Workshops

Round 1 (11h to 12h)

EducationUSA: Opportunities for Study in the U.S.A. and Auxiliary Tools in Teaching EFL through Social Activities

The number of Brazilians studying abroad has substantially increased in the past years and the United States is positioned as one of the major study destinations for students. According to the Institute of International Education Open Doors Report (IIE, 2017), the total number of Brazilians currently enrolled in university programs in the U.S. is of 13,089 and many new opportunities for exchange programs have recently emerged. This session aims at introducing EducationUSA (the official source of information on U.S. Education) to EFL/ESL teachers as a resource for finding the best opportunities to study in the U.S. – both for teachers (professional development) and students (study opportunities). It will also present to educators how EducationUSA resources can serve as an auxiliary tool in teaching EFL/ESL through social activities, using the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (ENGESTROM, 1999; LIBERALI, 2009) as a teaching methodology.

Danyelle Marina is the International Education Coordinator at ABA Global Education (Recife, PE). She is also a senior EducationUSA adviser, having participated in several in-country and U.S. Trainings over the past 8 years. She holds a B.A. in Tourism and Hospitality (FAFIRE/PE) and a M.A. in Applied Linguistics (UFPE/PE) with special emphasis on Portuguese for Speakers of Other Languages (PSOL). Danyelle has assisted thousands of students and professionals who wish to study in the US, in a diverse range of majors and levels of education. She also coordinates the international testing center at ABA, which is one of the biggest centers in the country, offering TOEFL and GRE exams for more than 500 students every year.

Flipped Classroom: What is it?

The process of learning can happen in two spaces: inside and outside our classroom. Taking this conception into consideration this workshop addresses the challenges in education that we teachers are facing in the 21st century, such as the new technologies, the new students and their new interests. In order to make our classes different and change our role in the classroom, this workshop will discuss the benefits of the flipped classroom, known in Portuguese as sala de aula invertida (SAI), showing the stepping stones to achieve success when implementing it. The purpose of this workshop is to use the active learning strategies to mitigate the gap between the skills and abilities required in the modern society and the teaching methods we have been using.

Luís Romeu Nunes is graduated from UFPR in Telecommunications Engineering (1995), was awarded master degree from Tohoku University in Japan (1999), received PhD from University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo (2002), was post-doctoral fellow at Utsunomiya University (2003-2004) and at National Institute of Communications Technology (2004-2006), both in Japan. In total, he lived 10 years in Japan. Back to Brazil he was officer at Brazilian Air Force, working for the Rocket Launching Center in Natal-RN. Since 2015 he is a professor at IFPB in Cajazeiras Campus, where he teaches in the Civil Engineering and Industrial Automation courses. Since the beginning of 2016 he has running a Japanese language and culture course at the Campus. He is currently researching on active learning strategies to improve the teaching-learning process applied to professional education.

Through the other's eyes: activities and games to promote and/or provoke learning

Can you remember some remarkable moments you have experienced? Have they made you see the world differently? We believe so. Sometimes we face situations which can completely change the way we understand the world. We also believe that English classes can do the same. In this workshop we will propose some activities and games to invite our students to see the world from a different perspective in order to make them reflect, rethink and act upon the world we/they live in.

Sérgio Ifa is a professor at the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL) for undergraduate and graduate levels. He holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics (PUC-SP) and is the research leader of Letramentos, Educação e Transculturalidade (Literacies, Education and Transculturality research group). He is the coordinator of Casas de Cultura no Campus Extension Project as well as the Languages without Borders Program Coordinator at UFAL.

Alex Santos graduated from the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL) with a teacher’s degree in Linguistics and English Language and Literature. He has been teaching at Núcleo de Línguas - Programa Idiomas sem Fronteiras (NUCLI-ISF/UFAL) since 2015. He is currently taking his Master Studies at PPGLL UFAL. His research focuses on English teaching and learning in public schools.

