Name: Chris Williams
Position and Organization. : International School Partnerships Specialist;
British Council Schools Ambassador
Basic title: WHAT MAKES A GOOD PARTNERSHIP?
More dynamic alternative:
“From cave paintings to eTwinning and beyond - forming stable and sustainable project partnerships & Ice breaking activities”
ABSTRACT
“From cave paintings to eTwinning and beyond - forming stable and sustainable project partnerships & Ice breaking activities”
Which came or comes first - History or Culture? Who created or creates them? Who decides when something is History? Individuals or groups?” Whatever your answer, you will probably say that there has a link between an Historian and his/her Culture. Successful outcomes almost invariably come through the formation of strong partnerships. What would Chopin have achieved without a piano, Maria Callas without a singing coach, Shakespeare without actors or an audience? Nothing is guaranteed. In this plenary session, punctuated with plenty of icebreakers, both social and based in the contact seminar themes of History and Culture, Chris will focus on the elements which make a good partnership.
BIOGRAPHY
Chris Williams worked in large secondary schools as a History teacher for 13 years and for 21 years as a senior leader including headship. He still works part-time at Lincoln Christ’s Hospital School as its post-1974 archivist and аn active supporter of its international programme. Since 2007 he has been a freelance consultant working for the British Council, the Global Learning Association and schools in the UK and abroad.
He specializes in supporting schools wishing to develop international links, Chris is very interested in the dynamics of sustainable partnerships, often being the keynote speaker. He is often invited to use his experience to play the role of ‘critical friend’. Working visits in the last two years have included Mozambique, South Africa, China, India, Bucharest, Prague, Syracuse, Montpellier, Amasya, Sopot, Warsaw and Kiev, the last three destinations for eTwinning.Chris is very active in hosting KA1 groups in Lincoln and sometimes London. Topics in week-long courses have included ‘Early Years’ (Polish groups); ‘Leadership’ (Germans, Italians, Poles, Romanians and Swedes); ‘Coaching’ and ‘Gifted and Talented’ (both Turkish) and ‘Classroom observation’ and ‘Teaching Science’ (both French)
In his spare time, Chris enjoys theatre visits, watching rugby and planting trees as Chairman of the Nettleham Woodland Trust.
Name: Nona Popiashvili
Position and Organization. : ELT Consultant
National Center for Teacher Professional Development
ABSTRACT
Project-Based Learning in a Language Classroom
Paradigm shift in education requires teachers to address the rapid technological changes and new demands of the 21st century. Traditional teaching methods are not sufficient to prepare students for the evolving workplace of new millennium. Problem-solving skills and creativity are vital for the emerging reality. Project-based learning is considered to be a comprehensive approach to classroom teaching and learning that is designed to engage students in investigation of authentic problems. Project-based learning prepares students for real world. If done well, it’s fun and both teachers and students enjoy the whole process. Projects are becoming an increasingly popular feature within the language classroom. More and more teachers start implementing PBL in the classroom to encourage authentic language learning and information literacy. Projects play an important role to develop the skills that simultaneously strengthen language acquisition and content knowledge while offering opportunities for greater engagement, for working in collaborative teams, for developing critical thinking skills, for managing precious time and resources.
Theoretical foundation for project-based learning will be presented briefly and more practical aspects of implementing project-based learning in foreign language context will be discussed. How to motivate students? How to plan the whole process? What are the key components of PBL? The presentation will answer these and more questions connected to utilizing best practices of PBL in a language context
BIOGRAPHY
Ms. Nona Popiashvili is an ELT consultant at the National Teacher Professional Development Center. She has been working with in-service and pre-service teachers for a long time. An active member of ETAG (English Teachers’ Association of Georgia) since 2000 herself, she became a teacher trainer in 2004 and since then has designed and delivered a number of face to face and online training courses for English language teachers locally and internationally as an ELT expert for TPDC and an E-moderator for the British Council.Ms. Nona Popiashvili has presented and participated at National and International conferences. Her articles and conference presentations have been published in national and international educational journals and magazines.
Nona Popiashvili works not only as a trainer and a course designer, but she is also actively involved in teaching. During her teaching career Ms. Nona Popiashvili has been working at different universities including Caucasus University, Ilia State University, International Black Sea University, Pedagogical State University and others. The courses taught by her apart from General English have been: ELT Methodology, Learning to Learn, Culture, FCE and IELTS preparation, media English, text analysis, stylistics, academic writing and many others.
She is a strong believer of active learning and has been dedicated lots of time and effort to implement project-based learning in her own teaching practice and promoting this comprehensive approach among teachers.
Currently she is working on the PHD at Ivane Javakhishvili State University of Tbilisi. Her research theme is “Linguistic characteristics and discourse strategies of synchronous and asynchronous online communication”.
