Digital consultant Shaun Wilden answers the Image Conference questionnaire.
Your favourite film/work of art/video game
I don’t have a favourite film I am afraid, I actually rarely watch film, if I may cheat then my favourite thing to watch is Doctor Who and my all time favourite episode of that is Planet of the spiders.
It’s tricky to choose a favourite piece of art. When I lived in Prague, I fell in love with The Hallucinogenic Toreador which they had a copy of in the Dali museum. Teaching a lot of CPE classes back in the day, made me a fan of the garden of earthly delights by Bosch (as it appears in a CPE coursebook). However if pushed I would go for the wedding feast of Cana, by Veronese. This is the painting that used to hang opposite the Mona Lisa (I haven’t been to the Louvre for a while it may still do), I first saw it when I was 12 years old and what grabbed me about it was not just its sheer size but the fact that no one was looking at it, as everyone was looking at the rather dull Mona Lisa.
Having played video games for the best part of 40 years, there are so many to choose from! These days I don’t play my Xbox as I tend to play games on my tablet and on that I have to confess I am a total clash of clans addict but if you wanted a game to show the graphic capabilities and touch screen potential then Republique on an Ipad. It’s gorgeous to look at and play.
Your favourite video to use in class:
As a teacher trainer wanting to highlight to new teachers the issues of pronunciation, I use the two Ronnie’s sketch ‘Fork Handle’. It also works well with higher level students. Additionally it is perhaps one of the funniest comedy sketched ever written. See for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz2-ukrd2VQ
Useful image-related teaching tool:
Has to be my ipad but for my students their smart phones. They will all inevitably be carrying loads of images on their phones that we can tap into for teaching. As I will show in my workshop .
Why are you interested in using images in your classes?
I particularly like the personalised aspect that images bring to a class. Not only in that students can bring and use their own images but also that, as images are ‘language free’ they appeal to curiosity, imagination and lead to the development of language.
What should your audience expect to learn?
How to put images on mobile devices to engaging and motivating use in and out of a classroom.
What are three words that sum up your session?
Energetic, Practical, Time-saving
Which other presenter(s) are you looking forward to seeing?
I couldn’t pick just one, I know most of the speakers and have seen them speak before. I would guarantee that whichever session I go to will be both useful and very well delivered.
You can read more about Shaun and his talk below.
Shaun Wilden (International House World Organisation)
A mobile device is worth a thousand words
Shaun has been involved in English language teaching for over twenty years. He is currently the International House World Organisation Teacher Training Coordinator. He is a digital consultant to both schools and publishers and this year published a whitepaper on implementing tablets and apps into schools. He is the joint coordinator of the IATEFL Learning
Technologies SIG, and a member of the IATEFL membership committee. In addition, he is a moderator of the social networking #eltchat group which meets every Wednesday to discuss issues and ideas in ELT. Feel free to follow him @shaunwilden or find out more about him at shaunwilden.co.uk.
A decade ago I did a workshop exploring with teachers how to make the most of coursebook pictures. To celebrate its anniversary I want to revisit this workshop but rather than use a course book, I want to show how images that students carry with them on their mobile devices can be put to use in the classroom. Be it a tablet or a mobile phone, the average student is carrying a wealth of personalised material on their camera roll that teacher can tap into.
From language practice activities to visual dictionaries from speaking to writing the mobile device can be the stimulus for student engagement as well as the time saving device to ease a teachers’ planning woes. This will be a very practical workshop, so make sure you bring a device full of photos.
