Submit your proposal to present at APAC’s 2024 ELT Convention:
Times are a-changin’ - and we are too!
Join APAC’s 2024 ELT Convention, and be a catalyst for change!
Deadline for proposals is 3rd December 2023.
Psst! Bear in mind that you can score points for future oposicions both by attending the convention and presenting at it. And, above all, you’ll be participating in a great community of teachers!
The teaching of English in Catalonia is facing (again!) a number of changes and teachers of English are expected to change with them! As we were all coming to grips with the new curricula, now the new Spanish education law, LOMLOE (2022) has ushered even more changes to the curriculum, reducing the number of teaching hours for specific subjects, focused on language learning and the development of technological skills, and also modified the grading scale. School teachers are no longer writing didactic units but ‘situations for learning’ and project-based learning is the new normal in many schools. This means that many English teachers have to navigate these changes too!
In addition, the extension of the Common European Framework of Languages focus on ‘mediation’ (CEFR Companion Volume, 2018) means that in addition to the “4 skills” of reading, writing, speaking and listening language teachers need to rethink planning, learning and assessment spaces where learners can intentionally work with more than one language in any given activity. This opens up new spaces for English teachers to rethink the role of English and the role of English teachers in this scenario as well as what their contribution to developing children’s plurilingual and intercultural competences might be.
Finally, support for the diversity and inclusion of children regardless of religion, gender, colour or sexual orientation is now making headway. While Inclusion and diversity initiatives in education have long been a focus by policymakers, schools and teachers only more recently have education laws supported many of these protected characteristics such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UNSDG, 2019) which supports international human rights standards and which puts equality and non-discrimination at the centre of its efforts. Teachers, including teachers of English, can be at the forefront of the efforts that contribute towards a more inclusive and just world.
THEMES
APAC welcomes proposals for methodological and theoretical presentations, posters, workshops and symposia that can contribute to the theme of adapting to changing times in order to highlight the challenges faced by teachers, learners and institutions as well as the advances that are being made in different educational contexts, including issues such as:
-Promoting inclusion and diversity through methodologies and/or theoretical underpinnings
-Teaching materials, experiences or strategies that support inclusion and diversity
-Examples of learning situations in and beyond the classroom for students of all levels and ages and how any challenges were overcome
-Topics to discuss as part of teacher education for pre-service and in-service foreign language teachers such as working in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms and carrying out inclusive teaching and learning practices
-Projects carried out in your teaching context, including those supporting an aspect of inclusion and diversity and/or mediation activities and skills that involve more than one language in the classroom and/or innovative responses to new curriculum changes in Spanish education law
FORMATS AVAILABLE
Contributions can be made in one of the following formats, both online and face-to-face:
-methodological presentations of 45 minutes + time for questions
-theoretical presentations of 45 minutes + time for questions
-workshops of 45 minutes + time for questions
-poster presentations / symposia of 20 minutes
-short presentations online or cAPACsules, 20-minute long videos to present teaching ideas or materials, research outcomes, experiences or methodological presentations.
Submit your proposal before 3rd December 2023, and keep the community evolving and advancing!
