On Saturday July 17th, 2021, ELTAS hosted a workshop by Rachel Paling, “Transforming grammar through Neurolanguage Coaching Conversations” The participants, from ELTAS and partner organizations from around Germany, included people who had already taken Rachel’s training courses, as well as people like me who were coming to Neurolanguage Coaching for the first time.

Rachel explained that Neurolanguage Coaching seeks to answer the question “How can we bring grammar into a natural, friendly coaching conversation?” To do this, she has created the PACT PQC model, which is essentially a pathway to guide you through conversations about grammar. For me, some of the interesting aspects of this model included promoting student autonomy by asking permission to come into students’ conversations (e.g. “May I give you an example of this language?”) and the inclusion of discussions comparing the target grammar point with the students’ native language.

In the second half of the workshop we went into breakout rooms and practiced using this model to teach fellow participants. It was great to have this interactive time to try to get to grips with this model and to hear reflections and feedback from the other members of the group.

As well as being a wonderful way to connect with and chat to other language teachers, this workshop gave me a lot of food for thought and I left it with many ideas about how I can integrate what I learned into my own teaching practice.

Cate Jakszta