An excellent conference at International House London on Saturday, as Business EnglishUKorganised their trainers’ day. The weather was appalling, which made being at the conference even more attractive! The opening plenary by Evan Frendo dealt with specificity and the complexities of teaching ESP (including the reluctance of many teaching organisations – for a variety of reasons – to carry out thorough needs analysis for clients and individuals).
My own session, a Tale of Two Platforms, discussed choosing an appropriate LMS – so it also centred on needs analysis – but in this case the importance of deciding what your priorities were, whether an LMS was really suitable for your institution and if so how to prepare for making the choice. We offer consultancy and advice in doing just that, so if you’re thinking about an LMS get in touch!
Immediately afterwards Cleve Miller spoke on Three Principles for Blended Learning, which referenced his own outstanding LMS, English360
The day was rounded off by a great presentation from Ian MacMaster on the importance of teaching general communication skills in BE. For the coffee and lunch breaks there was the usual publishers exhibition. I was very interested to see the latest development at Macmillan English Campus, the new Culture World plug in.
If you weren’t lucky enough to be there, full details of what you missed can be found in the programme here. Many thanks to Huan Japes, Tom Weatherley, Sarah Wang and the other EnglishUK team members for organising such a useful and interesting event.
Byron