British Council announces shortlist for ELTons 2012
19 March 2012
The British Council today announced the short-list for the ELTons 2012. Now in their tenth year, the awards, run by the British Council and sponsored by Cambridge ESOL, are a celebration of excellence in English language teaching (ELT) from around the world.
The awards have been organised into five new categories this year: Excellence in Course Innovation, Innovation in Learner Resources, Innovation in Teacher Resources, Digital Innovation, and Local Innovation - as well as The Macmillan Education Award for Innovative Writing, which is now in its third year. (See below for the full list of nominees).
There will be one winner in each category. All the winners will be announced at a ceremony in central London on 23 May 2012. Each of the winners receives £1,000 cash prize along with the much sought-after ELTon statuette.
Michael Carrier, Head of English Language Innovation at the British Council said: "The ELTons have grown to become an essential fixture in the ELT calendar. They are a wonderful opportunity to showcase innovative ELT products and creative ELT authors from around the world, and we are very proud to be able to bring the ELT community together to celebrate innovation in our profession.”
The new categories reward published ELT products and services developed either in the UK or overseas. For the first time, UK and international ELT professionals are competing alongside each other in the same categories – in recognition of the increased mobility and globalisation in the sector.
The Macmillan Education Award for Innovative Writing is sponsored by Macmillan Education and gives previously unpublished writers the opportunity to win a £1,000 prize and have their work published. Through this award the British Council aims to discover and encourage up and coming ELT authors to take the next step in their writing careers.
The British Council Lifetime Achievement Award, now in its second year, awards an ELT professional who has made a substantial contribution to the ELT profession throughout their career. “This is an important award,” Michael Carrier added, “as it enables all of us in the ELT profession to highlight and celebrate the achievements of those who came before us – the experts, writers, academics and professionals who helped to build ELT into the powerhouse that it is today”.
The British Council is the UK’s cultural relations organisation, and builds relationships for the UK through English, education and the arts. It teaches English in more than 80 countries through face-to-face contact and innovative methods including radio, the internet and mobile technology.
ELTons 2012 nominees in full:
Excellence in Course Innovation
Bell Educational Trust - Bell Blended Learning for ELT (website)
Express Publishing – Career Paths Beauty Salon
Cambridge University Press – English Unlimited (full course)
Macmillan Education, Macmillan Publishers Ltd – Gateway (book)
Oxford University Press – Playtime (full course)
Pearson ELT – Speakout (DVD ROM)
Reallyenglish – Writing for Business (website)
Innovation in Learner Resources
HarperCollins Publishers UK – Collins English for Business: Listening (book)
Helbling Languages GmbH – FOR REAL Intermediate (pack)
Cambridge University Press – Interactive (whole course)
Pearson Education ELT – Our Discovery Island (CD-ROM and book)
Macmillan Education – Sounds: The Pronunciation App (iPad app)
Brian Grover – Truth or Dare (game)
Innovation in Teacher Resources
#ELTchat - #ELTchat (website)
Delta Publishing – Digital Play (book)
Yellow House Ltd – How to help your class learn English (book)
Cambridge University Press – Instant Academic Skills (CD and book)
Macmillan Education – Learning Teaching 3rd Edition (DVD and book)
Helbling Languages GmbH – Teaching Young Learners to Think (book)
Tune Into English – www.tuneintoenglish.com (website)
Digital Innovation
Terakki Foundation Schools - Bubble and Pebble (website)
EF Education First Ltd - Efekta Classroom App (iPad app)
RendezVu - ExamSpeak (website)
Stealth Education - Gobby (iPad app)
Cambridge Online - Phonetics Focus HD (iPad app)
L2 (trading name of Lexical Learning Limited) - WORDREADY Academic English (web cloud)
Local Innovation
Leon Butchers - AGO (website and card game)
Creative Technology - Creative Technology: online workshops for English Teachers (online workshops)
Cothrom Ltd - Island Voices Videos (website)
The Markoni’s Language Centre - Markoni’s Fancy-Dress Balls (Fancy dress balls, memory stick with videos)
Oxford University Press - Stars (CD-ROM, books)
Colour Trick S.l. - The Colour of Words (book, cd)
The Macmillan Education Award for Innovative Writing
Bob Knowles - Dictionary of Vowels and their Sounds (website)
Barry Hochfield - Micro-Phonics’ ESOL Pronunciation Coach (speech therapy)
Kate Khoury - Sensing Humour ‘in English’ (book)
Fiona Alexander Hamilton - The Tily-Wilma stories-learning English the alternative way (book)
For more information, contact Mark Moulding in the British Council Press Office on +44 (0) 207 389 4889 – or mark.moulding@britishcouncil.org
Notes to Editors:
The ELTons (British Council Innovation Awards) are offered to outstanding new language learning products and services, and aspiring ELT authors, that use innovative ideas to help learners achieve their goals, or to innovative research which has clear practical benefits for English language teaching (Macmillan Award). For more information please visit http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-eltons.
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We create international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and build trust between them worldwide. We work in over 100 countries in the arts, education and English and in 2010/11 we engaged face to face with 30 million people and reached 578 million. We have 6,800 staff worldwide. Our total turnover in 2010/11 was £693 million, of which our grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was £190 million. The remainder was generated through trading activities such as English language teaching. For every £1 of taxpayer money invested we earn £2.65 in additional income. For more information, please visit: www.britishcouncil.org.
