Friday, 1:50 pm-2:35 pm (virtual presentation)
Developing Professional Communicative Competence with Wordwall
Presenters will concentrate on expanding English vocabulary through the use of software programs such as Wordwall. Softwares like Wordwall helps EFL learners build memory techniques, enhance creativity, and reduce anxiety. The educators will share their expertise by developing a number of interactive vocabulary-based exercises on Word wall and other such kind of educational software.
Durdona Pulatova, Tomsk State Pedagogical University, Russian Federation
Dr. Durdona Pulatova has been teaching as an EMI, ESP and EFL facilitator with certified CELTA certificate. She has done her research work in pedagogical aspects of Corpus based activities and created Corpora for ESP students.
Friday, 1:50 pm-2:35 pm (virtual presentation)
Using Etymology as a Deliberate Vocabulary Learning Approach: A Psycholinguistic Analysis
Whilst formal classrooms are inadequate to teach the needed amount of vocabulary due to time constraints, language learners are encouraged to take the vocabulary learning process outside the classroom domain. Additionally, vocabulary learning has always been accompanied by the problem of retention. Therefore, the etymological approach not only helps learners’ retention, but also equips English language learners with a decoding tool in which unknown words can be deciphered and interpreted from their building blocks.
Abdullatif Alshatti, Australian College, Kuwait
Abdullatif Alshatti is a published researcher with a 9-year teaching experience in secondary and higher education. He has obtained his Bachelor of English Education from Gulf University for Science and Technology, and his Master’s degree in TESOL & Applied Linguistics from Manchester Metropolitan University with distinction. His main areas of interest include second language motivation, identity investment, learner engagement, and language policy.
Friday, 1:50 pm-2:35 pm (virtual presentation)
Strategies for Teaching Writing to Arab Learners in an ESL/EFL Context
The presentation will discuss how educators can teach the four basic types of academic writing, such as descriptive, analytical, persuasive, and critical writing to Arab learners. It will also highlight the importance of explicit and implicit rule teaching, integrating grammar in writing tasks, as well as giving corrective feedback.
Ghada Alabdulaly, Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait
Ghada AlAbdulaly, M.A. in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), University of Essex, United Kingdom. AlAbdulaly, is a bilingual English Foundation instructor at Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait. She has 12 years of teaching experience and is versed in Arabic-English translation, including competent service in the Ministry of Higher Education, Kuwait. AlAbdulaly enjoys culturally diverse and internationally oriented learning environments, putting in useful play her teaching skills and conversance with information technology.
Friday, 3:45 pm-4:30 pm (virtual presentation)
Writing Practices Post Covid-19: Exploring Third Grade English Teachers’ Perceptions
This qualitative study explored third grade English language teachers’ perceptions on writing practices and challenges prior, during, and post COVID-19 in the UAE. The findings showed that post-Covid writing challenges have significantly increased. Pedagogical and remedial implications have been taken to bridge the gap between virtual and face-to-face writing instructions.
Eman Y. Mahmoud, United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Safeya Alkatheeri, United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Eman Mahmoud is a PhD student, Language and Literacy Education at UAEU. She has BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Jordan and MA in English Curriculum and Instruction from UAEU. She has 14 years English language teaching experience. Her research interests include language assessment and social-emotional learning.
Safeya Alkatheeri is a PhD student, Language and Literacy Education at UAEU. She has BA in English Education and MA in English Curriculum and Instruction from UAEU. Safeya has 7 years teaching experience and currently functions as an academic vice principal in a cycle-1 school in the UAE.
Friday, 3:45 pm-4:30 pm (virtual presentation)
Language Teaching as a Reflective Practice
Language teachers need to continue their professional development. Language teachers' reflection helps to develop teaching and learning. Language teachers should be open to and responsible for reform. Teacher reflection should be deliberate, purposeful and structured. The reflective cycle consists of five steps; mapping, informing, contesting, appraising and acting.
Samir Omara, Shebin El-Kom IDGL School, Egypt
Samir Omara has been an English language teacher and teacher trainer for the Ministry of Education and Technical Education in Egypt since 1998. He presented at ILACE, IPAWL, TESOL and BETT. He wrote articles for NileTESOL, Hawaii TESOL, Texas ELT, New York State TESOL, APPI, ELTA Serbia, TESL Ontario, Africa ELTA and TESOL. He got the UK Alumni Professional Achievement and TESOL Leadership Mentoring Program awards. He was Head of Professional Development for Teachers First Egypt and NileTESOL President.
Friday, 3:45 pm-4:30 pm (virtual presentation)
Enhancing Language Teaching to Millennials
In this presentation we'll look at the difficulties teachers face when working with modern students and ways of overcoming them. In this presentation the material will be organized in a metacognitive scheme, and partcicipants will go through the stages of learning to understand the effective ways of teaching post-millenials.
