ELT workshop

Planning a workshop:

Choosing a topic

First, choose a topic that is workshop- friendly. This means you

need a hands-on topic that allows your participants to carry out

activities and engage in discussion.  For instance, a topic that

demonstrates how to conduct interactive reading activities

would be good for a workshop.

Attending a workshop:

One of the best ways to prepare for your workshop is to attend other workshops. Make notes about what went well and why. What did you like or dislike about how the presenter conducted the workshop?

What kinds of problems did you see that you would want to avoid in your own workshop? For example, I have liked workshops with well-prepared and confident speakers

who knew how to manage time and offered the audience techniques they could add to their teaching repertoire.

Practice your workshop before you deliver it professionally. An ideal practice audience would be other English teachers since they can respond to your content in an authentic fashion.

If unable to secure an audience of English teaching professionals, you might be able to coax friends or family members to act as participants for a rehearsal

Provide hands out for participants

:

Prepare a handout that outlines the activities or processes you will cover so that participants can reenact the activities at a later date. Simply providing a copy of PowerPoint slides is not always enough since much of what you actually do in your workshop will not be on the slides. Make sure you bring more than enough handouts for participants.

Parts of a workshop:

A workshop (or presentation) should have a clear beginning (introduction and warm-up), middle (body), and end

(conclusion and question-answer session).

Introduction:

When you start your workshop, introduce yourself and state your affiliation. Thank your participants for attending your workshop. Present the title of your workshop, and give a brief introduction of your topic.

Let your workshop participants know the expected outcomes of your workshop so that they will have an idea of what learning or skills development they will take away.

Warm up:

Warm-up activities are ice-breakers that help participants get acquainted and feel more relaxed with one another before the main part of the workshop begins.

Warm-ups also serve as a diagnostic for your workshop, helping you to learn a bit about what the participants know about your topic

Middle stage :

Group Work:

Remember that a workshop needs to involve active learning, not just passive listening, and the challenge is to keep participants engaged. In the body of your workshop, allow time for pair, small-group, and whole-group discussion as you run your activities.

Managing Time:

Before you plan your workshop, check the time allotment carefully.

Time allowed for workshops is typically 40 to 50 minutes, but

can be as little as 15 to 20 minutes, and you could be asked to

deliver a workshop that is an hour or longer.

Ending Stage:

At the end of your workshop, briefly go over what you covered. Make sure participants know the names of the activities presented and how they can conduct them in the future.

Allow time for questions and answers and final comments. Get feedback from your participants on how the workshop went. Find out if your proposed outcomes were achieved. Written feedback is, of course, always preferable if you want honest feedback.

The steps are:

The topic is presented through a data show screen, a projector and a computer. The time is from 30 to 45 minutes. It starts with a warm up, self-introduction, the topic and ended by the attendants' questions comments and a written report.

1. Welcoming

• Good morning and welcome to [name of company, name of conference hall, hotel, etc.].
• Thank you all very much for coming today.
• I hope you all had a pleasant journey here today.

2. Introducing yourself

• My name is Mark Watson and I am responsible for … .
• My name is Mark Watson from [name of company], where I am responsible for … .
• Let me introduce myself; my name is Mark Watson and I am responsible for … .

3. Introducing your presentation

• The purpose of today’s presentation is to … .
• The purpose of my presentation today is to … .

• In today’s presentation I’d like to … show you … . / explain to you how … .
• In today’s presentation I’m hoping to … give you an update on… / give you an overview of … .
• In today’s presentation I’m planning to … look at … . / explain … .

You can also outline your presentation to give the audience a clear overview of what they can expect:

• In today’s presentation I’m hoping to cover three points:
• firstly, … , after that we will look at … , and finally I’ll … .

• In today’s presentation I’d like to cover three points:
• firstly, … , secondly … , and finally … .

4. Explaining that there will be time for questions at the end:

If you have any questions you’d like to ask, please leave

Definition:

A demonstration speech is a form of informative speech where the speaker’s primary purpose is to teach the audience how to complete a task (or process), and this is largely accomplished by demonstrating the task (or process) through a series of steps.

 It is a speech given for the purpose of telling and or showing how to do something. Often times they have visual aids and or hand outs including Power Point and Key Note presentations.

The steps:

The topic is presented through a data show screen, a projector and a computer. The time is from 30 to 45 minutes. It starts with a question that needs an answer or a problem that needs a solution.

 The topic is presented through asking questions and getting the attendants' answers to form the content of the demonstration. It is followed by the attendants' comments

The steps:

1-Captivate students from the beginning

In secondary teacher training, one of the first things that teachers are taught is the concept of the ‘plenary’, otherwise know as the ‘starter’.

2-Organisaton is everything!

Preparing a lecture in advance also allows you time to research valuable resources, such as educational videos, YouTube clips, academic articles etc…

3-Be animated

Try to vary the intonation (pitch and tone) of your voice, it doesn’t matter how interesting the contents, a monotone voice is guaranteed to send a lecture room full of students to sleep. Be conversational in tone. Use humor, since students are more motivated when they're having fun.

4-Adopt student centered learning strategies

Student-centered learning is all about placing the student at the centre of the teaching process.  It is making students an active and a responsible contributor in their own learning.  Teaching has moved away from the ‘one size fits all’ pedagogy and instead now embraces the fact that students learn in different ways.

5-Question time

One of the most effective tools a lecturer has at their disposal and which ensures interaction, is to ask and encourage questions. Questions can be used as a plenary, can stimulate interaction throughout the lecture and can be used to re-visit content at the end.

6-Change can be good

I personally think that it is good to try new strategies and new ways of doing things.  Not only for the student’s interest, but also for our own It might be that the original way of doing something was the best way.

7-Make the lecture interactive
An interactive lecture is one that includes and encourages student participation. Using techniques that encourage all students to contribute, helps to promote student retention and learning of the content presented during lecture.

8-Technology

My three favorite technological resources are:  Power-Point which is great for summarizing key points and presenting visual stimulus. Educational videos are both engaging and informative.  Finally, Virtual Learning Environments such as Moodle, which are great for ensuring that the students continue to be engaged with the content after the lectures, have ended.

9-Student Feedback

Sometimes just saying to the students “what did you think about the video I showed today?’  Or “was that a useful resource?”  Provides valuable feedback that you can use to inform future planning.

10-Closing Time: