#APACautumn sessions were dedicated to CLIL, STEAM and Gamification
Professional development events organised by teachers are usually very good. I have been collaborating with the APAC for several years now and the team behind it is supreme. If you somehow teach anything related to English in Catalunya or even Spain, you should follow them and book their events. This last Saturday was a 10 hour long (yes, I thought what you are now), sequence of talks, workshops and moments to chill and chat with other teachers. I was there for the first 5 hours and got a nice list of ideas and “to do” projects. I also gave a workshop about applying Game Based Learning strategies to help kids remeber vocabulary and expressions and improve their learning experience. Audio included.
Gamification in education is not only about transforming learning into a game but about improving the teacher-student relationship. Learning a language doesn’t usually provide immediate feedback; results only appear after strong efforts, which can generate frustration. In contrast to this, our learners are spending an increasing amount of hours playing on digital devices and don’t seem to struggle much. What can we take from games to improve their learning experience at schools? This active presentation will introduce the power of play as an emotional motivator in education. It will also provide different, easy-to-apply, low-cost gamification strategies. These are real examples that have been developed over several years at Escola Pia in Calella, mostly with kids aged 9 to 12. And yes, just in case you were wondering, you’ll be invited to play, too!
I had this talk in mind since last year’s APAC ELT Convention. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it then, so I applied again this year. I had a good experience from the talk I gave in the 2014 edition. I must admit I knew hardly anything from the Convention then, but the huge number of participants and talks amazed me.
