 Friday 21st November
This year we are once again pleased to announce an exclusive Platinum Event on the eve of our 3rd Annual ELT Conference for invited representatives from our valued Preparation Centres.
We have asked three expert guest speakers to provide very different perspectives on the growing importance of English, which will be of great interest to all involved in the learning, teaching and evaluation of English as a foreign language.
Following the presentations we invite you to join us for a reception in the beautiful surroundings of the Il·lustre Col·legi d’Advocats de Barcelona. It will be a fine chance to mingle with colleagues, our guest speakers, staff from the Exams Catalunya team, and representatives from Cambridge English Language Assessment.
| 17.30 – 18.00 – Arrival | 18.00 – 18.15 – Welcome and Opening Comments
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Caroline Lewis
Centre Exams Manager Exams Catalunya
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| 18.15 – 18.45 – The IAVE Project | |
|  Helder Sousa
President of the Executive Board – IAVE, I.P.
Ministério da Educação e Ciência, Portugal
The Cambridge English for Schools – PORTUGAL is a comprehensive project linking students’ assessment and certification and teacher training. The Surveylang study in 2011 showed that more than 50% of 9th grade students were performing at A1 level or below. This called for a decision to use external assessment as a tool to enhance teaching and learning quality, and also to provide students with an opportunity to have access to worldwide recognized certification in English, all over the country, regardless of their social background. I will address the story of the project, focusing on the educational dimension and on the social and economic impacts, and provide a brief overview of funding, logistics, communication, stakeholders’ perceptions and attitudes before closing with future perspectives and lessons learned.
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| 18.45 – 19.15 – | Global Englishes, superdiversity and ‘transcultural’ communication |
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|  Dr Martin Dewey
Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics
King's College London, UK
As a result of globalization, English is continually being reshaped and restructured in response to the many diverse communicative contexts in which it is used. Current empirical evidence demonstrates overwhelmingly that this diversification of English results not only in the emergence of new ‘varieties’ at a national or regional level, but also to more transitory linguistic developments that occur moment-by-moment in response to interactional processes. This is especially so in settings where English is spoken as a lingua franca among multilingual/multicultural speakers – now the predominant function of the language globally. In this presentation I will give an account of recent debate surrounding the linguistic and sociolinguistic consequences of the globalization of English.
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19.15 – 19.45 – Critical thinking, exams and Exam preparation
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|  Tom Wogan
Cambridge English Consultant for Catalonia
and the Balearic Isles
Critical thinking has been for some time at the heart of many of the latest developments in ELT. In this session I will briefly summarize its forms and applications. I will then consider some of the more practical implications it has for exam preparation and the core skills that candidates need to develop.
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| 19.45 – 20.30 Cava Reception and Networking |
Event venue
En atención a la aceptación y creciente popularidad de la Conferencia Anual para profesionales de la enseñanza del inglés de Exams Catalunya, el evento de este año se desarrollará en un emplazamiento completamente nuevo, el Palauet Casades, seu de l'Il·lustre Col·legi d'Advocats de Barcelona (ICAB).
Il·lustre Col·legi
d'Advocats de Barcelona
Palauet Casades
Carrer de Mallorca, 283
08037 Barcelona |
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