From classroom presence to classroom as Ccommunity

Based on my own research, work as a teacher trainer and ongoing reflections on classroom practice, this opening plenary looked beyond mainstream language teaching methodology and enquired how and why teachers could apply a number of principles found in certain other practices and theories to adopt a more multi-disciplinary approach in the classroom thereby making the learning experience more inclusive and meaningful. The key areas referred to come mainly from social psychology and sociolinguistics: Flow Theory (Csikszentmihalyi); Neuro Linguistic Programming (Churches & Terry) and Politeness Theory (Brown & Levinson). It was then proposed that a teacher's interpersonal skills and her/his ability to create a sense of community inside the classroom could be explored in training using principles found in theatre and improvisation.