Maryna Tsehelska, Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, Ukraine
Maryna Tsehelska is a director of Educational Centre “Interclass” and Associate Professor at Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University. Her main professional interest lies in cognitive methods of teaching English, which are developed and tested on the basis of Educational Centre.
Friday, 4:35 pm-5:20 pm (virtual presentation)
Leading a School Transformation by Creating an Environment of Trust and Collaboration: An Autoethnography
School leadership is critical in ensuring the effectiveness of the education system, both in quality and quantity. A leader in a school may play a significant role in creating a conducive environment for students, teachers, staff, parents, and other stakeholders. This paper reports a case of a school principal who, in her own words, recounts her experiences of leading the school's transformation from an ordinary public school to a nationally recognized one within three years of her tenure. We used autoethnography as a genre of writing personal, evocative narratives to portray the transformative leadership experience. The first author wrote the autobiographical vignettes, placing her personal experiences into the social, cultural, and historical context of the United Arab Emirates. Then, the second author interpreted these narrative experiential anecdotes, connecting the critical nodal moments with the theory of critical transformative leadership to make sense of personal experiences within the social, cultural, and historical context. The thematic interpretive portrayals reveal four key moments of transformative school leadership practices— Accepting Challenge amid Uncertainty: Experience as a Novice School Leader; Building Relationship, Gaining Trust, and Dealing with Challenges; Dreaming of a Model School and Exposure to the Environment; and Successful Keys to Leading Change and Vision for the Future. We have discussed some practical implications of these themes.
Ameirah Mohamed, United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Ameirah Hassan Ebraheim Lahbash is a PHD candidate in the UAEU program in leadership and Educational Policies. She hold a bachelor's and master's degree in curriculum and teaching instructions from the UAEU in the UAE. She is currently working as a lead principal in Sharjah city in the UAE government school. She is a winner of many educational awards, namely the Prime Minister's Medal for Distinguished School Principal across the country.
Friday, 4:35 pm-5:20 pm (virtual presentation)
Investigation into Instructors' Perceptions of L1 Use in EFL Classrooms
Due to alterations in foreign language education strategies, the utilization of the L1 has invariably been one of the most contentious topics in the field. The purpose of the research was to investigate instructors' perceptions about employing students' L1 in language classrooms and which specific methods they favor using L1.
Adel Al-Abed, Smart Mind Institute, Kuwait
Adel Al-Abed is a newly graduated student with an MA in English language education. His dissertation focused on the perspectives of instructors on L1 use in the classroom. He is an English teacher and passionate about modern education.
Friday, 4:35 pm-5:20 pm (virtual presentation)
Five Creative Ways to Take Language Off the Page
This session aims to share a set of low-preparation activities that will allow teachers to bring language work off the coursebook page. It involves all four macro skills, and it encourages students to use their creativity and work collaboratively on tasks that can easily be adapted to different levels and topics.There are some suggestions regarding vocabulary items and grammatical structures that can be revised or recycled with them.
Pilar Capaul, International House Buenos Aires, Argentina
Pilar Capaul teaches English at International House Buenos Aires and Spanish as a Foreign language at Porteñisima. She has worked with young children, teens and adults. She is also the creator of @TeachersofEnglish_ on Instagram, a blog where she shares her daily teaching experiences.
Saturday, 11:05 am-11:50 am (KTECH Room 211)
What is Beyond the English Degree, Matters!
After the huge achievement of getting our degree in English language and being ELTs, we sometimes find ourselves not ready yet to handle the teaching process in its best ways inside the classroom and sometimes we struggle to find the best lead-in and activities to cover the curriculum points perfectly.
Fares Al Shammari, Kuwait College of Science and Technology, Kuwait
Mr. Al Shammari is an English Language lecturer. Beside teaching English courses, he volunteers to train students on presentation skills, project posters, and graduation project report writing. His publications are between Literature and Linguistics. He presented many presentations on relationship between language teaching and literature, the relationship between language teaching and online games (MMORPG), the use of Netiquette in Online Classes, and Cognition in EFL Classes. Mr. Al Shammari received his Master of Arts in English Literature from Anglia Ruskin University in 2016. He also completed the CELTA course successfully in 2021.
Saturday, 11:05 am-11:50 am (KTECH Room 212)
Game-Based Learning vs. Game-Assisted Learning Workshop
Irrespective of the age of the learner, fun, playfulness, and games enhance attention, recognition, and retention of acquired knowledge and skills. However, it requires a lot of practice to apply and adapt games for the classroom. In this workshop, participants will play and assess (educational) games and playful activities.
