In this interview with Dr. Joseph Haldane, President of The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Ken Wilson challenges assumptions surrounding language learning. What is essential when learning a new language? Perhaps, it’s motivation, having curiosity and wanting to learn. Or is it being immersed in a culture where that language is dominant? And should your teacher be a native speaker of the language you want to learn or not? He also discusses how technology can be used in the classroom and how to engage your students’ curiosity.
About Ken Wilson
Ken Wilson is a teacher trainer, and an author of a large amount of ELT materials, and has published with OUP, Cengage and Macmillan. His most recent series is “Smart Choice”, published by OUP. He has also written more than a hundred ELT radio and television programmes, including fifty radio scripts for the Follow Me series, thirty Look Ahead TV scripts and a series of plays called Drama First. He also contributed material to Extr@ English, an ELT sitcom commissioned by Channel 4. For many years, Ken was artistic director of the English Teaching Theatre, a company which toured the world performing stage-shows for learners of English.
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Mr. Wilson was a Keynote Speaker at The European Conference on Language Learning 2014 (ECLL2014) held from July 9 to 13, 2014, in Brighton, UK.
Photography by Thaddeus Pope, IAFOR Media.