For those of you that follow me on Facebook, you have probably seen that I have posted about offering workshops for teachers. I’ve received requests for more information, so I thought I’d make a blog post about it.
Why am I offering workshops?
When I came to Chile nearly a decade ago, it was difficult to find professional development opportunities that gave me PRACTICAL STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES that I could use in my classes.
Over the years, I used what I learned in my teacher training as an elementary, Spanish and German teacher in California as well as attending 80 hours of training provided my the California Foreign Language Project (now the California World Language Project) and adapted it to teaching English to my students in Chile.
Putting in this work along with my training has allowed me to develop classes that are engaging for individuals, small groups, and colegio and university classes. (I had a German class of 42 students when I taught in San Diego, so I can relate to the challenges of teaching in schools and universities here.)
Institutes and programs provide varying degrees of professional development for teachers, but sometimes teachers want more support than what they provide. For this reason, I’m offering these workshops for teachers that want to improve their practice.
What experience do I have teaching workshops?
I started teaching workshops when I was working as a Spanish and German teacher in San Diego back in 2009. My first workshop was called “Flyswatters and Mathematics: New Ways to Engage Your Students” at the California Language Teachers Association Annual Conference in Sacramento. I also gave a workshop open to all teachers at Orange Glen High School (where I was teaching) showing the strategies that I was using in my German classes and helping them adapt them to their content areas.
Later that year I presented at the ACTFL annual conference in conjunction with one of my colleagues about using math and a token economy in your classroom.
Since moving to Chile, I have presented at formal conferences as well as at Grants English where I was working. The first conference was at IATEFL Chile in Santiago, Concepción, and Valdivia with topics related to tapping into students’ prior knowledge, and the use of indivdual white boards. I have also presented at TESOL Chile in Santiago and Iquique with strategies to engage both young and adult learners. I also ran a series of workshops for new teachers at Grants English in 2012 to help them prepare to teach individual and small group classes as well as a few workshops as professional development for all the teachers.
The last workshop I taught was in July 2018 at the IATEFL Conference in Santiago, and it was how to move beyond the dichotomy of yes/no questions that are typical of course textbooks in order to engage your students in a more authentic way.
What will the Saturday March 30th workshop be about?
I want to give a broad overview of general strategies to engage students and keep them thinking and on their toes. The strategies can be used in individual, small group, colegio, and university classrooms, and they require little or no technology.
The workshop will include strategies to help students learn new
vocabulary and structures and corporate the skills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing. The activities will be interactive, and my idea is that each participant will walk away with at least two new ideas that they can use in their classes.
Some of the ideas presented may be a review for those that have gone through a comprehensive CELTA or TEFL training, but I will be adding in my personal touch to make them work for my teaching style. I encourage participants to think crticially about their teaching context and how they can make them work for their students.
How do I sign up?
If you are interested, please send an email to contact@danielguim.com with your name, RUT (if you have one), and address. I will provide the payment details by email.
In order to ensure a personalized experience each workshop is limited to 6 participants, and payments are nonrefundable.
If you have any questions feel free to write me an email or comment below.
Take care and I hope to see you there!