Mikolaj Sobocinski, American University of the Middle East, Kuwait
Mikolaj Sobocinski is an academic teacher with 20+ years of experience. His education interests range from designing and running courses in academic writing, communication, presentations, linguistics, phonetics, game design, and gamification. He also belonged to a group introducing modern technologies and gamification in Polish higher education. He managed to organise conferences, study visits, workshops, edited and proofread academic publications, and wrote a number of articles on linguistics, education, and gamification. In recent years he has focused on learners’ motivations and games in education. Currently he is delving into post-pandemic education, hybrid-learning technologies, and student engagement.
Saturday, 11:05 am-11:50 am (KTECH Room 203)
Promoting the Oral Reading Fluency of EFL Students through Reading Progress
In acknowledging oral reading fluency as an integral part of reading ability in EFL learning, the presentation introduces Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams to foster immediate corrective feedback through assessing oral reading accuracy and tracking individual progress overtime. The presentation also discusses pedagogical implications in the existing curriculum.
Shu-hua Wu, Language Center, Public Authority for Applied Education and Training, Kuwait
Sulaiman Alrabah, Language Center, Public Authority for Applied Education and Training, Kuwait
Dr. Shu-hua Wu (Associate Professor) and Dr. Sulaiman Alrabah (Professor) both work at the Language Center of the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), Kuwait. Their research interests include Language Teaching Methods, Teacher Education, Second Language Acquisition (SLA), Technology in Language Education, Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligences, L2 Reading Research, L2 Writing Research, and Curriculum.
Saturday, 1:50 pm-2:35 pm (KTECH Room 203)
Motivating Language Learning via Popular Culture in Arab Classrooms
Samira Jafar, American College of the Middle East, Kuwait
Samira Jafar is an instructor at Kuwait University. She holds a Bachelors Degree in English and International Relations from Boston University and a Masters of Education in TESOL from Boston University. Her areas of interest in research include intercultural communication, social justice, and equitable assessments in English education.
Saturday, 1:50 pm-2:35 pm (KTECH Room 211)
Approaching Occidentalism: The West through Arab Female Eyes
Sarah Ashkanani, Australian University, Kuwait
Sarah Ashkanani is English Language instructor in the Australian University teaching both general English and ESP (English for engineering and English for Air Traffic Controllers). She also taught in the Arab Open University preliminary and literature courses. She has a BA in English Language and literature and an MA in Comparative literature; both degrees issued by Kuwait University.
Saturday, 1:50 pm-2:35 pm (KTECH Room 212)
CPD that INSPIRE-s
Sosil Somokian, Box Hill College, Kuwait
Sosil Somokian is a PhD candidate (Teaching Methodologies) and holds an MA in SLP and Education. Research interests are project based learning, inquiry based learning, multi-sensory learning, and the role of graphic organizers in teaching reading and teacher training.
Saturday, 2:35 pm-3:20 pm (KTECH Room 170)
An Analysis of Arab Undergraduate Students’ Writing Performance: Applying the SWOT Framework
Alya Almutawa, Public Authority for Applied Education, Kuwait
Hanan Al Kandari, Arab Open University, Kuwait
Fatma Fayez, Arab Open University, Kuwait
Alya Al-mutawa, teacher in the Language Center in Public Authority for Applied Education since 2010. She holds a Bachelor degree in teaching English to Intermediate and Secondary school from Kuwait University - 2006 and worked in the field of teaching in Public Schools for 3 years before she joined PAAET. She completed her MA in ESP from Essex University - UK in 2010. Her field of interest is teaching reading and writing.
Saturday, 2:35 pm-3:20 pm (KTECH Room 280)
Utilizing Innovative Technologies in Education
Rasha Shalabi, Kuwait Technical College, Kuwait
Ms. Al-Shalabi is a holder of Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST), and a Bachelor’s degree of Science in Information Technology and Computing from the Arab Open University. She is also currently pursuing her Master’s in Computer Science from Arizona State University in the United States. She has a bit over 8 years of experience providing training and consultancy services. She is currently a Lecturer in the Information Systems and Technology (IST) Department at kuwait technical college (ktech). Ms. Al-Shalabi is also certified as a Microsoft Office Specialist. Enriched by triple: Computer Science background & field of study, MBA and administrative work experience and being an instructor/trainer and educator, Ms. Al-Shalabi has developed high knowledge and furthermore experience in interacting and achieving breakthroughs with her trainees.
Saturday, 2:35 pm-3:20 pm (KTECH Room TBA)
Activating and Motivating Students through Gamification
Shayma Matar, Ministry of Education, Kuwait
Shayma Matar holds a B.A in English Language and Literature and a diploma in public relations from Kuwait University. She has been a middle school English teacher since 2016. She is also a certified trainer.