ELC Staff Development Activities Day

The joint effort of the ELC Research and Consultancy Committee and Professional Development Committee of Ibri College of Technology had many rich takeaways for its staff on 28.6.2018. They had a unique way of encouraging teachers to share their expertise that enhanced the quality of learning and teaching in various ways. The series of workshops which were conducted in room no 2032 had lot to offer and each one was rich in itself. The first session was by Ms Desiraja Nagaraja Kumari who shared an interesting classroom activity titled “Backs to Board.” The second session was by Mr Mohammed Amir on use of Authentic teaching materials in ELT classroom.

The first workshop was on Teaching Tips. It is a novel platform introduced by the PDC for the teachers to share their best teaching practices to generate interest in students and motivate them to learn more. Ms Desiraju Nagaraja Kumari demonstrated an activity titled “Backs to Board.” It was highly interactive and involved the participants in creative way. It was fun to watch the participants to guess every word of the sentence written on the board. The audience was not allowed to prompt the participants through gestures. They were instructed to come up with equivalents of the words written on the board through synonyms, grammatical structures in English. The activity stimulated thinking minds. It was a rich takeaway and was interesting enough to carry it to the classrooms.

The second workshop titled “Using Real Life Authentic Materials in ELT” and the last activity of the day was conducted by Mr Mohammed Amir Abbas. He opined that textbooks are generally believed to be the most useful material in ELT classes, but ‘realia’ in EFL classes generates interest among students and encourages them to know more and learn more. He introduced creative ways of using newspapers as authentic materials to teach reading, writing, speaking and grammar. He also made an interesting statement that a language thrives in society and dies in society but not in a classroom.  

Dr Sultan Al Ghafri, the head of English Language Centre encouraged the participants and applauded the efforts of committees.  Ms Mariette Oberholzer awarded certificates to the presenters.