So, how should I start?

I went for a walk in the morning and the session started at 9.

David led the first actitivty: a parody of a Simon and Garfunkel song related to the lives of English language teachers.

After the announcements I was responsible for asking participants to write down a ‘burning question’ related to te process or te content of te previous day. Most of te questions were related to issues raised by Margit and Rajan: the implications of English as a global, international or world language; there were also questions about teacing practice, the course itself and the social programme.

David then started a session on the ‘Internet English’ strand – from a research perspective. He elicited participants to come up with ‘puzzles’ (their perceptions of key research questions in the ELT field). Participants focused on the motivation of students and the lack of training and low self-steam of teachers.

The next question was related to some Brazilian teachers’ perceptions of the lack of motivation of their teenage groups and the dominant response was usually ‘games, songs and fun’.

He presented research outcomes from Patricia Matos:an analysis of Brazilian franchise TEFL schools websites that suggest that the discourses examined were not ‘educational’ – they were selling a product emphasising speed, fun and technological support – so what kind of ELT expectations do they build in the public sphere? And what are the implications of that for other ELT areas?

David also presented a research perspective on te relation of fun and learning. He quoted Williams (2001) who suggests that “the acquisition of analytical skills would be better induced by a negative mood state”. [This is confirmed in my experience really and it was nice to see that 'validated' trough the academic discourse!]

David finished his first session with a discussion about ELT and the right and left brain functions.