Pre-conference Workshops
Book into one of our preconference workshops to make the most of your trip to the 2025 English Australia Conference.
Workshop 1
TIME: 10:00am – 1:00pm
DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
VENUE: English Australia member college
*a short walk from Pullman Brisbane
PRICE: $40 (English Australia members); $100 (non-members)
For those working in the Post-entry English and Academic Language (PEAL) space, responsible use of GenAI is the new, inescapable issue. This session aims to build the skills, knowledge and confidence you need to provide effective support to your students as they navigate these waters.
This practical workshop unpacks the ways students are using AI and asks you to design interventions that support the responsible use of GenAI when responding to assessments.
Suitable for novices, thought-leaders and everyone in-between, this session aims to provide practical and applicable ideas for you to use. The workshop is aimed at people working on pathway/direct entry programs who are preparing students for that next step and professionals who support students from within universities (Learning Advisors, embedded staff, etc).
Hosted by the English Australia Post-entry English and Academic Language Special Interest Group (PEAL SIG).
Hosted by the English Australia Post-entry English and Academic Language Special Interest Group
Presented By:
Christopher Newcombe
Chris is an academic language and learning specialist at The University of Queensland, where he leads strategic initiatives to enhance academic communication and critical thinking skills among international and domestic students. With a diverse background in English language education and student services, Chris works in partnership with faculties to embed language development into curricula and assessment. He is currently leading cross-faculty projects focused on embedding language specialists within academic programs, enhancing academic skills at the program level and developing training for academic staff in adoption of inclusive teaching practices for international students.
Christopher Nuttal:
Kit is an Academic Manager at UQ College.
Workshop 2
TIME: 10:00am – 1:00pm
DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
VENUE: English Australia member college
*a short walk from Pullman Brisbane
PRICE: $95 (English Australia members); $200 (non-members)
Highly interactive 3-hour workshop designed specially for the ELICOS sector.
This workshop will introduce the key elements of intercultural competence for international education including concepts of culture, cultural self awareness, values dimensions,
communication styles, teaching and learning across cultures and activities that can be applied to in diverse classrooms.
Learning objectives
During this program attendees will be able to:
- Define intercultural competence
- Identify the key skills, knowledge and attitudes needed to develop intercultural competence
- Describe the different layers of culture and how the values and beliefs shape our expectations for teaching and learning
- Gain a variety of activities to use in diverse classrooms and techniques to suspend judgement in an intercultural situation
Resource: All workshop attendees will receive an E-workbook with activities to use immediately or adapt for use with students
Workshop is aligned to English Australia CPD Framework Teaching Competency 9: Intercultural Communication.
Presented by Value Learning, Intercultural Specialists
Value Learning Intercultural Specialists is committed to advancing global competence and fostering intercultural understanding. Value Learning provides consultation, facilitation, and program design and development to business, education, youth, non-profit, and government organisations.
Founders and Directors Fran Baxter and Marcela Lapertosa bring over 20 years each of experience in delivering successful cross-cultural programs and designing interventions for intercultural development. Projects and consulting specialising in international education, student mobility, learning and development design, training skills, and project management. They have a strong focus on evaluating all programs to maximise learning.
Hosted by the English Australia Team
Presented By:
Frances Baxter is an intercultural educator who has designed and facilitated learning programs for business, volunteers, students, and educators across Australia and in a diverse range of countries worldwide. Over the last decade she has designed and managed government funded projects including the Australia-Indonesia Youth Exchange Program for DFAT, and the Victorian Young Leaders Programs to China, India and Indonesia on behalf of the Victorian Department of Education, Global Competence for IES Abroad for University students in Japan. Fran is a qualified administrator of a range of intercultural assessment tools including the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale, Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), GlobeSmart, Global Competence Inventory(GCI)and the Inclusive Behaviours Inventory (IBI).
Marcela Lapertosa is a Cross Cultural Psychologist with a passion for fostering intercultural understanding. Marcela is also an intercultural facilitator and trainer who has travelled the world providing intercultural learning training and coaching to students, host families, volunteers, executives, and educators. Marcela led the development of multiple intercultural learning curricula to enhance study abroad experiences including the AFS Global Competence Certificate (GCC), a blended learning program for 18+ study abroad participants. Over the last few years Marcela has been an advocate for Global Citizenship education organising and speaking at several conferences around the world. She is on the executive team for the World Council on Intercultural and Global Competence and she is a former faculty at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication and is also a certified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory.
Workshop 3
TIME: 1:30pm – 4:30pm
DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
VENUE: English Australia member college
*a short walk from Pullman Brisbane
PRICE: $40 (English Australia members); $100 (non-members)
With the growing risk of test content exposure and online sharing by students, ELICOS providers face increasing pressure to ensure the security and validity of language assessments. One effective response is to empower teachers to create multiple versions of high-quality reading and listening assessments that can be regularly rotated within learning management systems or used as part of integrated assessments.
This workshop equips academic managers, program leaders and senior teachers with the tools and strategies needed to train teachers in developing valid and level-appropriate reading and listening assessments.
Participants will explore a structured approach to teacher development through interactive, hands-on activities. The session covers:
- Core principles of validity and assessment security
- How to guide teachers in writing reading and listening texts and items, including ways to use AI and other technologies for content creation
- How to review and refine items using collaborative review and basic statistical analysis
- How to plan and deliver practical, teacher-focused professional learning
Participants will leave with adaptable resources and a clear action plan to support sustainable assessment development within their institutions
Hosted by the Assessment Special Interest Group
Presented By:
Phuong Tran is Manager of Assessment from Monash College. She specialises in educational assessment and measurement. Phuong has extensive experience in assessment and rubrics development, validation and benchmarking, language teaching, curriculum development and management, and teacher training. Her current interests are transition education and quality assessment design in the face of generative artificial intelligence.
