SECOND DALIAN TEFL FORUM
The Uses of Learning Technologies in Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Neusoft Institute of Information Technology (NIIT), Dalian, October 29th 2005.
After the success of the first Dalian TEFL Forum in 2003, NEUSOFT teamed up with the IATEFL L/TECHS SIG to offer further new ideas using various technologies in TEFL. Click here for the programme of the event.
Over 50 teachers and postgraduate students from a variety of tertiary institutions in Dalian converged on the NEUSOFT Institute of Information Technology campus to find out about uses of learning technologies in teaching English as a Foreign Language.
Three Chinese professors had much to say about a government-sponsored research project on the use of computers at 180 universities in China (Wang Weibo of the Dalian Nationalities University), how to deal with the infinite variety of on-line TEFL resources: pool and share (Liu Wentao, NIIT) and student reactions to web-based learning (Liu Wenyu, Dalian University of Technology).
Sravana Varma (NIIT) gave a fascinating account of an inter-continental training programme she had run for a bank in India.
Uses of PowerPoint, including animation, were demonstrated by Rodney Mantle (Liaoning Normal University) who also talked about IATEFL and the role of the Learning Technologies SIG. There was much interest in the journals.
The undoubted highpoint of the day was a demonstration class on a World War One poem by Tomas Sund, International Customer Relations Manager for Beijing ZFK Education Technology, using the Promethean ACTIVstudio 2 Interactive Whiteboard. After the Forum, many of the participants stayed to attend technical demonstrations of the Interactive Whiteboard in English and Chinese.
