Name: Getting the balance right – online vs face-to-face English teaching
Start: 2023-03-06T17:00:00-03:00
End: 2023-03-10T19:00:00-03:00

Date: Monday 06 March 2023 to Friday 10 March 2023

Between March 6th and March 10th 2023, and with the Ministry of Education of the City of Buenos Aires’ sponsoring, the British Council in Argentina held the first English Language Teaching week in the country, following successful experiences in Brazil and Mexico. The event was called “Getting the balance right – online vs face-to-face English teaching”, and it entailed a series of 10 virtual encounters focused on providing training and tools that English teachers can apply in practice to maximise the opportunities that both virtual and face-to-face classrooms have to offer.

Watch the recordings of the sessions!

The 10 sessions were live-streamed on our Facebook profile. You can access each day of our ELT week 2023 through the following links:

Monday 6	5.00 pm – 5.10 pm: Opening by Oscar Ghillione, Subsecretario de Carrera Docente (Ministry of Education, Government of the City of Buenos Aires), and Robert Chatfield, Country Director of British Council Argentina. 5.10 pm – 6.00 pm: The new learner: Ditching outdated concepts and responding to post-COVID reality - Milton Bradbury 6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: ¿Esas son Reebok o son Nike? Developing powerful listening skills in the online and face-to-face classroom - Martín Villarreal
Tuesday 7	5.00 pm – 6.00 pm: Teaching EFL to SEN students: A matter of balancing! - Eugenia Dell’Ossa 6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: Teaching 21st century learners in a rapidly changing world - Challenge. Experiment. Empower (more and better) - Paola Danesi
Wednesday 8	5.00 pm – 6.00 pm: Teaching English Pronunciation Online: Practical tips and benefits of shadowing - Maxim Markov 6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: Sharing good language teaching practice in the new normal - Joe Dale
Thursday 9	5.00 pm – 6.00 pm: Supporting language learning with technology: a principled approach - Graham Stanley 6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: The best of both worlds - Belén Tur & Gisela Zoccola
Friday 10	5.00 pm – 6.00 pm: Developing digital literacy in remote and online English teaching - Serrana Muniz 6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: Teach creatively to empower the 21st century learner – Susan Hillyard

Participation certificates and points

Certificates of attendance were issued for those who completed the corresponding quiz after each session. To obtain the certificate for the entire event, participants were required to attend a minimum of 7 out of the 10 sessions and complete the quizzes (and obtain at least 1 correct answer in each) before March 17th. In addition, 0,10 points will be awarded in the category "Antecedentes pedagógicos" to those teachers that attended a minimum of seven (7) sessions of the event, completed the surveys, and submitted a lesson plan or activity idea before March 31st that can be implemented by teachers of English in their remote synchronic classes. This lesson ideas and activities must comply with the following requirements:

Focus on one of the topics addressed in the 10 sessions,
Include age group,
Mention the corresponding CEFR level,
Detail the required material,
Describe the procedure,
Include any other information necessary so that other teachers can implement these ideas in their classrooms,
And follow the structure of the lesson plans and activity ideas in the Teaching English site. This lesson plan example and this activity one can be used as guidance about the type of submissions that are expected.

The proposals will be evaluated by an external Consultant, and only approved materials will be published.

Event speakers

Graham Stanley

British Council’s English Programmes Lead for the Americas, based in Mexico City. He has a M.Ed. in ELT & Educational Technology (Manchester, UK) and won awards for his first two handbooks for teachers: ‘Digital Play: Computer games and language aims’ (Delta Publishing, 2011) winner of an ELT Innovation award (ELTon), and ‘Language Learning with Technology (CUP, 2013), awarded the English Speaking Union’s ‘HRH Duke of Edinburgh ELT book of the year’ award.

Serrana Muniz

Experienced teacher of English and digital literacy based in Uruguay, who has taught in primary and secondary education in Uruguay and Argentina. She has worked in academic management and teacher education for large-scale remote teaching programmes Ceibal en Inglés in Uruguay and English without Borders Colombia. She is currently working as an academic consultant for British Council Argentina. She holds an MA in Digital Technologies, Communication and Education (Manchester, UK).

Eugenia Dell'Ossa

Eugenia Dell’Osa is a graduate EFL teacher, and teacher trainer specialised in Early Years, Drama and Special Education. She designs teacher development courses and presents them locally and internationally. She coordinates groups of teachers in different educational contexts and leads the Diploma in Teaching EFL to YL at Universidad de Morón. She is passionate about teaching in innovative ways.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plan.up.education/

Paola Danesi

English teacher from IES en Lenguas Vivas (J.R. Fernández) with post graduate specialization in English Language II and international qualifications in Communicative Teaching, Sociolinguistics and Materials Design from Institute of Education, University of London.

Teacher trainer from Escuela de Maestros (Ministry of Education, Buenos Aires City) for in-service annual training at primary level, online Campus courses and the new bilingual programme for state run schools.

Martín Villareal

He graduated as a Profesor en Inglés at Universidad Tecnológica Nacional.

He holds a Certificado Universitario de Especialista en Lengua Inglesa from Facultad Regional Villa María de la UTN. Martin has a Especialización en Administración de la Educación from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella and is currently writing his dissertation for his Maestría en Marketing Estratégico at Universidad UCES.

He teaches at Carrera de Ingeniería at Facultad Regional Buenos Aires and other important universities.

The Teaching Touch - Belén Tur and Gisela Zoccola

EFL teachers from Buenos Aires, Argentina who created in 2020 The Teaching Touch in order to share tips and resources with teachers from all over the world. They have been teaching for more than 18 years and they share the passion for teaching and learning, identifying ourselves as lifelong learners. They are educational consultants and teacher trainers, who have been speakers at various congresses and seminars. Once a year they host TTT Reunion, an online international conference for educators.