My first session of the afternoon was the utterly amazing Rachael Harris with Differentiation : What to do with Fast Finishers and Slow Starters. I was somewhat obliged to attend, what with it being my workshop and all! it merits its own post, and a little reflection, so I’ll give you all the details later.

On a post-peak high I wasn’t sure what to attend next and wandered into what turned out to be one of those conference nuggets, you know what I mean, a session you don’t really expect to get anything from (or in my case that you haven’t read up on before), which turns out to be great.

Exploiting video in the language classroom with David Bradshaw was an extremely well-presented, informative, and entertaining session. David was generous with his ideas and sources, and I have the feeling his classroom would be a fun place to be, check out his blog here. I’ve got some great ideas for classes next week thanks to him, not to mention the fantastic word “screenagers” which I hadn’t picked up on before.

As Cambridge YL exam coordinator at our school I was bound to attend the session by Angela Wright – Young learners: moving with the times. Interesting and clear, I must remember to check out the Monkey puzzles world tour app with my pupils.

I saved the last few drops of TEFL energy that I possessed for my last session of the conference:

Bringing Critical Thinking into the Young Learner/Teen classroom with Vanessa Esteves

and I was very glad that I had. This was an information packed session, that could have easily gone on for another hour. Vanessa’s enthusiasm was catching, her suggested apps and websites were useful, and as I teach both YL and teens I was in relevance heaven. I agree with her on the importance of critical thinking, and will be using her big questions ” How did you know that was the answer?” “What makes you say that?” in class as often as I can get away with.

I need to reflect a little more on all the things I’ve learnt over the last few days, but one thing I’m sure of is… I’ll be back next year!