Teachers are looking for ways to bring creativity and creative problem solving into the classroom. Employers today are seeking creative people. Adobe’s creativity tools are the gold standard for creative professionals across the globe. Adobe Spark Page, Spark Video, and Spark Post are powerful, user-friendly tools that can be used by students in their academic journey, moving them from content consumption to content creation, giving them voice.

In this session, participants will be introduced to the three features of Adobe Spark - graphic design with Spark Post, web content with Spark Page, and video production with Spark Video. While this is a demonstration session, participants will be encouraged to share ideas using these tools. (note: to create, participants should create an Adobe Spark account, free for educators and students: https://spark.adobe.com/sp/)

What happens when a teacher poses a great question to a group of students who have internet access, and then walks away? Can formal learning happen in the absence of teachers? In this talk, Mike Lyons will discuss his experiences with self organized learning environments (SOLEs), how to form a "Big Question", and how teachers in Japan can use SOLEs in their classrooms.

On March 29, 2020, OTJ (Online Teaching Japan) began in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. In a few short months, the group grew to over 1,000 extremely active members. Now nearly 3,000 strong and still very active, founder and administrator David Juteau will walk you through the process, decisions and management approach that makes OTJ one of the most successful teacher support groups in Japan.

This presentation will look at the newly developed Gamerize Dictionary, a gamified learner dictionary that can be used as a digital component for any language learning course. Main features included voice recognition developed specifically for young language learners, a carefully graded learner dictionary containing pictures, real voice audio, example sentences and translations, AI generated review sessions, school portal with analytics tools and many more. Find out how you can super charge your learners progress with The Gamerize Dictionary.

Organizing your teaching materials or any other data can be a handful. In this presentation, we will discuss strategies to migrate and manage your files on a cloud service. We will cover the different providers, folder structure, file naming, searching capabilities, and converting document processes to those experienced and to the uninitiated. The presenter will use his own file system (content, research, paperwork) to demonstrate.

Many students are familiar with the immersive nature of online and real escape room games. The presenter, a 2021 ELTon awards finalist, has created a course which attempts to bring the atmosphere of an escape room to her classes, both face-to-face and remote. This presentation will offer an overview of escape rooms and how puzzle-based learning can motivate students as they compete, cooperate and communicate in English class.

Target Audience: General English, Higher Education, Remote Teaching. Language of the Presentation: English

Book Creator is a free, open-ended digital creation tool that allows students and teachers to create and publish digital books. This user-friendly and intuitive tool lets you make interactive pages with voice, text, video, images, maps, and more. Students of all ages will find this tool easy to use whether with a browser, iPad or tablet. Teachers can create libraries for students, and students can work collaboratively. This versatile platform can be used to create books, comics, reports, portfolios, journals, step-by-step guides - your imagination is the only limit. Teachers can be creators of their own original content to share with the world. We will also discuss connections to curriculum goals and school initiatives. Premium features of Book Creator will also be highlighted. Worldwide, 1.5 million books are created each month. Participants will be entered into a draw for one of two 1-year premium accounts. (full access to all features, including student collaboration) View a sample book here: https://read.bookcreator.com/mW6vCCuzqJVWsitLF7VZsNnLwI62/3GnhxvucQbyZstxIQvrhig

Those who pre-register will receive access to a digital book to work on collaboratively during the session. For those interested, a short breakout session will be held to explain how you can grow your professional learning network by becoming a Book Creator Certified Author.

In this presentation, we look at an alpha version of the Happy Valley Digital materials. These encompass automated video, audio, games for lessons, and self-study, with AI-supported games.

The presenter will run through a mock-up of a lesson from the teacher's point of view, and ask for feedback and suggestions on how to implement for the benefit of students, parents, teachers and schools.

Language of the presentation: English.

Audience aimed at: Kindergarten teachers, school owners, digital creators.

Whether you are currently looking for a job or ready to jump ship, don't miss this seminar. Find out if you are making a number of crucial mistakes, learn how to make a great impression with hiring managers, and see why some qualified job applicants get rejected so you can get a better job now.

University studies have compared WordEngine’s patented vocabulary centered approach to other study methods. In every case, equal time on WordEngine significantly outperformed the other methods in controlled pre and post testing with standard proficiency tests such as TOEFL and TOEIC. This presentation will explain how WordEngine works and why test scores go up faster than other self study methods. WordEngine is premium software for professional teachers seeking a faster and better way to help their students improve their English proficiency. WordEngine costs about $25 per year and it comes with 24/7 teacher and student support.

This presentation will show how the spiral syllabus designed into all e-future course materials, helps students learn through, linking, reviewing, and expansion. Additionally, the proven EFL focused phonics system included in five separate phonics courses will be explained.

e-future is a progressive publisher of EFL materials based in Korea with global reach. e-future provides a suite of course materials from pre-school, up through elementary and high school, all of which are comprised of a systematic curriculum that supports teachers and EFL learners. e-future provides extensive teacher and curriculum support and all core materials have comprehensive and easy to use digital support.

