We are pleased to announce that on Saturday, the 8^th of November 2014,  The Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, will be holding a conference in collaboration with English Book in Georgia and Macmillan Education, entitled ‘English Language and Economic Development in the Globalized World’.

The aims of the conference are to explore English Language Teaching, its effects on the economic development of a given country and the best current modern practices for English Language Teachers. The event will also incorporate overviews of the current plans and innovations from The Ministry of Education and Science in Georgia.

This event is INVITATION ONLY.

We will have four speakers at this event:

David Graddol

He is Director of The English Company (UK) Ltd which provides consultancy and publishing services in applied linguistics, with a special focus on English language and education policy. David worked for many years in the Faculty of Education and Language Studies at the UK Open University and during 2010-2011 was Visiting Associate Professor at City University of Hong Kong. He has been involved in ELT projects in China, India and Latin America since the early 1990s. In The Future of English? (1997) David set out a new agenda for understanding the growing importance of English as an international language. English Next (2006) English Next India (2010), and English Next Brazil (2014), provide overviews of English in global education – all published by the British Council. Profiling English in China: The Pearl River Delta (2013), for Cambridge English Language Assessment, examines public discourses and language landscapes in south China. (All these titles can be freely downloaded from the internet).

Plenary: English and Economic Development

Carol Read

Carol Read has over 30 years’ experience in English language teaching as a teacher, teacher trainer, academic manager and materials writer. She has taught students of all ages and levels, from very young children to adults. Carol’s main specialisation is in primary language teaching and she has run numerous teacher education courses and worked as an educational consultant in many different countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Carol has published extensively in the field of teaching English to young learners, including course books, supplementary materials, online storytelling and CLIL projects, as well as many articles on primary ELT methodology. Her most recent publication, Footprints, is a fully-digital, primary coursebook series. Carol’s award-winning titles include 500 Activities for the Primary Classroom, which was Highly Commended in the ESU Duke of Edinburgh awards, and Bugs (with three co-authors), which won a British Council Innovation Award.  Carol is currently President of IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language).

Plenary: Seven Ways to Promote Creativity in the Classroom

David Spencer

Dave Spencer began writing ELT courses for Macmillan in 1994. His latest series is Gateway, a multi-level course designed to prepare teenage students for school-leaving/university entrance exams.

After studying languages at Oxford University, Dave trained to be a Secondary School teacher at the University of York. He then moved to Spain where he has been living and teaching ever since. He continues to teach Secondary students every day, currently working at Colegio Europeo Aristos in Getafe.

At various stages of his career, Dave has also worked as Director of Studies at International House Serrano, Madrid (now Hyland Language Centre) and as a teacher trainer for IH London and the British Council in Madrid.

Plenary: Motiv8: Eight Key Factors in Motivating Teenage Students

Philip Kerr

Philip Kerr is a lecturer, teacher trainer and materials writer with over 25 years’ experience of English language teaching in a number of European countries. He currently lives and works in Vienna. His publications include the coursebook series Straightforward and Inside Out (both published by Macmillan).

Plenary: Learning Vocabulary: It Takes Two to Tango