International Webinar on ELT and Technology

International Webinar on ELT ( English Language Teaching) and Technology

                  

On 2nd and 3rd June an International webinar on ELT and Technology was organised by Dr. Dilip Barad , Head of Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University Gujrat , India.

In this international webinar more than 1000 participants had registered. They had  participants  from 16 different countries and across the India ( 28 states ). Around 84 participants presented their papers. The webinar was divided into two sessions : Paper presentation session and Plenary session. As there were more than 84 Paper Presentations so the session was divided into two days 2nd and 3rd June. People from different countries and across India were presented their papers. It was very long and  interesting session. 

The spread of  covid -19 pandemic opens up the new way of learning and teaching. The way of learning is shifting from traditional to online. Technology is turning education from teacher-centric education to student-centric education. This has changed the role of technology in Education. This is ideal time to experimentation and implementation of new tools in making  education more interesting and meaningful.  

In the plenary session there were three international speakers were invited to share their knowledge with us. It was a great privilege to hear foreigner speakers. There were three speakers invited from different countries.  Prof.Vance Stevens from Malaysia , Ania Lian from Australia and Heike Philp from Belgium.

Vance Stevens lives in Malaysia. He deals  with students to learn languages and teachers learning to teach  using technology.  He shared  his knowledge about From thinking SMALL on social media assisted language learning to TALIN: Teaching and learning in Isolation. He also talked about the importance of chaos in learning. Teachers make mistake by giving support to students at the beginning but at some point they really need to  withdraw that support. He also talked about blended learning. Now blended learning is changing in online learning. He focused on that how teachers can teach online with use of technological tools. He suggested some points which help teachers in online teaching.
● Learn more and more tools each day
● Get familiar enough them to use
●Use social tools with each other and practice it
● Learn how it works , what it uses for so experience it
● Carry what you learn in your teaching.  use it with students 

Ania Lian is from Australia. She shared her views on Remote teaching and learning of English language in higher education contexts: Experiences and research from a country where distance learning is a norm, not a calamity. She talked about model of online teaching. She emphasis on serval things related to online language teaching.
 ● Activities that extend students capacity to act on broad range of context
● Expand  intercultural understanding and values
● Develop Critical thinking
●Use technological tools specific to student's needs
● Going beyond single lesson design
● Gathering , analysing and evaluate the information
● Prepare resources that helping students to find patterns in the text
● Analysis and compare patterns in text
● Listening comprehension activities
●Engaged Students in the projects which give them the meaning of participation , Increasing external spirit of learning.
● Projects or course should be productive for student to realise or feel them that they are learning a lot.
● Need to focus on students preparation ,  resources  and exercise

Heike Philip has made  the session interactive and interesting by using Mentimetor.  Indeed, this made the session lively and informative.

                 

                   

                    ( P.C - Jignesh Gohil 's FB post ) 

                  

                   ( P.C - Jignesh Gohil 's FB post)

                    

                       ( P.C - Jignesh Gohil's FB post ) 

To see the results of Mentimetor survey Click Here. It came up with interesting observations about using  technological tools or apps for improving LSRW ( Listening , Speaking , Reading and Writing ) skills , student's and teacher's readiness of using technology for teaching and learning , Weakest and strongest side of online education,  Problems facing during online education. She also gave interesting exercise to make sentence with  the use of  words that start with letter 'M' and should be grammatically correct. 

Overall, it was very fruitful and enriching  session. I have learned a lot about using technological tools in online teaching and learning. This webinar would be very helpful for teachers as well as students to learn about use of technology in education.  The use of technology in education makes learning more effective, creative and accessible at any time and anywhere.

After completion of webinar participants have to pass online test based on plenary session with at least 80 % and fill up the feedback form with the screen shorts of each plenary  speaker  to get participation certificate. The webinar was wonderfully organised by Dr.Dilip Barad sir. It was going on Google Meet as well as live streaming on Facebook and YouTube. I would like to thank you Dilip Barad sir  for organising this webinar. It was pleasure to be a part of this Webinar.

To watch all the Paper presentations and plenary session vidoes of Webinar click Here. To get all information regarding  the webinar click Here.