Textploitation – How to get the most from your texts – sponsored by Klett (online)

One of our shared frustrations is seeing teachers marching off to class with piles and piles of photocopies and handouts: 1 for grammar, 1 for vocabulary, 1 on this topic, 1 on that topic. The underlying belief of Textploitation is that a single text can be used effectively for an entire lesson, looking at both skills and systems.

In this workshop we will examine various texts and how to exploit them. In breakout rooms, you will work in groups, exploiting texts and creating lessons and lesson ideas you can bring back into the classroom. We will also look at how you can take your coursebooks further by returning to coursebook texts and exploiting them more fully for skills development. For this we will make use of DELTA’s ‘On Point’ series.

David Byrne has worked in EFL for over a decade and in that time has taught all the ages, levels and exams he could find. He’s worked in Ireland, England, Spain and South Korea but the majority of his career has been spent in London. There, he has worked for a number of schools but mostly for EC, where he has been teacher, aDoS, DoS and most recently Curriculum Manager. With Mark, he publishes a popular blog and has written articles for ETP magazine as well as working on workbooks and online content for well-known publishers. In his free time he also writes stories for his little boy…who doesn’t seem that interested in them.

Mark Heffernan has taught English for over 16 years, spending many of those years focusing on exam teaching. In 2016, he moved to Queen Mary University where he teachers EAP, is a materials writer and a module convenor. Together, he and David have written a popular blog and a teachers resource book, called Textploitation. Besides teaching, his main interest is creating and releasing music.