series of webinars is called “MaWSIG meets…” and each webinar is being co-hosted with one of our sister SIGs. The webinars will explore Kath Bilsborough’s “five wishes” for the future of ELT materials, which she presented at IATEFL 2019, and provide ideas, inspiration and practical tips on the various areas of materials creation. All of our webinars are free to join here.
There is no need to register.
MaWSIG meets ReSIG, Friday 20th September 2019, 1pm UK time
Making more principle-led, quality materials
Heather Buchanan
Most teachers and learners today are in the fortunate position of being surrounded by a wealth of materials, but quantity definitely does not ensure quality! How do we know if materials are pedagogically sound and in line with research findings? This webinar will address the following questions and use practical examples of materials and anecdotes from my own experience to illustrate each point. Where do teaching and learning principles come from? What are principle-led, quality materials? How can teachers and materials writers create such materials? How can we identify such materials? The webinar will end with ten top tips for identifying and developing principled, quality materials.
Join the webinar here.
MaWSIG meets TD SIG, Friday 11th October 2019, 3pm UK time
Making materials on topics that are excluded from mainstream coursebooks
Ilá Coimbra and James Taylor
Raise Up! is a charitable project that was created with a simple aim – what would a mainstream English language coursebook look like if it represented a wider range of people? We feel that significant improvements need to be made in how various groups in society are included in the most popular international coursebooks, and in this webinar we will describe how the first edition of Raise Up! came to be. Ilá will begin by summarising the current situation regarding representation in coursebooks. She will describe the groups that are currently unseen, hard to see or misrepresented, and explain why diversity benefits everyone: learners and teachers.In the second part, James will go into the process behind the creation of Raise Up! and the principles that underpin it. He will explain how the lessons were written and designed, and then speak about the future of the project and how MAWSIG and TDSIG members can help out.
Join the webinar here.
James is a DELTA qualified EFL teacher, teacher trainer, materials writer and podcast producer based in Brasília, Brazil. He has taught English to adults and teenagers in Brazil, South Korea, Belgium and Costa Rica since 2007. In August 2018, he self-published his first ebook, How Was Your Weekend? He produces the ELTON nominated TEFL Commute podcast.
Ilá has been an English teacher since 2001 and a teacher trainer since 2011, especially preparing students and teachers for language exams. Ilá is based in Munich, Germany, holds DELTA Module 2, CELTA and CPE certificates and has been attending and presenting at local, national and international conferences since 2014. She is also one of the founding members of BRAZ-TESOL Voices SIG, a special interest group that focuses on equality in ELT.
