Simon Buckland to present at IATEFL 2019 in Liverpool

53rd Annual International IATEFL 2019 Conference

Liverpool, UK

#iatefl2019

Simon Buckland is going to be presenting at the IATEFL 2019 Conference in Liverpool (conference.iatefl.org) on Wednesday 3rd April.

Find out more in the IATEFL 2019 Presentations Agenda.

What is IATEFL?

The IATEFL International Annual Conference and Exhibition each spring is one of the main events in the English Language Teaching calendar. Attended by approximately 3,000 ELT professionals from more than 100 countries, it involves a 4-day programme of around 500 talks, workshops and forums as well as a vibrant social programme. This offers delegates a unique opportunity to meet leading trainers, theorists and writers, and exchange ideas with fellow professionals from all sectors of English language teaching and learning.

How Long Does it Take to Learn English?

Simon Buckland will be presenting some ground-breaking research conducted by Wall Street English looking at how long it takes to learn English. The question of how long it takes to reach a usable standard of English is vitally important not only to teachers and learners, but to language researchers, boards of education, and many other organisations. Although this question has been widely discussed in both technical and non-technical contexts and many different estimates are available, there is an absence of quantitative studies to support these estimates with evidence from the actual performance of English learners. The problem is substantially complicated by the huge variation in types of learners, contexts for learning, and learners’ objectives, which make any findings, even if supported by evidence, difficult to generalise across the whole field. Using data from over 50,000 adult students from 25 countries at Wall Street English, we have compared how long they take to reach CEFR levels with these widely-distributed expert estimates. Simon will be presenting this research in his talk.

The full report of this research project will be published on this website shortly. For a sneak preview attend the presentation at IATEFL!

How Do Students Learn at Wall Street English?

Wall Street English has developed a blended learning method that includes the best parts of many different learning styles. Students study English by following the natural way of learning a language. We teach English using ‘natural language acquisition’ – the same way they learned their first language. We focus on listening and speaking first and reading and writing come later. We offer many opportunities to practice English in real life contexts which help learners to achieve a deeper understanding of the language and teaches them how to use it in everyday situations.

Students learn through bite-sized Interactive Lessons from an entertaining sitcom-style series that they can access anywhere. They have access to Digital Workbooks that are fun to complete and give instant feedback on progress. Practice includes a fun and relaxed environment in small teacher-led classes. Complementary Classes help students to improve vocabulary and speaking skills and our centers offer them an immersive experience with Social Clubs to join. Learners can access a personalized dashboard to complete exercises and track progress. The Wall Street English method is completely customizable so students can access their personalized study program where they want, when they can.

If you are interested in teaching English all around the world, find out more on our English Teaching careers pages.