STEVEN OGDEN

Bio – data

Steven Ogden is Academic Director at Unlimited Educational Services (UES) in Istanbul. After completing his MA in Literature and Theatre from the UNSW in Sydney in 2002, he went on to complete his English Language Teaching certificates in Thailand. Since then, he has worked in a variety of roles (teacher, coordinator, trainer) in institutions across The Middle East, Japan, China, Sri Lanka, the UK and Turkey. Prior to joining UES in 2016, he spent the previous 7 years working in ELT publishing as an examination’s writer, teacher trainer and account manager. Steven also writes pre-primary and primary course materials for Richmond ELT Publishing. He has a postgraduate diploma in Business and Finance obtained through a distance learning program from the Open University in the UK.

Shaping early years’ literacy.
‘Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together.’ Scott Hayden
Whilst the World Literacy Foundation (WLF) recognises that global literacy levels are on the rise, it’s clear to see by the wealth of research undertaken that there is still a very long way to go (even in perceived ‘developed’ countries), to make sure that as many of our children as possible are given the skills needed to become more confident, articulate speakers and much better, more developed readers and writers.
This practical, hands on talk looks at the strategies we teachers can implement into our teaching to help our learners become more ‘language aware’ while developing their own skills. We’ll journey from sounds to letters to syllables to words to chunks to sentences through a series of fun, simple yet effective activities. We’ll reflect on how these simple techniques, primarily based around rhythm, repetition and mime, can really help reinforce new language and develop our learners’ overall literacy skills.

The examples I give are quick-fire activities that can be seamlessly added to your lesson plans. They cover the pre-primary, primary and secondary topic themes so the session should (hopefully!) provide lots of take away activities and ideas you can do with your own learners from Monday morning onwards!

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