In this presentation, we look at the beta release of the bokoco library- a Digital Library for Young Learners. This has graded readers for VYL and YL, K to 6, audio, with SRS games to be added. Words are highlighted in the text as audio plays, so very young learners can read unaided; words read are tracked and soon-to-be-added software maps read words and phrases against target word lists and grammar, such as NDL, NGSL, Cambridge English YLE, CEFR, Eiken, others.

The presenter will demonstrate the library, propose that walled gardens are a bad idea, and ask for feedback and suggestions on how to implement for the benefit of students, parents, teachers and schools.

Language of the presentation: English.

Audience aimed at: K to 6 teachers, school owners, digital creators.

Vocabulary Words & Monsters is a free mobile game that helps students ages 9 to 90 improve their English ability and score higher on major tests such as TOEFL, IELTS, TOEIC, EIKEN, and Japan's Kyotsu Shiken. Words & Monsters provides each player with personalized word tasks that are managed by a spaced repetition system to ensure long-term memory retention. There is a free LMS progress monitor for teachers. You can assign goals and easily track study progress. We will talk with some teachers and students who are using Words & Monsters. Let's hear from them in their own words. Visit the free.wordsandmonsters.com webpage to download Words & Monsters, and please join this presentation to learn more about the game.

COVID-19 has been an accelerator of many things. Forcing teachers and booksellers online who maybe wouldn't have otherwise. This acceleration has touched almost every aspect of life. Businesses closing buildings and remote work is actively affecting the global and local property markets. There are losers and winners in every natural crisis. What does the return to new normal mean for the ELT content business in Japan? This session is designed to introduce and address some questions and issues in play now and attempts to help teachers, authors publishers and school owners and managers prepare to avoid pitfalls and make strong decisions as the ELT content industry emerges from the current pandemic environment.

This session will be a discussion-based workshop and will not promote any products despite the fact it is presented by a sponsor

Doris is back with her popular presentation on natural speaking for very young learners (VYL). The presenter will cover a few easy steps for how to scaffold lessons so that VYL can use some of the same sophisticated language that native speaking kindergarten children use daily in a fun and easy way.

Since the military coup on the 1st of February in Myanmar, ISMSP (International Society of Myanmar Scholars and Professionals) have been working hard to raise funds to provide assistance to the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) workers and spearheading remote health care projects. Even before the coup, schools were shut down and the economy was already suffering due to COVID-19 but since the coup all learning have stopped, futures have been put on hold for the youth across Myanmar and international businesses have moved out of the country. With my presentation I would like raise awareness on what’s happening in Myanmar, why it matters, the projects run by ISMSP, and ways for the international community to support the people of Myanmar.

The presenter will not appear on video and the presentation will not be recorded. Thanks for understanding.

Sharing my personal experience as someone who has worked in business development and upper management and successfully expanded two major school chains (one with 50 locations and one with 13 locations). I will share information on the market trends in the language teaching industry and how to successfully improve the business under unusual circumstances.

I'd like to help you grow your school and effectively leverage your advantage against your competitors.

This presentation will focus on the use of various collaborative storytelling activities to help develop the interactional competence of very young learners (ages 5 to 7 years old). The social co-construction of narratives in such contexts can lead to classroom experiences that are communicatively authentic, thematically supportive, and fun! I will share exemplary video data and offer my own insights into the potential value of these activities through analysis of excerpts from said data.

Workplace English, Career English, or Business English. No matter the name, the communicative content is the same and most General English professionals are ill-prepared to take on this new challenge. This aspect of English teaching requires additional skills that, although attainable, are seldom taught in traditional EFL/ELT training. This talk will demystify the differences, offer guidance to obtaining training and help professionals onboard to the world of business English communications.

Discussion Topics for School Owners.

Curriculum and attracting new students will not be covered.

Special guest Masaki Homma.

EFL Magazine was founded in 2015, and since that time has published over 700 articles from hundreds of teachers, managers, recruitment professionals and school owners across the globe. Our aim from the outset was to bring excellent, free content to teachers and school owners/managers, and we’ve achieved those aims to some extent, having over 40,000 readers visit the website each month.

Recently, we held the first EFL Magazine TOEFL® Summit for Teachers and School Owner/Managers. We also have an ongoing podcast called The EFL Magazine Business Podcast, in which Philip Pound interviews entrepreneurs in ELT.

The talk will introduce the magazine, where we’ve come from, give you a sneak preview of what we have planned over the next few months and show you how you can get involved.

The presentation aims to in one hand share my personal experience as a teacher in managing my classes and in an other hand open a discussion between the participants to share some effective methods that they are using in their classes.