Speaker: Davron Abdullaev
This presentation explored the use of authentic materials in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teaching. It highlighted that ESP is an approach based on learners’ needs, targeting their academic or occupational goals. Authentic teaching in ESP involves incorporating real-world language use and tasks directly relevant to learners’ specific needs. Examples of authentic teaching methods included task-based learning, the use of authentic materials, teaching field-specific vocabulary and language use, industry-specific communication skills, case studies, guest speakers, site visits, and role-playing. The presentation discussed the advantages of authentic materials, such as real-world relevance and increased motivation, but also highlighted limitations such as linguistic complexity, time-consuming adaptation, and catering to diverse language proficiency levels. Strategies for addressing these limitations included providing support, simplifying materials, and facilitating group discussions.
The most interesting part was when the speaker introduced the tool: www.twee.com which is a platform that offers AI-powered tools for English teachers. It provides various features to assist teachers in creating lessons, such as generating questions for YouTube videos, generating dialogues, stories, letters, or articles on any topic and for any level, creating multiple-choice questions, open questions, and true/false statements, finding discussion questions, facts, and quotes related to a topic, brainstorming vocabulary exercises, and much more. The platform aims to help teachers save time in lesson planning by utilizing AI technology to generate teaching materials quickly and efficiently. The participants had a chance to see how to navigate on the platform and created some activities.