In the English language curricula of a number of countries – for example, Canada, Australia and Singapore – two new skills, viewing and visually representing, have been added to the traditional skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Undoubtedly, these two new skills of viewing and visually representing will be integrated into national curricula throughout the world in the near future. In this talk we will examine what viewing is and how teachers can help their students become more effective viewers by exploring a number of generic activities which can be used with a variety of visual texts – photos, paintings, short films and videos. Teachers will go away from this session with a clear understanding of what the skill of viewing is, why it is important in language education and a number of tried and tested viewing activities to share with their teachers.

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About Kieran Donaghy

Kieran Donaghy is an award-winning writer, speaker and trainer. He trains teachers at The School for Training, his specialist teacher training institute in Barcelona. He is the author of books for teachers and students of English. His publications include Film in Action (Delta Publishing), How to Write Film and Video Activities (ELT Teacher 2 Writer), The Image in ELT (ELT Council) and English Hub (Macmillan).

Other events by Kieran

Workshop - Social Shorts: Using short films and videos to raise awareness of social issues

In this practical session we will examine how short films and videos can be used to raise awareness of social issues and values in the language classroom. We’ll explore a number of practical, generic activities which foster both oral and written communication as well as vocabulary acquisition. Tea...

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