English Language Resource

"Engage your students with language, topics and ideas - not grammar."

For anyone outside the language teaching business, this might seem obvious. In it, though, grammar is often the anchor teachers cast to assert their weight and keep the boat from floating away. Ken Wilson showed us that it can be different.

His keynote address at the ETAS Conference in Zug on Saturday, September 17, was a masterpiece of presentation skills. He talked and he told jokes; he gave us tips and anecdotes; he involved the audience with questions, interactions and buzz groups; the whole time he focused on CONTENT: how to make language learning engaging; and all of this with a group of 700 people.

As presenters, we all know these tips - yet so people can so effectively incorporate them into their style. As a trained actor, Ken also worked with speed - keep things snappy, keep them lively - an hour flew by and we could easily have listened to an hour more. My favorite activity involved activating students' use of "bicycle language": chain, spokes, tire and the like. An entirely forgettable list - until he showed us an article on a man who eats bicycles, and asked us which part would go down most easily. His approach? Take unknown people doing unusual things - and you will engage peoples' attention.

Ken is also active on the web, so check him out at Ken Wilson's Blog and on Twitter.