This workshop guides participants to reflect on what is and is not happening in their classrooms in terms of making language learning relevant for their learners, in their teaching situation, and with their materials. It will demonstrate a variety of activities that can be used to present and practice vocabulary and grammar which will lead to greater opportunities for 'real'communication between learners.

This workshop aims to extend teachers' knowledge of supplementary materials and gives ideas for use in the classroom.

This workshop aims to raise teachers' awareness of the valuable role of errors as a learning tool. The relationship between "fluency and accuracy of spoken English" is one many teachers have thought about. In the workshop, the trainers will consider when to correct spoken errors and will introduce different correction techniques.

In this workshop the trainers will explain and show the differences between formative and summative assessment. They will then focus more closely on formative assessment. Teacher participants will be asked to take part in the discussion and to explore the question, “What are the benefits of formative assessment?”

This workshop aims at building the confidence of teachers in finding ideas for, and using, managed repetition activities, or drills, which are not simple repetitions but have ‘added value’. This ‘added value’ can include any or all of choice, interaction, fun, or personalisation and makes the drills meaningful, in that the students are supported in understanding and expressing their own meanings.

In this session the trainers will take the participants from opening the coursebook to having a lesson prepared. To demonstrate an effective lesson the trainers will write a lesson plan for the session including aims and identify stages as moving through the session. The goal is to let the participants choose a part of the coursebook and plan a lesson from this. Each participant will have a copy of the lesson plan for the session and will therefore be able to follow and recognize the stages of an effective lesson.

This workshop explores how to encourage students'participation and autonomy by creating supportive atmosphere. By actually learning communicative English in a fun and stimulating environment, students will not only be more motivated and learn more, they will actually be better prepared to pass the national exams as well.Moving from theory to practice, the trainer will come up with a series of ideas and fun activities which participants can implement in their classes.

Storytelling can be an effective way to involve students in English learning. This workshop aims to emphasize the significance of storytelling and the impact it exerts on language learning. Many interactive activities, which will liven up the classroom, will also be presented during the workshop.

This workshop will introduce ways of teaching pronunciation to the teachers and endeavor to present a vivid and practical class for teaching pronunciation in large classes. It aims to raise the awareness of the teachers about the significance of teaching pronunciation in China.

This workshop aims to arouse students' interests in writing, enhance their writing skills and address the concern of teachers about correcting students' written work more efficiently.

Most students of English rate speaking as the number one challenge in language learning. This workshop aims at sharing strategies to enable students to quickly adapt and enhance their speaking styles.

Listening is one of the most important English skills. This workshop aims at building confidence in teaching listening and helping students to develop good listening skills. It will focus on how to develop listening skills considering three stages: pre-listening, whilst listening and post-listening.

Giving lessons in the classroom is the traditional way of teaching, but learning a language should not be limited in the classroom.

Students have mixed abilities because of their previous learning experiences, different interests, various styles and speed of learning.

Reading in a second language is challenging to young learners and teaching them to do so involves an even more complex process.

The Young Learners' Intercultural Communication and Diversity Awareness Workshops are held in various Chinese cities (Hong Kong, Dongguan, Changsha, Chengdu, Chonqing, Ma'an Shan, Xi'an, Tianjin, Beijing and Xiamen) from August to September 2009.

During the second week of June, a series of workshops on teaching grammar were held in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Huainan, Xi'an, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Foshan.

Alison Wood shared her expertise with us on Motivating Young Learners of English as a Foreign Language. The objective was to assist teachers in reviewing theories on what motivates young learners to learn and to participate in activities that put these theories into practice.

This session will demonstrate several Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) techniques and show how teachers can adapt these to the reforms in the English curriculum in Hong Kong. CLIL has methodologies and techniques which can be relevant and interesting to all English teachers across China.

Here you can find all the handouts and materials used by the speakers in our first round of workshops in 2-6 March 2009 in Beijing, Xi'an, He'fei, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Also watch the videos for the teaching ideas shared in the workshops.