4th EFL Young Learners Conference: EFL materials for young learners and teens

Fiona Copland is Professor of TESOL at the University of Stirling, Scotland, where she is also the Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Fiona has taught English in Nigeria, Hong Kong and Japan and has worked in teacher education in the UK for over twenty years. She has published widely including, Linguistic ethnography: collecting, analysing and presenting data (with Angela Creese), The Routledge handbook of teaching English to young learners and Young Learner Education (with Sue Garton), and Materials Development and The Coursebook and Beyond (with Steve Mann).

Joan Kang Shin, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Education at George Mason University and the Academic Program Coordinator of the Teaching Culturally & Linguistically Diverse & Exceptional Learners (TCLDEL) program. She specializes in teaching ESL/EFL to young learners and teenagers and is a co-author with Dr. JoAnn Crandall of Teaching Young Learners English: From Theory to Practice published by National Geographic Learning. Dr. Shin is a Series Editor, with Dr. Crandall, for Our World, National Geographic Learning’s program for young learners of English; Explore Our World, a light and lively version of Our World; Welcome to Our World, a three-level preprimary series for very young learners of English; and Impact, a five-level series for teenage learners of English. In 2016, Dr. Shin was named one of the 30 Up and Coming Leaders of TESOL by TESOL International Association.

Jamie Keddie started off with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He then went on to study at Leeds College of Music in Yorkshire, England. But he found his true passion as an English teacher in Barcelona. Jamie is well-known for his work on image, video and story in language teaching and language learning. He is the founder of Lessonstream.org, the well-known resource site for teachers. He is the author of Images (Oxford University Press, 2009), Bringing Online Video into the Classroom (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Videotelling: YouTube Stories for the Classroom (Lessonstream Books, 2016). Jamie has shared his insight and ideas with teachers and educators in over 40 different countries. But this will be his very first time in Chile. He is really looking forward to meeting you!

Flor Toledo-Sandoval works as an ESL teacher at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaiso. She holds an MA in Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from UCL Institute of Education, University College London. She started her career 8 years ago teaching English in subsidized and private schools after graduating from Universidad Católica de Temuco. Some of her main research interests lie in the areas of second language acquisition and teaching English to young learners.

Brian Tomlinson has worked as a teacher, teacher trainer, curriculum developer, film extra, football coach and university academic in Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, UK, Vanuatu and Zambia, as well as giving presentations in over seventy countries. He is Founder and President of MATSDA (the international Materials Development Association), an Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of Liverpool, a Professor at the Shanghai International Studies University and a TESOL Professor at Anaheim University. He has over one hundred publications on materials development, language through literature, the teaching of reading, language awareness and teacher development, including Applied Linguistics and Materials Development, SLA Theory and Materials Development for Language Learning and The Complete Guide to the Theory and Practice of Materials Development for Language Learning (with Hitomi Masuhara). He is currently working with Hitomi Masuhara on SLA Applied: Applying Second Language Acquisition Research to Language Learning for Cambridge University Press.