I’m thrilled face to face conferences are back! Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of online education and events, for all the affordances it offers in terms of accessibility, flexibility and alternative forms of participation and engagement, and of course how they help uphold health and safety.

But the spontaneous connections and exchanges that arise at face to face events–striking up a conversation with the person next to you at a talk, chatting informally with attendees after you present, networking with friends of friends, etc.–don’t really have a place in the world of online conferences. And so I’m glad I’m lucky enough to be in Belfast!

For my talk, I’m branching out beyond EAP and higher ed, which is my typical wheelhouse. In ‘Making the Invisible Visible: A Teacher’s Guide to Language Ideologies’ I’ll explore how to gently introduce some criticality into your teaching, via the concept of language ideologies. I was inspired by my Master’s students at Saint Mary’s University, where I teach a course called International Issues in ELT, and my doctoral research, which was rooted in critical discourse studies.

Here’s the abstract:

Making the invisible visible: a teacher’s guide to language ideologies

Language ideologies are beliefs, attitudes and ideas about language and language use commonly held in society. Though often unspoken, they shape our teaching practice. In this talk, teachers will discuss common language ideologies in ELT worldwide, and explore strategies for “making the invisible visible”: discussing and questioning language ideologies in their own classrooms and teaching practice.

Here are the slides to my talk: