International trainers and educators attend 33rd SPELT conference

Cognitive learning, unconventional teaching methods stressed

KARACHI: I learned to teach in ways we were not taught, said director of Teacher’s Development Centre, Abbas Husain, during a session titled, ‘The global classroom’ at the 33rd Spelt International Conference 2017.

“Classrooms are meant to have no boundaries and should be porous and open for learning of students,” Husain said, who is also a founding member of the Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (Spelt). The annual conference is set to have more than 100 sessions conducted by distinguished and experienced, national and international speakers, educators and scholars.

The two-day conference, being held at the Karachi School of Business and Leadership and Dawood Public School, witnessed registrations of more than 1,500 teachers from various schools and colleges and will continue to increase on its second day today (Sunday).



“Teachers must make commitments, such as promoting deep cognitive learning, teaching employing unconventional methods in teaching and commit to continuous professional learning,” Husain said. He emphasised on the development of collective intelligence, building the capacity for change and risk-taking and fostering trust in the process of learning in order to improve the standard of teaching.

A professor of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), the largest English language training organisation of the United States, Dr Liz England in her talk titled, ‘Fitting in and Standing out: Teaching English for Glocalisation’ said, “When we ‘glocalise’ our lessons, instruction is better, results are faster and students are more engaged than they are in those classrooms where teachers rely on more language-centered instruction,” she said, referring to the idea that one must consider local conditions in their understanding of global decisions.

She added that there has to be an awareness of the students’ need for language skills which can help them communicate in various social and professional settings.



Other speakers included Dr Christine Coombe of Dubai Men’s College, Yilin Sun, professor at Seattle Colleges, USA, Dr Aymen Elsheikh, an assistant professor at Texas A&M University at Qatar, Dr Aifa Rehman of University of Dhaka and Linda Ruas, coordinator at the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, UK.