Something for trainers, the dark side of tech and more on AI...

I'm packing my bags again today and gearing up to go back to the northern hemisphere to a very special conference for CELTA and Delta trainers in Barcelona next weekend. Looking forward to catching up with some old friends and I'll tell you more about it next week.

On that topic, if you're thinking of either of those qualifications, you might like this YouTube channel - D.English Academy. It's the work of another one of my VoiCE programme alumni, Daryna Luhovska-Semeniuk, and she's got some great material including some really helpful demo lessons. She's also got a brilliant?course for Delta Module 1??https://darynaluhovska.teachable.com/p/delta-module-one-preparation

so check it out and do subscribe to her YT channel- she's just a few people off 2K subscribers and she'd love to tip over that ledge.

Something old

As I'm getting ready to meet up with a lot of other trainers, I thought I'd highlight some of the materials I've got on the site for people a bit further down the track in their careers. If you're a teacher trainer (or aspire to be), you might like my FREE Trainer Resources and if you're involved in mentoring other teachers in any capacity my Mentoring Resources (also FREE!) is the result of seven years of PhD research. I wouldn't recommend the thesis (included there) unless you're suffering from insomnia... but there's a lot of interesting video based material for developing mentoring skills there you might find helpful.

If you DO have a passing interest in what they made me a Doctor for, I managed to summarise seven years study into Seven Thoughts in Seven Minutes here! See what you think :)

Something new

My new video this week is a bit of an opinion piece (What, me.... opinionated??!!). I was thinking about integrating technology into the classroom and it occurred to me that this is often a really Bad Idea... If you want to know why, you'll have to watch the video - here it is!

Something borrowed

A couple of things for you here today- the first is from the British Council and it's a 'mini-event' on the 11th September on using AI. It's got some great speakers including Joe Dale, who's a real tech-in-the-classroom guru and it's free!

(Oh, and if you go- or don't- and think that you'd like some AI inspiration for lesson planning, don't forget to check out my AI Powered Language Teaching. I've had some brilliant feedback on it and it'll save you HOURS of preparation time.

Finally, I was re-reading through this and thought that I was missing something for you to take into the classroom on Monday. So just as a parting shot, when (if ever) is the last time you checked out News in Levels? It kind of does what it says on the tin: short news items at three levels, HUNDREDS of stories and great for building confidence and vocabulary.

OK, that'll do. Wish me a safe journey and I'll see you from Barcelona next Sunday,

Best

PS. You can view all my resources for CELTA here and for teachers here.