Assessment as a Pedagogic Management Tool

There are important differences in internationally accepted Language Proficiency Assessment Programs and Certificates, and this is still not as clear as it should be to Teachers, Parents and Students. This presentation aims at showing the most important assessment resources that are available, their international acceptance and which is best for the Educational Institution as well as the teachers. Topics will address the differences between Classic Test Theory and Item Response Theory; best practices to use assessments as a Pedagogic Management Tool besides only awarding a Certificate; and how teachers and schools may benefit from such programs aiming at improving both the course’s syllabus and teaching skills.

Eugenio Mirisola is a graduate from USP (ECA – Advertising and Propaganda) and Faculdade Cásper Líbero (Public Relations) in São Paulo. He has worked for one of the world’s major Oil Companies where he was the CEO in the Human Resources; Marketing Programs; and Marketing and Sales Departments. Besides being trained abroad (mainly US and UK) in leading edge Train the Trainer courses, he has introduced innovations in training and people development programs during his corporate life. Today he is the Director of the International Tests Division at UP Language Consultants, where he introduced, in Brazil, the ETS® (Educational Testing Service) One Stop Shop concept and the TOEFL® Young Students Series Assessment Program as a Pedagogic Management Tool.

The representation of pre-service teachers in reflexive academic writing

This workshop will report on the ways through which Brazilian basic schoolteachers are represented in professional reflexive writing. Professional reflexive writing is a differentiated academic writing that is produced by pre-service teachers as the final assignment during their supervised compulsory pre-service teacher training. In this workshop we will focus on the construction of schoolteachers as the grammar subject of actions. For such, we will adopt a methodological framework that consists of a transdisciplinary of Applied Linguistics. The objective of this workshop is to bring awareness as regards schoolteachers representation as the main actors accountable for the processes in which they are involved. In this context, we will look at the complex environment of the compulsory pre-service teacher training calling for a more useful application of the professional reflexive writing in pre-service teacher education.

Elaine Espindola has an MA and a PhD in Linguistics from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina – UFSC, and has carried out her Postdoctoral Fellowship at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, working under the supervision of Professor Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen. She has worked as a Language Instructor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, later at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, and currently she is as Assistant Professor at Universidade Federal da Paraíba. Her research focuses on Systemic Functional Linguistics; Teacher Training, Translation Studies and Text typology.

Introduction to the Theory of Word-structure

The present workshop is an attempt to introduce our students to the theory of word-structure. It has no other ambitious purpose than the pure practical one of helping students to understand the morphology of lexical items, derivational morphology and word formation.

José Ribamar de Castro is a professor at the Federal University of Paraíba and holds a Master’s Degree in English Applied Linguistics from PUC – São Paulo and the New Trends & Creative Grammar Certificate from the International House Training – Hastings, England.

"Once upon a time, there was technology...": how to design activities to promote students’ engagement

In a world where language for self-expression, communication and interaction is strongly mediated by technology, English language teachers are challenged to learn how to design materials and activities that incorporate the use of digital resources. Attentive to this aspect, this workshop aims at sharing the design process of a series of slides related to the theme Fairy Tales, developed by undergraduate students from UFPB, members of the PIBID Letras Inglês project who work at an elementary school. Under the guidance of their coordinators, they prepared a series of activities, making use a number of multimodal resources (colourful slides, hyperlinks, sound effects, gifs, among others) with the aim of promoting students participation in the lessons, facilitating their engagement with the theme. In this workshop, participants will learn the basic procedures for designing interactive and attractive slides in a hands-on approach, guided to breaking barriers between teachers and the pedagogical use of technology in the EFL classroom.

Angélica Araújo de Melo Maia is a professor at the Department of Modern Foreign Languages at Universidade Federal da Paraíba. She holds a PhD (2014) in Educational Policies. She is currently the coordinator of the Supervised Internship area at DLEM and she is also a volunteer coordinator of the English PIBID Project at UFPB. Areas of interest: teacher education; critical literacy; supervised internship; teaching English for students with disabilities; English language teaching.

