May 2021 Committee Update Recently, at the Annual General Meeting on May 14th (online), long-term committee member Koi Burkhart was voted in to take over the treasurer and membership secretary position from Ingrid Abele who has done a fantastic job in this key role for so many years.  Ingrid is working closely with Koi to […]

Chairman. The term originated in Britain in the Middle Ages. The Lord or Baron sat on an elaborately decorated chair while others sat on plain benches. As furniture was scarce, the chair and other furniture were transported to his different properties as and when he visited them. The term Chairman of the Board as in […]

Join IATEFL Teacher Training and Education SIG for this exciting and useful one-day online conference on 1 May 2021   (free of charge) https://www.iatefl.org/events/221  

Reviewed by Karin Scheffold-Mokler Title:  On Point B1  Pre-intermediate English Authors:  Louis and Cathy Rogers Publisher:  Delta Publishing, 2020 ISBN:  978-3-12-501263-9  Copyright:  Ernst Klett Sprachen GmbH, Rotebühlstraße 77, 70178 Stuttgart  Overview: This new course book offers a refreshing and very well-structured innovative course consisting of the course book itself and a workbook plus audios online. […]

ELTAS Saturday Online Workshop, 13th March, 2021 Reviewed by Michelle Hunter   Gabriella Kovács inspired us with her enthusiasm for and commitment to a coach-approach to language teaching. Her stated mission: to call attention to a more holistic, person-centred approach which adds dimension to ongoing language learning practices. In our short time together, Gabriella presented […]

Nearly marking an anniversary for online workshops at ELTAS, on March 15, we hosted Gabriella Kovács on the Rationale behind LC in Business English for Adult Learners/Tertiary Education. In this online workshop, Gabriella introduced our members to the value that coaching can add to their work and some tools for getting started as a Language […]

Written by: Nicole Heusser What takes three hours and about fifteen minutes, is extremely productive and takes place online? Yes, you are right, it was our first committee meeting of the year. Last Saturday, the new committee met for the first time. Andy VN, our new chair, started the meeting with an icebreaker activity. She […]

Written by: Rebecca Sprengel   Ever tried to herd cats? Well our former chair, Katrin Beringer, was expert at it using all her people skills, tact and humour. This month’s article is dedicated to Katrin  who I had the pleasure of interviewing. Katrin, you will be deeply missed. Why and when did you choose to […]

Written by: Nicole Heusser No, unfortunately we are nowhere back to normal. This is why our Annual General Meeting was held online for the first time in the history of ELTAS! Despite the unusual location, the meeting went on as normal. After a warm welcome from our leaving chair Katrin, the chair of the AGM […]

Fossilisation, ‘the long term persistence of plateaus of non-target-like structures in the interlanguage of nonnative speakers’ (Selinker and Lakshmanan, 1992, p.197) refers to the idea that a learner’s interlanguage system reaches a point where the development of some or all of their interlanguage forms ceases, without having reached a native-like state.   As I said in […]

Written by: Nicole Heusser   I can’t believe it’s the end of January already! We’re in the middle of the second lockdown, which means we still can’t meet in person, but thankfully, there are brilliant online workshops to be had! Thank you, Laura Edwards for a great, inspiring workshop! It was a good mix of […]

Written by: Andrea Vogt-Nas   Like many other events, the BESIG 2020 conference had to face challenge and change. Unfortunately, it could only take place online.  But was it really so unfortunate? I don’t think so!  It has been a challenging year for the BE teaching community with many changes in our teaching lives – amongst them […]

    Written By: Tanja Delgorge-Engelhardt How are you teaching nowadays? Face-to-face? Online? Or perhaps both at the same time (that is, in a hybrid class)? It hasn’t been easy to move classes suddenly from a room in a building to a room in the cloud. The “downtime” since March has brought challenges to us […]

Written by: Vera Tillner How to fall in love with grammar Photo: Brain Friendly Grammar (Source: Pikrepo) Following last month’s featured article about Neurolanguage Coaching, this month we highlight an exciting book about brain friendly grammar conversations. There are many reasons why a teacher might feel negative about teaching grammar. Insecurity is one of them […]

Written by: Nicole Heusser As we slowly come to the end of a year that has gone by with lightning speed, we look back at a year no one of us could have expected nor predicted. We think back on how 21st Century Skill catchphrases like creativity, flexibility and adaptability, and media and technology literacy […]

Written by: Vera Tillner A new perspective on language teaching Coaching entered the world of language teaching a few years ago. I came across it only in April of 2019 because I had that growing feeling something was missing from my lessons. I was looking for ways to give all my learners the opportunity to […]

Our latest event on September 19, Audience and Purpose, with Michelle Hunter was a welcome back of sorts in these strange and restrictive Covid-19 times. Though with a reduced number of attendees, we were able to enjoy an insightful gathering and learning experience.  Michelle Hunter’s workshop focused on some of the things we as language […]