The British Council today announced the shortlist for the ELTons 2014, the annual awards celebrating innovation in English language teaching (ELT) from around the world.
Now in their twelfth year, the awards which are run by the British Council and sponsored by Cambridge English Language Assessment, are the only international awards to recognise innovative ELT products, services and research in English language teaching around the world.
The awards are organised into six categories: Excellence in Course Innovation, Innovation in Learner Resources, Innovation in Teacher Resources, Digital Innovation, Local Innovation and The Macmillan Education Award for New Talent in Writing. (The full list of nominees is below.)
There will be one winner in each category and all the winners will be announced at a ceremony in central London on 22 May.
This year, our Local Innovation category includes nominations for products aimed at learners in Cyprus, Poland and Turkey.
Anna Searle, Director English Language at British Council said: “British Council, along with our sponsors, Cambridge English Language Assessment and Macmillan Education, are pleased to announce the ELTons 2014 shortlist. Once again, we have been impressed by the incredibly high-standard of applications and are delighted to be recognising innovative ELT professionals making a significant contribution across many English language fields, for example in Special Educational Needs (SEN), English for Medicine and ESOL.
“We continue to witness significant growth in the demand for English language learning and teaching, with more users of innovative approach to language learning and teaching being adopted to respond to the needs of learners. The ELTons recognise new innovations and the impact these can have for English language learners, meeting demand and reflecting new learning styles. These awards are a great way to support and showcase the creativity in the sector, and to help to bring new ideas to the wider ELT community. We are looking forward to the awards ceremony in May 2014 to celebrate the new ideas that will shape English language teaching in the years to come.”
This year the criteria for the Macmillan Education Award for New Talent in Writing have been broadened in recognition of the rich variety of resources available to teachers. Nominees are aspiring ELT authors who may have chosen to self-publish or make their voices heard through different media such as blogs, eBooks or within their own institutions.
The British Council Lifetime Achievement Award, now in its fourth year, awards an ELT professional who has made a substantial contribution to the ELT profession throughout their career.
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 2014 nominees in full:
Excellence in Course Innovation
Access EAP: Frameworks - Garnet Education Dyslexia for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (Dystefl) - Dystefl Project
ESOL National 4 - K2L Ltd
OUR WORLD - National Geographic Learning
Picaro - Kaplan International English
TEDDY EDDIE AND HIS SOCK - TEDDY EDDIE M.DUCHNIK D.KUBICA
Skillful - Macmillan Education
Innovation in learner resources
BreakingNewsEnglish.com - Breaking News English.com
Academic Skills Series – Collins
Discover our Amazing World CLIL READERS - Express Publishing
How to speak English; The pronunciation App - Kaplan International English
International Management English series: Leading People, Managing Projects, Managing Change, Working Virtually
Delta Publishing
Listen Up – Reallyenglish
Innovation in teacher resources
Digital Literacies - Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
Disabled Access Friendly - The Disabled Access Friendly campaign
Language Learning with Technology: Ideas for Integrating Technology in the Classroom - Cambridge University Press
Language Teaching Insights From Other Fields: Sports, Arts, Design and More - TESOL
My First Digital Journey - Jennifer Verschoor & Özge Karaoğlu
Phonology for Listening: Teaching the Stream of Speech - Speech in Action, eBook by Firsty Group.
Digital innovation
Doctors Speak Up: Communication and Language Skills for International Medical Graduates - Robyn Woodward-Kron
English Digital Kitchen (EDK) - English Digital Kitchen
English English – Dialogics
Speak and Learn Business English - Phone English
IELTS Skills app – Macmillan Education
The Big Picture App – Richmond
Urban Chronicles - Paul Driver
Local innovation
An English Language Learning Programme for Young Learners / ‘Friends’ - Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture
Earth & People 1 - SOP Oświatowiec Toruń
Istanbul Sehir University Corpus - Aslı Abak Şen, Damla Okay, Sam Cosgrove, Emrah Akkurt
P.A.L.S Scheme, (Promoting Acceptance of Language Students) - Country Cousins Ltd
Summer EAL MOOC - English Online Inc.
The Fair List - Tessa Woodward
The Macmillan Education Award for New Talent in Writing
Compass (Upper Intermediate) - Elizabeth Pinard
Flip, follow and feedback - Laura Nanna
Magic Book 2 - Thomai Alexiou
PLAYDATES Let's play English - Maria Teresa Marino
Rock and Learn - Taera Shaikh
The LexicalPortfolio Course - G.H.Heiman
For more information, please contact Kristen McNicoll in the British Council Press Office on +44 (0)207 389 4967 or kristen.mcnicoll@britishcouncil.org.
ELTons
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.
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and build trust between them worldwide.
We work in more than 100 countries and our 7,000 staff – including 2,000 teachers – work with thousands of professionals and policy makers and millions of young people every year by teaching English, sharing the arts and delivering education and society programmes.
We are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter. A core publically-funded grant provides less than 25 per cent of our turnover which last year was £781 million. The rest of our revenues are earned from services which customers around the world pay for, through education and development contracts and from partnerships with public and private organisations. All our work is in pursuit of our charitable purpose and supports prosperity and security for the UK and globally.
For more information, please visit: www.britishcouncil.org.