Jailine Mayara Sousa de Farias is a professor at the Department of Modern Languages (DLEM) at the Federal University of Paraiba (UFPB). She holds a Master’s Degree in Linguistics. She is currently one of the coordinators of the Scholarship Program of Initiation to Teaching (PIBID/UFPB-Letras-Inglês/CAPES). Her research interests involve EFL teacher education, TEFL, multiliteracies, language education and technology.

This workshop will also be conducted by the following participants of the PIBID Letras Inglês UFPB project: Adalberto Silva, Cleiton da Conceição, Emmanuel Silva, Gabriella Vasconcellos, Helen Sousa, Marília Bezerra, Raianne Diniz, Renan Paulino, Taiana Oliveira, Vicente Rodrigues e Geisa Ribeiro.

The Bilingualism Wave: Be a “wave rider” in this top trending field of education

In an increasingly globalized world, bilingual education has emerged as a growing market facing constant expansion in Brazil. Currently, many primary and secondary schools are presented with a bilingual proposal and, in the same way, there are many free language courses that seek to develop the condition of bilingualism in their students in a short time. One of the main challenges of these schools is to get qualified professionals for their faculty. The complexity of the task of teaching and training students with the knowledge and specific skills needed to work with bilingual education, makes the teacher for this type of environment a rare and competitive one in the job market. The workshop is designed to collaborate with the training of teachers that want to be included in this field of education. It will provide techniques for everyday class routines that use English not only as a subject but as means of instruction, while developing a multicultural view of the world in a fun and engaging way. At the end, participants are expected to understand more about bilingual education and the tools that are needed to succeed in this challenging scenario.

Fernanda Negreiros has been working for regular and language schools and has over 12 years of experience in teaching. She has participated in book publishing and has been giving workshops at events for 6 years, including the Braz-Tesol Conference in 2016. She is an EFL teacher and coordinator, English Consultant and CEO from Shining Minds Consultants. She graduated Letras at UNICAP/PE, post-graduated in English Translation Methodology – FAFIRE/PE.

Naiara Fracaro has been working for a bilingual school and has over 8 years of experience in teaching. She is currently giving workshops at events such as the Braz-Tesol Conference in 2016. She is an EFL teacher, English Consultant at Shining Minds Consultants. She is post-graduated in Language Acquisition/UFPB, She is attending a Master’s Degree in Education Studies/Lusófona- Portugal.

Round 2 (15h to 16h)

Teaching Kids Unplugged: Engaging Activities for a Low-tech Class

There is an understandable industry frenzy on gadget-based lessons nowadays since technology presents itself as a strong mediator for communication in our present-day society. However, the number of teachers who need (or wish) to rely on low-tech lessons is still vast. This workshop will present ideas for engaging and mind-provoking low-tech activities for kids, which can be used either in English schools or regular schools, as well as examine what lies at their foundation in order to empower teachers to create their own new materials.

Raisa Claro is a former Inglês Sem Fronteiras (IsF) UFPB teacher currently teaching at TEC – Centro de Cultura e Língua Inglesa (Itambé-PE), an English school which she co-founded in 2017. She graduated with honors from the Federal University of Paraíba in 2014 with a degree in English and is currently a Master’s student in the same institution, researching second language acquisition.

Professional Development for Local English Teachers: Self-Directed Teacher Portfolios

A relatively new and unexplored phenomenon within the Non-Native English Speaking Teacher (NNEST) community is that of the Local English Teacher (LET) Condition. Broadly speaking, the LET Condition suggests that teachers who are working in their own communities and who share a cultural and linguistic background with their students face unique challenges. While LETs should be considered a subset of the broader NNEST community, there are clear differences between, for example, a Brazilian English teacher working in Brasilia and the same teacher working in New York. This workshop will explore this phenomenon with the goal of providing a framework for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) that is flexible enough to be modiﬁed to a variety of teaching contexts, but that also meets the unique needs of LETs as they perceive them. This proposed CPD framework will take the form of Teacher Portfolios that contain a variety of self-directed and prescribed activities designed to foster learning communities, professional reflection, pedagogical confidence and independent learning.

