Food Revolution Day 2015

When I read about Jamie Oliver's campain to put compulsory practical food education on the school curriculum (Read more at http://www.foodrevolutionday.com/campaign/#10iM1DV3ojtd6xj2.99), I did not hesitate a second to sign his campaign and hurried to see what ideas and materials he offers on the project page, for schools to get involved.
My 12 year old students were not sure they would like Jamie's "Squash it sandwich" better than their usual sandwiches they eat at school, but they agreed to learn more about the ingredients and give it a try.
So, we learned all the vocabulary to understand the ingredients, the equipment we need and the procedures to prepare Jamie's healthy sandwich. For homework, students had to learn to spell the words and bring some of the fresh ingredients we needed.

We put two desks together, covered them with a nice clean tablecloth, arranged all the equipment, watched the video with Jamie preparing the sandwich and then tried to do the same. 

Some of the students were not convinced when we started that they would eat the sandwich. We even had an alternative: a group of girls prepared a fresh fruit salad for the dessert.

 

 The sandwich was a success and the comments varied from "Delicious! " and "Yummy!" to "Better than expected!" and "Not bad!" from a few students. The good thing is they all ate the sandwiches.

We learned a lot of about healthy and unhealthy food, in a fun way.

HUPE Conference 2015

23rd Annual HUPE Conference was a perfect event for all teachers lucky to be in Solaris Beach Resort, Šibenik, Croatia,for the weekend 24-26 April 2015.
The venue was beautiful, everything was perfectly organized. There were more than 60 talks and workshops given by local and international speakers, six plenary speakers. More than 400 teachers participated in this ELT event. In the breaks teachers could visit the exhibitors and meet old and new friends.
HUPE Conference was a great weekend of professional development and fun.

This is the presentation that accompanied my talk at the the conference.


 

Here are some photos of the place and the people I had the privilege of meeting during the conference this year.

Joy Egbert’s Engagement Principles

Sunday’ plenary was exactly what teachers in a lot of contexts need nowadays – a beautifully put reminder that technology is not the magic wand that the teacher uses to ensure students are learning. Instead of the technocentric approach, Joy Egbert proposes five principles of task engagement, careful studying of one’s students, their strengths and weaknesses, and the technology that is available and will best engage the students as well as improve the learning process.

(slides from Joy Egbert's presentation)

Technology can never be central in the process, teachers must be aware of their central position. The role of the teacher is as important as before the time of technology if not even more important when technology is involved in the learning process. I couldn’t agree more.

 

IATEFL Online



The Annual International IATEFL Conference & Exhibition is in full swing but I am one of a large number of teachers who did not get the chance to travel to Manchester. I have been too busy since its start on Friday and I have not seen any of the sessions yet.
Luckily, there is IATEFL Online to save the day today and even it is early in the morning now and the conference programme for today starts only in a few hours, I am fully participating in the confrerence - IATEFL Online is the right place not only to watch the recordings and  catch up with the events I missed but to choose an interview with a person important in the world of ELT and watch it any time I want, read a post of one of the roving reporters, or to plan my participation in the conference for today.
IATEFL Online seems organized in the same way the online editions of the conference was last year and the year before when I was one of the roving reporters (happy memories of Liverpool!).
To get the full picture of all the events at the conference, the best thing is to join the conference on Facebook and Twitter, too. It can be done from the IATEFL Online page. Done!
Now, I can check what I have missed. A cup of coffee is in the hand. Hello, conference!