NATECLA Midlands Conference
Join colleagues from across the region for an inspiring afternoon of professional development at the Brasshouse Language Centre, located within the iconic Library of Birmingham. This face-to-face Midlands conference offers a valuable opportunity to reconnect with fellow ESOL practitioners, refresh your practice, and engage with high-quality training in a welcoming and vibrant setting.
Date: Friday 13th February 2026
Time: registration from 12.30pm, First session from 13:00
Cost: £15 members, £60 non-members.
Choose 2 workshops from:
Three activities to boost creativity in the classroom, by Dr Naeema Hann
The resilient classroom, by Michaela Hendricks
Mediation activities for language learning in ESOL, by Sam Pepper
Basic literacy reading and writing through ‘Language Experience’, by Mary Osmaston
Full workshop information below ⬇️⬇️⬇️
Thanks to Birmingham Adult Education Service for allowing us to run this event at Brasshouse Languages within the fabulous Library of Birmingham building.
You will have the opportunity to:
Take part in two hour long practical workshops from highly rated NATECLA trainers.
Browse the resources exhibition. Interested in sponsoring or exhibiting this event? Find out more about costs and booking here.
Chat with other ESOL practitioners from across the region over a cup of tea and a biscuit!
Kindly sponsored by Ascentis
Whether you are looking for practical classroom ideas, new resources, or simply the chance to network and share experiences, this conference promises a supportive and energising afternoon.
Schedule for the event
12.30 – 13:15 – Arrival, registration, exhibition and tea and biscuits
13:15 – 13:30 – Plenary
13:30 – 14:30 – Workshop session A
14:30 – 15:00 – Break
15:00 – 16:00 – Workshop session B (all workshops repeated)
16:00 – Home
Workshops and presenters
💡Three Activities to Boost Creativity in the Classroom
Naeema B. Hann
Always a journey, creativity opens spaces for learners to experiment with language in imaginative ways. Creative spaces are safe for mistakes, boosting learners’ confidence and motivation. Creativity also allows learners to connect with language, making it a tool to express who they are. This workshop is an opportunity to try out three activities to awaken learners’ creativity. We will explore personal food and gardening histories through creating a virtual or picture herb garden, use phone apps to develop a story and Mentimeter to create a map of their ideal city. This will be a practical hands-on session, developing creativity with paper-based and digital resources with opportunities to reflect on and adapt the activities for your classrooms.
About Naeema B.Hann
Naeema is a language teacher educator and trainer in migrant and higher education contexts, Urdu literacy in diaspora contexts and Urdu as a foreign language. Naeema led the EAP modules on the International Foundation Year for over ten years and was Course Leader for the MA English Language Teaching. She also led modules on Course Design, Assessment and Materials Development. Naeema’s research and publications draw on these areas, focusing on learner insights into strategies, motivation and identity positions. Currently Naeema is Co-Chair for the National Association for Teaching English and other Community Languages to Adults (NATECLA).
🌷 The Resilient Classroom
Michaela Hendriks
How can we help our students build greater resilience? Many of our students have been through difficult and traumatic experiences. Part of healing and learning is giving them opportunities to build resilience as part of trauma-informed teaching.
Meanwhile their trauma affects us too. As does their resilience. How do we benefit as teachers from seeing the strength and resilience in our students?
Building the resilient classroom - in this workshop you will have the chance to explore not only how the teacher can help the student, but also how much the students help us.
About Michaela Hendriks
Michaela is a passionate teacher and trainer with considerable experience working with refugee and migrant learners, both in the UK and abroad. She delivers inclusive, trauma-informed lessons for teenagers and adults that build language, confidence, and resilience. With a background in English, Classics and Development Studies, she has designed curriculum on literature and social justice. Her action research focuses on trauma-informed practice, and she is currently qualifying as a TISUK (Trauma Informed Schools UK) Practitioner. Michaela’s training helps ESOL and vocational staff better understand and respond to diverse learner needs. She mostly works at a large FE college but loves to travel!
✨ Mediation Activities for Language Learning in ESOL
Sam Pepper
Mediation is a practical strategy that encourages ESOL learners to communicate collaboratively in the classroom. The concept of Mediation has been adopted by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in recent years as a pillar of language proficiency. This session introduces mediation as a way to build communicative competence in ESOL classes, and as an approach to creating lessons that go beyond traditional lesson activities and conventional classroom interaction. Sam will outline the three CEFR mediation areas (mediating a text, mediating concepts, and mediating communication) and those who attend will try out and adapt some ready-to-use ESOL activities that can be used in classrooms to get learners developing all four language skills through mediation.
About Sam Pepper
Sam is a language learner, teacher, trainer and translator. As Advanced Learning Practitioner at a North London AdultEd college, he leads the CPD program and ESOL curriculum quality. He is also an active mentor and coach. He works freelance as a CELTA course tutor both online and in person. ESOL initiatives Sam has created include the ESOL Participatory Podcast, Peer Mentoring in ESOL and Self-Study workshops to encourage learners to embrace the identity as English language learners and users. Sam has written for ELT publications and platforms including IATEFL-SIG, FE Week and the Ascentis blog on innovative ESOL.
📚 Basic Literacy reading and writing through ‘Language Experience’
Mary Osmaston
We can only read what we can understand, so in this workshop we will look at how to build reading and writing skills from the English that your pre-entry/low literacy ESOL learners already know. The Language Experience approach is a tried and tested way to get your learners reading texts that are meaningful to them. We will also share ideas on how you can build up a set of reading booklets for your class.
About Mary Osmaston
Mary is an experienced ESOL teacher, manager and teacher trainer (CELTA, Level 5 ESOL and PGCE), and one of the trustees of NATECLA. She now works mainly in teacher development and quality improvement. She has led professional development workshops for ESOL teachers and teacher trainers for many years, focusing on practical teaching and learning as well as teachers’ knowledge about language and evidence-based approaches to language teaching.
We look forward to welcoming you to Birmingham for an engaging and practical NATECLA Midlands event.