Opening doors: bringing our global issues into class

At this successful Pre-Conference Event (PCE) on the day before the start of the main IATEFL Conference which in 2012 was held in Glagow we had two well-attended workshops given by Jamie Keddie on “Videotelling – a marriage of traditional story-telling and video” and Alan Maley, in addition to several brief presentations and activities led by GISIG members. It was a good mix with a lot of food for thought, as well as some specific ideas, worksheets to take away and use in our classrooms and ended the day with Kip Cates, the coordinator of Global Issues in Language Education, a special interest group of the Japanese Association of Language Teachers (JALT), sharing with us what he has learnt about making global issues the content of English language education in a very inspiring interview. He also gave a copy of the most recent issue of their newsletter to each participant. What a treasure-trove of excellent articles, practical activities, and news about projects, publications, partnerships etc. The GILESIG website can be found at http://www.gilesig.org.
To get a taste of what the event was like, you can listen to the interviews of our main presenters:

• Jamie Keddie: Videotelling– a marriage of traditional story-telling and video. Interview with Jamie Keddie
• Alan Maley: Projects for Young Adults – drawing attention to the way people misuse language. Interview with Alan Maley