Free Training Day for ELT Academic Managers and Trainers 2022

We are delighted to welcome Academic Managers and Trainers from across the industry to take part in a special one day event on Saturday 22nd January.

Since taking the IH Academic Management and Training conference online in 2021, we are now able to offer academic managers and trainers who are not currently working in an International House school the chance to experience of some of the great talks we provide for  IH members.  

We want to support the community of academic managers and trainers across our industry and we hope this event will be useful to you, and your colleagues. 

Join us on Saturday 22nd January from 11.15 GMT for a programme that will help you address the challenges you are currently facing as an academic manager or trainer. You will have the opportunity to engage with your peers from around the world and gain insights that will support you as managers and trainers. 

Download the conference programme here

Conference timetable

The conference will take place from 11.15 - 15.30 GMT. 

We are pleased to announce our three plenary speakers for this event. George Pickering, Marie Willoughby and Lucie Cotterill will be sharing their insights and expertise in management, training and planning for the future. 

Between plenaries we will also hear from managers in our network who will share their experiences of becoming academic managers. 

11.15 - 11.45: Welcome and Opening 

11.45 – 12.45: The principled manager: leading with the head and the heart, George Pickering

Managers today need to lead with their heads and their hearts. This talk will involve discussing: the importance of leading with a sense of purpose and modelling organisational values,  practising evidence-based management when making decisions and dealing with staff,  being aware of our own biases and how to mitigate them emphasising the importance of staff engagement and wellbeing raising awareness of the FREDIE principles (fairness, respect, equality, diversity, inclusion and engagement) reflecting on our own performance and engaging in manager observation (equivalent to the way we observe teachers).

George Pickering is a highly respected educational coach, trainer and consultant who has worked in over 60 countries. In addition to being the academic course director of the English UK Diploma in ELT Management (DELTM) course, George is also a tutor on the International Diploma in Language Teaching Management (IDLTM).

He is a senior inspector for the Accreditation UK Scheme and was the first director of Bell’s Teacher Campus at Homerton College, Cambridge. George was for many years a trustee of IATEFL and the co-ordinator of the Leadership and Management SIG. He holds a PGCE, an MA in Second Language Learning and Teaching and diplomas in management, coaching and counselling. 

13.00 – 14.00: Shifting sands: Causes, impacts and strategies to manage  Trainer Trainer Imposter Phenomenon, Marie Willoughby 

We’ve all felt it – that sinking sense of dread that someone will find out that we don’t actually know what we are doing. The situation we have been living though has been like sand, constantly shifting under our feet and as trainers, we are experiencing both more uncertainty and more competence gaps than perhaps we ever have. This has consequences for our identity as teacher trainers, our motivation, and our interaction, engagement and empathy with trainees. This talk aims to explore potential consequences of imposter phenomenon and suggest strategies to address this is in a positive way. 

Marie has been teaching English since 2000, across all levels, and in a range of contexts. She has been a teacher trainer since 2005 and teaches bespoke courses to teachers, including specialist subjects such as CLIL and Train-the-Trainer. She is also a CELTA and Delta trainer and works on our partner courses at King’s College London, delivering lectures and seminars on the MA TESOL and MA ELT. She has a keen interest in a range of aspects of teaching and training including developing engagement in lessons, teacher agency and teacher identity.

14.15 – 15. 15: Stepping into the Unknown – Future-proofing your LTO, Lucie Cotterill

Are you ready for what’s next? It may be hard to feel optimism for the future when Covid has so violently pulled the rug out from under us and we’re left to second-guess the best way to move forward, simultaneously recovering, reacting, and reskilling.

In this talk, I will be discussing some thoughts on how teaching, training and management might change in the coming decade - post-pandemic and with new technology.  We will look at innovation (what it really means and how to put it into practice) and I will share some ideas on how to future-proof ourselves, as managers and trainers, and our language teaching organisations

Lucie is a teacher, academic manager, and teacher trainer based in the South of Italy, where she works for IH British School Reggio Calabria as Director of Innovation. She has been in ELT for 20 years, during which time she has taught a range of learners and has held various academic management roles. Lucie is also the DoS Community Coordinator for IH World and tutors on the IH OTTI courses which form part of the IHWO Diploma in Academic Management. She is a member of the AISLi Educational Committee and has also recently joined the committee of the IATEFL Inclusive Practices and SEN SIG as Social Media Coordinator. In her free time, Lucie is a puzzle enthusiast who loves walking in nature and watching stand-up comedy.

This event is completely free of charge.

Registration is now closed, email info@ihworld.com for more information.