Seminars and workshops for Teachers
Schools can choose from several Cambridge Seminars as well as specific workshops
aimed at helping teachers in various areas of ELT.
Each seminar/workshop lasts approximately 2 hours and costs Euro 130.00 for a group
of no more than 20 participants.
Titles of Cambridge Seminars:
Cambridge ESOL
Introduction Seminar
KET/PET Introduction
KET Reading and Writing
KET Listening and Speaking
FCE Introduction Seminar
FCE Reading
FCE Writing
FCE Use of English
FCE Listening
FCE Speaking
PET Reading and Writing
PET Listening and Speaking
CAE Introduction Seminar
CAE Reading and Writing
CAE English in Use
CAE Listening
CAE Speaking
CPE Introduction Seminar
CPE Reading
CPE Writing and Speaking
Other Seminars and workshops:
Multimedia resources in the classroom
The workshop will look at ways of using a wide array of multimedia resources (e.g.
pictures, music, internet web sites, internet forums), as well as developing
computer-based lessons to be accessed independently by students.
Conversations with a purpose
Doing pair work in the classroom is often not very ‘natural’ for students. This
workshop presents dialogues, debates, role-plays etc. that can help students
overcome the ‘artificial’ circumstances of classroom L2 conversations.
Shakespeare Goes Global
A seminar that looks at the ways to make Shakespeare relevant and accessible to
young, non-native English speaking students. Areas to focus on would be:
 modern film interpretations of Shakespeare such as di Caprio’s Romeo and Juliet
and Mel Gibson’s Hamlet
 how Shakespeare shaped modern English language with new coinages
 looking at Shakespeare’s grammar, including how much more flexible it is than
the modern equivalent and how some structures are strikingly similar to their
equivalents in Italian (also true of vocabulary).
 how Shakespearean themes are highly relevant in the modern world – e.g. the
futility of war (Troilus and Cressida), the fragility of the human condition (As
You Like It, Hamlet)
The seminar explores methods for engaging students for all of the above points
Phrasal Verb Challenge
Phrasal verbs – every student’s (and teacher’s!) nightmare. Course books don’t
always help – often they only give lists to learn and written exercises. This
seminar looks at simple, stimulating ways to engage students and get them using
phrasal verbs.
Lost Grammar Points
There are a number of grammar points which course books and resource books seem to
steer clear of when it comes to providing materials for practice. So there are
countless activities for the major tenses such as present perfect, but very few for
points such as articles or prepositions. And yet those points are quite often
exactly the ones that students have recurring difficulties with.
This seminar looks at activities which address these areas and enable students to
practise in a controlled but productive way.
Grammar Liberation
Following on from Number 3 above, this seminar would look at the pros and cons of
grammar presented in rigidly expressed rules – e.g. those traditionally employed
for conditionals. By showing students more of the mechanisms at work behind the
structures we teach, we enable students to think for themselves and find the
reasons for some of the ‘rules’ which they otherwise merely learn by rote.
Coursebooks: Backbone or drawback?
A look at the advantages and disadvantages of using a course book as the foundation
of a course, and focusing on ways to eliminate or overcome some of the
disadvantages.
Implementing the Lexical Approach
A lot has been said and written about the Lexical Approach, but actually trying to
follow its principles in the classroom, particularly in a group with a shared L1,
is not always easy. In this seminar, we look at the methodology needed to get
students thinking more and more in ‘chunks’ of language, and therefore speaking
more fluently and accurately.
Gotta speak English proper!
Dealing with the thorny issue of pronunciation – what is ‘correct’ pronunciation?
What pronunciation should we teach students? How much and how often should we
‘correct bad pronunciation’? And what should we correct? There are two issues to
examine:
a. the plethora of accents and dialects in English, and the acceptance in the
last 3 decades of these varieties as all (more or less) valid
b. the spread of English as a medium of communication between non-native
speakers of different nationalities and the implications this has for the
parameters of acceptable pronunciation.
Upon request the centre can organize seminars or workshops on contemporary cultural
topics on American or British Society.