IATEFL Conference

Hello everyone!

Today I'd like to tell you about International IATEFL Conference which took place in Liverpool, UK  from the 2nd up to the 5th April 2019.

There were different sessions at the conference, they were devoted to language learning and teaching. Many teachers all over the world came there to attend kind of lectures of professional speakers.

The topics of the sessions are all really engaging, they give you a hint on the solving issues which real professionals should know how to deal with; however, some of them are even striking as you've never even thought about them.

For example, the session I've chosen is called "Managing individual differences in the language classroom". The topic relates to several individual variables which should be kept in mind while learning languages.

 

 

The aspects are the following:

• age - people of all age can learn languages

• race/ethnicity/nationality/culture - the importance of knowing the differencies, being aware that all of them are not identical, unless it might lead to cultural shock

• personality - several types, all of them are important

• style(of learning) - not the universal one, but the ones suitable for each student

• strategies - a teacher should give his/her students some strategy knowledge

• autonomy - give students different tasks to learn which one would help improve their autonomy

• affect - feelings and emotions can both increase and decrease productivity of studens
  aptitude - sometimes it’s not that important as autonomy  
• motivation - the most important factor leading to success; it’s dynamic, complex; it should be kept high for the students. 

• sex/ gender - keep in mind the differences between males and females “to avoid oversimplification and unproductive generalisations”. 

Having watched the session, I learnt that teachers should be aware of all the individual variables above mentioned to make the process of learning more efficient for students. I’d like to read more about such variables as autonomy and motivation as I regard them to be the most significant ones and want to learn about them in depth. 

Enrich Your Vocabulary for Writing by Using This Website

Hello everyone!

 

Today I'd like to share with you an interesting website related to writing in English.

 

The website contains useful tips on how to make your piece of writing better. Not only does it give you ideas to develop in your essays, but also gives you a hint on how to start a blog, how to enrich your vocabulary, etc.

 

I believe, this website is more for people who want to run a personal blog. Nowadays people make big money on it. Personally, I found it useful as I'd like to have my own blog, so by using this website I'd be able to write coherent and well-developed posts.

 

Despite being useful for bloggers, the website can be useful for students having struggles with writing in English. The posts are written by natives; therefore, we can observe the tricks and ways of using words and phrases in particular context. Quite interesting, isn't?

 

For example, one post which I've found extremely practical is about vocabulary.  

The post contains a list of vocabulary devided into different sections, all the words given are called power words. They provide particular emotions(like anger, curiosity, fear, etc.) and are really useful for good writing. What is more, the author gives the reader an idea of how to use the words, which context is more suitable for them, and also invites the reader to leave some more useful vocabulary in the comments below.

 

Hope you'll find smartblogger.com helpful!

 



Marriage is an outdated institution 

People spend years seeking a person they share the same interests and views with. It can be rather challenging to find the right person to spend a whole life with, so when they actually come across one, it is important not to miss the chance. Marrying each other seems to be a logical outcome of long and strong relationships, but does exchanging the vows still work this way? Let me consider some points regarding this issue. 

Personally, I don’t think marriage has become outdated as it’s kind of a tradition which never gets old. It brings serious attitude to relationships. It is not the marriage becoming senseless, it is about people not holding their vows. What is the point of getting married to a person and not being serious about it? People take a huge responsibility committing to another person. They should try and do everything to make their relationships even stronger with a passage of time. Moreover, in most cases marriage leads to having a child. It’s better for a kid to live in a family, as married couples have more opportunities as not married ones. In addition, if two people are not bound, and “divorce” takes place, it can be unfair for one person to lose everything he/she had the moment the other person decides to leave. 

On the other hand, marriage might seem to be outdated as it is actually not really necessary to prove one’s love by signing a paper. Furthermore, people cannot be sure they’ll love their partner for the rest of their life, not even telling about a year or even less than that, so divorce in such a case might be more painful than just simple separating because the process takes much more time. 

To sum up, I think that marriage should never become an old-fashioned thing in many cases, not well thought over, based on emotions decisions, lead to divorces, as people simply do not understand what they are doing when getting married basing on first impressions. People should consider the points wisely and not get married on the spot.