Background
The English Language Teacher Educator conference grew out of our work with teacher educators, both pre and in -service, in the state sector in Sri Lanka. The Improving Teacher Education in Sri Lanka (iTESL) Project has been running since 2017. Materials were developed based on the needs of both sectors. Teacher educator courses were delivered to over 100 teacher educators in the National Colleges of Education and mentoring and ELT methodology courses were delivered to over 200 in-service advisors and senior teachers. A Community of Practice (COP) was initiated to assist these teacher educators to share best practices and to give them a forum to collaborate. One of the events that the COP were keen to run was a conference in Sri Lanka specifically for English language teacher educators. Although there have been many conferences run by the Sri Lankan English Language Teachers Association (SLELTA) for English teachers, there has never been one for English teacher educators. Our first SLELTEC ran in March 2020 the week before the pandemic closed the country down. Since 2020 the iTESL project changed paths and the focus has been on online delivery of teacher training and on developing and assessing speaking and listening skills in the classroom. The 2023 SLELTEC will reflect this change in emphasis in its themes. The conference is the ideal venue for showcasing and sharing the work of both local pre and in service teacher educators and for providing a platform to showcase and share the work of other non-project teacher educators both in the country and in the region. This conference is jointly hosted by the Ministry of Education and the British Council.
Objectives
- To provide a forum for discussion of online teacher education and to demonstrate and share best practices in this area locally and regionally
- To explore assessment, especially formative assessment, in English language teaching
- To demonstrate and share the best practice in developing communication skills in the classroom locally and regionally
- To explore teacher quality: its definition, evaluation and frameworks
- To compile a conference publication showcasing local and regional best practice
Overall theme
English Language Teacher Education: Empowering students with clear communication skills to meet the challenges of a crisis-stricken world
Papers, workshops and poster presentation abstracts are invited for submission on the sub-themes below. The deadline for submission is 13 January 2023.
Sub-themes
Online teacher education
- The challenge of digital literacy in online teacher education
- Online teacher education in Sri Lanka: a participant perspective
- Online teacher education in Sri Lanka: an e-moderator perspective
- Online teacher education: a mode of Inclusion or exclusion
Assessment in English language teaching
- Assessment literacy for teacher educators and teachers
- Assessing speaking and listening skills in the classroom
- Identifying and creating opportunities for formative assessment
- Giving constructive feedback in the classroom
Communication skills for a crisis-stricken world
- Training teachers to develop citizenship skills through listening and speaking skills in the classroom
- Loop input – modelling best practice in communication skills in the training room
- New Curriculum and Modules – promoting communication skills
- Promoting inclusion through communication skills in a low-resource classroom
Teacher Quality – 3 Ps - Proficiency, Pedagogy and Professional development
- Language improvement and CPD
- Teacher Quality and Quality Education (SDG4)
- Monitoring and evaluation of teachers’ performance
- Teacher and Teacher Educator defined - Frameworks for Teacher Educators and Teachers
Guidelines for abstracts
Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words for Papers - maximum 2000 words and 10 slides; 15 minutes plus 5 minutes for Q and A
Workshops - 90 minutes
Poster presentations – one poster
Include a bio of no more than 150 words
Click here to register as a presenter
Click here to register as a participant