Teachers listening to a speaker at Qatar Tesol conference yesterday.
DOHA: More than 250 English teachers attended the opening day of Qatar Tesol 2013 conference yesterday at the Academic Bridge Programme (ABP) at LAS Building in Education City.
With the theme ‘21st Century Education – What’s Changing? What’s Not?’ Qatar Tesol’s ninth international conference has been extended to two full days.
Dr Deborah Healey, a teacher trainer at the University of Oregon and the Chair of Tesol’s Technology Standards Task Force, spoke on a plenary entitled Gamification: A Way to Hook Digital Natives. She discussed the concept of “gamification” — using game elements to motivate and persuade and how it is moving from marketing to teaching. While games have long been part of a language teacher’s bag of tricks, according to Dr Healey, teachers can benefit from learning about the elements of games and how they help to appeal to today’s learners.
Today, Dr Abdulmajid Bouziane, an associate professor at Hassan II Mohammed, Casablanca University, Morocco, will speak on teacher training in ICT in English Language Teaching and the Literacy – Efficiency – Appropriation – Proficiency (LEAP) Approach in his plenary entitled 21st Century Technology.
The participants will have the chance to win some great door prizes after Dr Bouziane’s plenary. The winner of the grand prize will get a weekend stay for two at the Inter-Continental Doha The City hotel. Other prizes include a voucher for two for the Inter-Continental Doha The City hotel’s Health Club, pairs of lunch and dinner vouchers for two at the hotel’s Square Restaurant, dinner vouchers for two at the Al Dana Club, a flight simulator session at the Qatar Aeronautical College as well as pairs of tickets for any Doha Players production.
The conference is supported by the ABP, Qatar University, Georgetown School of Foreign Service Qatar, the US Department of State’s Regional Language Office, ExxonMobil, Avant Assessment and Rayyan Water.
Qatar Tesol is a professional, voluntary, non-profit organisation which focuses on teachers who teach non-native speakers of English through the English language. Qatar Tesol serves English language teachers of all levels as well as those teaching other subjects through English such as mathematics, science and computer skills.
The Peninsula
