Natalya Eydelman: Yes, We Can!

Room AVALON

World Clock Sun 11:30am GMT 12:30pm London, 1:30pm Paris, 8:30pm Tokyo, 7:30am New York

In my presentation I'll share my experience in teaching an advanced level academic writing course taught to EFL students majoring in Linguistics. I'll focus on a selection of activities helping students to improve their writing skills, with the emphasis on activities aimed at their better understanding of the essence of plagiarism and learning to write without it.
The purpose of my session is to share with the audience how I teach an academic writing course to EFL students at an upper-intermediate to advanced level of English who have no prior experience in taking a blended course as well as little or no experience in writing documented essays. It will focus on the description of activities designed to help them learn the essence of plagiarism as well a set of activities resulting in their learning to write without plagiarising. First the participants will be offered a series of excerpts taken from my students' writing for analysis as to whether they are free from plagiarism. Then, they will be given a set of passages to identify whether they are quoted, summarized or paraphrased correctly. After that I will share the techniques I use to teach the students to quote, summarize and paraphrase easier. In addition, the workshop participants will be introduced to a selection of Plagiarism Checkers. They will use one of the following tools: http: //www. plagium. com, http: //www. plagiarism. uk. com, http: //www. doccop. com, http: //www. dustball. com/cs/plagiarism. checker or http: //www. plagiarismdetect. com to get an idea about their respective advantages and drawbacks. Next the participants will be asked to work out a set of tips based on their own experience and that gained during the workshop to help them deal with the issue of plagiarism in their students' writing.

Natalya Eydelman

I am a teacher of English from Russia. Teaching is my profession but also my hobby. I have been teaching a variety of English courses at Novosibirsk State University (Russia), including Academic Writing, ICT Methods and General English courses for over 15 years. I am very interested in using the technology in the classroom and helping my students and colleagues to benefit from it. I have participated in a number of teacher development events in Russia and abroad. In 2010 I completed an MA (TESOL & ICT) on a Hornby scholarship from the British Council. My dissertation was devoted to the study of peer-editing using asynchronous tools. This is the field in which I am continuing my research at present with the focus on raising the students’ motivation on mastering their writing skills. I have presented the results of my research at a number of national and international conferences, including IATEFL (2010-2014) My presentations there include Peer commentary made better, Peer-editing using MS Word, blogs, and wikis: how to make the most of them?, Using writing portfolios in Academic Writing courses among others.