Countdown to IH BCN ELT Conference 2019 – Speakers in Focus #2

As part of our countdown to the International House Conference in Barcelona, which takes place on 8/9 February, this is the second of five posts which focus on the speakers on the LTSIG strand.  The IATEFL Business English SIG and IATEFL Leadership and Management SIG will also be there.

Next up is Paul Sweeney.

Session Title: Story? Only sometimes. Bored? No

Most people will be familiar with the idea of storyboards: a visual outline that easily conveys a series of events, often a planning tool in filmmaking.

As an approach or tool, Storyboarding is often transferrable to educational settings but underused in the language classroom. If it comes up at all, it may do so as framework for a film script activity or a more general pre-writing preparation.  However, it can be much more flexible than this and we will explore a variety of ways it can be used.

Informed by ‘real world’ e-learning processes, this practical session will look at how Storyboarding can provide a framework for extended teamwork and creativity as well as be used as a means of relating to visual media – an ever-greater part of learners’ worlds. After training, some practitioners use storyboarding as a means of interpreting texts, engaging with poetry, unpacking or synthesising a narrative. What will you do after this session?

 

Paul Sweeney started off as an EFL teacher in Spain and also worked for long periods in Portugal and Italy. He became involved with e-learning and content creation when it was neither popular nor profitable and sees no reason to change now. He is a past Coordinator of the IATEFL LTSIG and lives in London.

Books / material published:

• Sweeney, P., Moore, C., (2012) Mobile Apps for Learning Vocabulary: Categories, Evaluation and Design Criteria for Teachers and Developers. in International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, Oct-December 2012, Vol. 2, No. 4
• Gonzalez, D., Palomeque, C., Sweeney, P., (2011) Teaching Spanish in Second Life, . , in Digital Education Opportunities for social collaboration, Thomas, M (Ed.) – Palgrave Macmillan.
• Sweeney, P., Palomeque, C., González, D., Speck, C., Canfield, D., Guerrero, S., MacKichan, P. (2010). Task design for language learning in an embodied environment. In Vincenti, G. & Braman, J. (Eds.), Teaching through multi-user virtual environments: applying dynamic elements to the modern classroom I.G.I, global

 

The official programme for this event, showing all the speakers, is shown below. This can also be found on the official IH Barcelona site. You can enrol here and there are 10% discounts for IATEFL members and 15% discount for LTSIG members. To get this discount please use the discount code sent out to members in an email on 11 January.

IH_BCN_programme_2019