Training Course for Teachers of Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE) in Madrid

Workshop “Humor is a very serious thing: laughter as an ally in learning”

Humor is a very useful tool to enrich the learning of Spanish as a foreign language from a communicative, playful and intercultural perspective. During this workshop, the emotional and linguistic benefits provided by its didactic use will be analyzed, as well as the different typologies. Dynamics and resources that complement the activities will be presented, along with selected proposals from SGEL manuals, always with the aim of introducing humor in a respectful and effective way. It will be demonstrated how humor, used as a pedagogical resource, favors participation, stimulates creativity and contributes to the development of communicative skills in the ELE classroom.

Speaker: Estefanía Velasco
Estefanía Velasco has a degree in Modern Languages ​​and Literatures and in Primary Education from the Complutense University of Madrid. In addition, he has a master’s degree in Spanish as a Second/Foreign Language from the Universidade do Minho. Passionate about teaching, as a teacher she has taught Spanish for foreigners in different schools in various courses and levels. She currently works at the SGEL publishing house as a pedagogical advisor and trainer.

Workshop “Do we attend to diversity? Of course!”

Diversity in the classrooms is materialized in each of the students who make them up, so it is the task of the teachers to try to take measures that serve to meet the needs of all the personalities that are in the class and thus capture their attention and motivate them.

Therefore, in this workshop there will be a brief review of the types of diversity that can be found in the classroom. Likewise, taking into account that the measures are very diverse depending on the characteristics of each student, some proposals will be presented that have to do with materials that can help teachers when planning their class with adolescents. 

Speaker: Mónica María Colas

She graduated in English Studies from the University of Granada and completed a master’s degree in Hispanic Language and Literature from Seoul National University. His career as a teacher has developed at Seoul National University and the Hankuk Cyber ​​University of Foreign Studies (Seoul). In addition, she has collaborated with the Cervantes Institute as an examiner for the Diploma of Spanish as a Foreign Language (DELE). She currently works as a teaching advisor in the Training Department of the Edelsa and Anaya ELE publishing houses.

Workshop “Learning Spanish inside and outside the classroom: redefining the formal contexts of ELE”

Let’s imagine a Spanish student who gets hooked on a series of Spanish-speaking origin and ends up watching it in its original version. Afterwards, he becomes interested in the real life of his actors/actresses and watches videos on TikTok about them. Then you download an app to chat with other users about the series. And, without realizing it, he begins to use the language with some ease… without ever having set foot in a classroom. Where then are the formal contexts with programs, curricula, classrooms and teachers? Do formal teaching contexts make sense in this new landscape of immediate, spontaneous and personalized learning? We will stop and observe the contributions of the formal environment today through issues ranging from cognitive load to guided discovery, from formative assessment to the balance between input and output, we will explore the pillars that have sustained formal teaching. We will explore which of these elements are transferable to more open contexts, which need to be preserved, and which need to be reinvented.

Speaker: Jesús Herrera

Jesús Herrera is a teacher trainer and head of the ELE/EL2 teacher training department at the Diversión publishing house. He has a degree in English Philology and Slavic Philology from the University of Granada and an expert in ELE teaching from the Nebrija University. He has worked since 1998 as a Spanish teacher in various institutions in the United Kingdom, Russia, Serbia and Spain. Since 2005 he has worked as a full professor at the Cervantes Institutes in Moscow and Belgrade, where he has participated in academic projects about student autonomy, knowledge management and improving the quality of a center. Additionally, he has worked in the Teacher Training Department of the Cervantes Institute at its headquarters in Madrid, Spain, where he has coordinated online and in-person training courses. https://difusion.com/

Workshop “Lighting up the Spanish classroom: active methodologies for teaching living Spanish”

When we got to the classroom we asked ourselves, should I follow a different approach? Is there one that is more effective with my students? Every time we enter the networks we find a new approach, method or methodology, but few take a step back to see the complete pedagogical picture. For this reason, we believe that there is no single methodology that always works, but there are different methodologies that we can combine in the classroom to be effective. That is where Active Methodologies can be those necessary tools to be able to adapt to different contexts and different student profiles.
Join us in this workshop to discover how you can implement active learning with your students through examples and dynamics that you can use the next day of class. We are waiting for you!

Speaker: Gabriel Neila González

Gabriel Neila González has a doctorate in Education from the International University of La Rioja (UNIR) and a degree in English Philology from the University of Alcalá, an Official Master’s Degree in Linguistics Applied to Spanish Language Teaching from the University of Jaén, a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Modern Languages ​​from the University of Northumbria at Newcastle (United Kingdom) and a Diploma of Advanced Studies within the doctoral program in Modern Languages ​​at the University of Alcalá. He has been a Spanish teacher for foreigners since 2005. He has worked as a reader at Thammasat University (Thailand) within the MAEC-AECID program. He is currently a ELE professor, professor at the Nebrija University and pedagogical advisor and trainer at the Edinumen publishing house.

Workshop “Preparing for the DELE is a game (for all ages)”

We can turn language certification exams (such as the DELE) into a fun game and an entertaining, dynamic, and creative classroom activity: it’s simply a matter of using the structure of assessment tasks in a teaching activity, and that’s what we’ll be sharing in this workshop, where we’ll also offer some techniques for incorporating games into task completion, reviewing lesson units, and individual exercises all of which not only make class more engaging but also help students acquire preparation strategies while allowing teachers to assess the group’s progress in teaching and learning.

Speaker: Ernesto Puertas

Ernesto Puertas is a staff member at the Instituto Cervantes in Warsaw. He holds a degree in Philosophy and Letters (Philology) from the University of Granada and a European Doctorate in Hispanic Philology from the National Distance Education University (UNED).

He has taught at the universities of La Rioja (Spain) and Tampere (Finland) and directed the “Master’s Program in Teaching Methodology for Spanish Language and Culture Teachers in Foreign Educational Institutions” (University of La Rioja Foundation).

He serves on the editorial board of the Ministry of Education’s online journal *RedELE* and has published a dozen books and around fifty research articles in the field of philology. He is a co-author of the *¡Dale al DELE!* series (levels A1 through C1) and the *¡Dale al DELE escolar!* series (levels A1 and A2-B1), as well as the *En Acción A2* textbook and the teacher’s guides for *Generación 3.0* (levels A1 and A2), all published by enClave-ELE.