John Mark King is a Regional English Language Officer at the U.S. Department of State, where he currently serves as the Digital Programs and Materials Branch Chief in the Office of English Language Programs. He earned an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from American University in 2003 after serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan. He was an English Language Fellow in Turkmenistan (2006-2007) and Russia (2009-2011) and also taught English in Bangladesh in 2006. Before joining the Foreign Service, he was the director of the English Language Institute at the American University of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar. His areas of interest include non-native English speaking teachers, English for academic purposes and intercultural communication.

Adventure in Englishland: using gamification to enhance learning

Games are powerful! Our students can easily spend hours in front of the screen playing their favorite games and you may wonder: why do they spend so much time doing the same activity? The reason is simple: games are fun, motivating, challenging, instigating and surprising. Can English classes be as powerful as games? We believe so. Games can teach us a lot and can provide many tools to use with our students in the classroom. Therefore, in this workshop, you will be able to learn a little bit about gamification and how we can use game-based mechanics to teach English, especially with large groups.

This workshop will also be presented by Sérgio Ifa and Alex Santos.

“Hello, kids! Let’s start our English Class?” – developing multiliteracies in provocative activities with children from regular schools

In this workshop we want to discuss possibilities of working with activities that can be used in classes with children which go beyond the practice of the four skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing). Nowadays we live in a world where languages are multimodal, interactive, collaborative. How can we ignore these facts in classroom contexts? The idea here is to discuss the development of multiliteracies in the contact with children from the first grades of regular schools (Ensino Fundamental I), making a reflection upon their reality context possible through the language.

Christiane Agra is an English Language and Linguistics professor at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Alagoas (IFAL – Campus Maceió). She holds a Master’s degree in Linguistics from the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL/PPGLL) and is currently studying at the doctoral programme of Linguistics at the same university. Her main areas of research interest are teacher education and teaching English to children.

Fabrício Cavalcante is an English Language teacher and the Coordinator of the department of English language at Colégio Contato Maceió in Maceió - Alagoas. At moment, he is studying for his master's degree in Applied Linguistics from the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL/PPGLL). His main areas of research interest are teacher education, neoliberalism and Critical Literacy.

A new teaching perspective: Teaching English to deaf students in Brazilian Sign Language, with the aid of Visual Resources

In a world where English has become the language of international communication, the need for people to learn it has grown immensely, especially with the rise of the Internet, which has brought people from all over the world closer together. People from all backgrounds are interested in learning the language, whether it is for business or simply to communicate with people from different cultures. Regarding this universal interest to learn English, the deaf community has also shown interest in learning English. In an attempt to provide them the opportunity to learn this language, which has been clearly denied during their years of primary and secondary school, we set up a course entitled Literacy for the Deaf Through Textual Everyday Genres in English. This workshop will focus on the methodologies used to teach this audience considering their keen visual skills and impaired hearing. We will also explain the reasons why we chose to work with visual resources, as well as the choice of working with only two skills, writing and reading, as opposed to the usual four. The participants of this workshop will learn the basics of developing visual resources to help deaf people learn, as well as listen to the experience of a teacher who has taught deaf students in Brazilian sign language.

Edneia Alves graduated from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) in English and Portuguese language teaching (2002). She holds a PhD in social psychology focused on Deaf Education. Currently she is a Brazilian Sign Language professor at the Department of Classical and Vernacular Languages and coordinates the following projects: Production of Visual Teaching Resources for Deaf Students, Deaf Literacy Through Textual Everyday Genres and The Production of Meaning in Teaching Resources for Teaching Portuguese to the Deaf.

Cleiton Willian da Conceição is an undergraduate student at the Department of Foreign Languages at Universidade Federal da Paraíba. He is currently a member of the Institutional project PIBID (Scholarship program of initiation to teaching/UFPB Letras-Inglês/CAPES), as well as, a volunteer member of Production of Visual Teaching Resources for Deaf Students (extension project). He is also part of the research group Agir de Linguagem, Docência e Educação Inclusiva (ALDEI/CNPq/UFPB). His research interests in ELT lie in language teaching, multiliteracies, teaching English to students with disabilities, teaching English to deaf students, Brazilian sign language and bilingualism.

Creating a Sense of Class Community which Accommodates Everyone

Creating a strong sense of class community is paramount when dealing with heterogeneous groups with heterogeneous needs. Find in this presentation real and practical tips on how to strengthen bonds, creating a safe, fun and participatory learning environment which accommodates diversity , fosters ownership, understanding and reduces anxiety (with and without technology).

Originally from Goiânia but currently living and working in Natal, Pedro Ribeiro holds a CELTA and postgrad studies in ELT. With background in Social Communication and Contemporary Art, Pedro has been teaching for over 12 years and taught in several countries to both privileged and underprivileged teenagers. His research aims to identify what makes lessons at the same time effective and enjoyable! He is currently teaching at Cultura Inglesa e takes part in the BRAZTESOL-RN Chapter Board.

Yes, we can! We can be seen for our true colours!

Every day, citizens with some sort of impairment strive to be recognized for who they are and what they can do. Our daily battles to make our way in society are overwhelming, as well as our effort to make others believe in our YES, WE CAN! Relying on the principles of a pedagogy of multiliteracies (COPE & KALANTZIS, 2000), we intend to share a series of multimodal and ludic activities representing the worlds of work, citizenship and personal lives of mothers, teachers and students with disabilities that can be used in a language lesson to develop linguistic skills and, most importantly, to help learners from various educational contexts to respect differences and become better citizens.

Keonara Torquato is a Letras student at Universidade Federal da Paraíba and is an EFOPLI member (University Extension Project). She started studying English at the age of 13 at Cultura Inglesa. She likes Linguistics and Literature.

Jonathan Ferreira is a student at the Department of English Language and Literature at Universidade Federal da Paraíba. He is a CELTA-certified teacher, Cambridge speaking examiner and works mainly with children and adolescents. His research interests in ELT lie on Language and Literacy Education and Multimodality. He is part of the Visual Semiotics and Multimodality Research Group (GPSM) and is an EFOPLI (UFPB) collaborator.

Literature or language? That’s the question

Some teachers of regular schools may think: “why using literature in the classroom, I have to teach language”. Still others may think: “what’s the use of bringing literary texts to the classroom, if my students cannot read them”. This workshop aims to discuss possibilities of introducing literature to regular school students through activities that may promote language learning, cultural awareness and motivation.

Lucia Fatima Fernandes Nobre is a professor at the Department of Modern Foreign Languages at Universidade Federal da Paraíba. She holds a PhD (2013) in Comparative Literature. She has been teaching English literature over the past twenty years. Areas of interest: literature, cinema, English language teaching.

Students with visual impairments in my classroom: challenges and ideas

The overall aim of this workshop is to discuss teaching English to students with visual impairments, by focusing on teaching challenges and ideas. Therefore, this workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to reflect about the process of teaching English to blind and low-vision students, as well as offer suggestions and ideas to build teachers’ confidence.

Rosycléa Dantas is an English teacher at Instituto dos Cegos da Paraíba. She holds a degree in Modern Languages – English, Universidade Federal da Paraíba (2010) and a Masters Degree in Applied Linguistics also from Universidade Federal da Paraíba (2014). She is a PhD student and member of Grupo de Pesquisa Agir de Linguagem, Docência e Educação Inclusiva (ALDEI/CNPq/UFPB) and Grupo de Estudos em Letramentos, Interação e Trabalho (GELIT/CNPq/UFPB). Her research interests involve Applied Linguistics, Sociodiscursive Interactionism, Inclusive Education, teacher Education and Foreign Language Teaching to people with disabilities.