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I feel so honoured to have been invited to present at the Anglo Conference in Montevideo. It is a city that is close to my heart, as my husband and I visited in 2005 on our first adventure to Latin America. I am delighted to say that the Choripan at Mercado del Puerto is just as delicious as it was 20 years ago!

I was representing Nile and the focus of my session was accessible learning. I shared my experiences of teaching mixed ability classes and simple ways teachers can tweak their lessons to support learners and challenge fast finishers. You can see a sneak peek by clicking the image below:

The congress had sessions from ELT legends such as Jeremy Harmer, Susan Hillyard, Claudia Rey and Ben Goldstein. Each of their sessions was delivered with expertise and enthusiasm. The room was buzzing.

And, of course, I took some sketchnotes. I really enjoy getting my coloured pens out and the challenge of summarising my notes to A5 size. I don’t NEED to squash everything in to this size – I could also use A4 and not limit myself this way, but I like the cleanness of it, and it forces me to focus on key takeaways.

One of the things I love most about sketchnoting, is showing the presenters at the end of the session. Here’s an image someone captured of me sharing my creation with Susan Hillyard and Claudia Rey. I love their expressions of delight:

If you’re familiar with my sketchnotes, you’ll notice they use the same icons again and again. These icons make up my ‘visual vocabulary’, or images I can draw as if I was simply writing a word! I started developing this visual vocabulary just a few years ago. It’s as easy as learning any other language! It just takes time an practice. To get started, download my free sketchnoting guide here.

Here are my visual summaries from the conference. For more detail, you can read my blog post for Ellii:

Ben Goldstein – Where do I fit in now?

Susan Hillyard and Claudia Rey – Celebrating 90 years of teaching and learning

Ines Stefani – Reading is breathing IN, Writing is breathing OUT.

Jeremy Harmer – When we sing together

I hope you enjoyed my sketchnotes. You can find a short summary of each talk on my Anglo Congress for blog post for Ellii.

if you’d like more ideas to get started with sketchnoting, check out my FREE GUIDE or sign up to my ONLINE COURSE! It fits perfectly with my Build your Visual Vocabulary module, which is designed to boost your confidence with simple doodles.

If you’d like me to create a sketchnote summary of one of your workshops, webinars or plenaries, just get in touch. I can create digital or analogue notes. You can see examples of my digital sketchnotes here: www.EmilyBrysonELT.com/sketchnoting/

I had the most incredible time at PeruTESOL in Arequipa. I was in the area around the time so thought it was the perfect opportunity to connect with ELT Professionals from this part of the world.

The conference was absolutely brilliant. Loads of inspiring sessions, topics, speakers and humans. There was even karaoke, singing, dancing, drawing and delicious food!

As usual, I took some sketchnotes. It has been a while since I’ve had the joy of creating anything analogue for a while. In recent times, I’ve been creating more digital commissions. Before the event, I had to replenish my eraseable pen supply. I was delighted to find them in the very first shop I visited.

What I love about sketchnoting with pen and paper is that it forces me to REALLY think about the key takeaways, and how fit them all into an A5 notepad. It also makes be kinder to myself and embrace the imperfections. Digital tools allow editing, re-sizing, erasing and re-drawing. With pen and paper, once it’s on the page, it pretty much has to stay on the page!

Throughout the event, many delegates were intrigued by what I was doing. They wanted to take photos of my finished piece and were inspired to try it out themselves. They also noted how useful a skill it is for creating engaging whiteboards and for supporting learners to take notes and pay attention.

And, of course, each speaker made gleeful noises when they saw my work. Nothing can beat putting a smile on someone’s face! Especially after they’ve been under pressure to perform a plenary or workshop they’ve been preparing for weeks.

You’ll notice that my sketchnotes use simple drawings. These are part of my ‘visual vocabulary’. Just like learning a language, I have developed this visual vocabulary over time. I started out creating a ‘visual dictionary’ of hand drawn icons. Feel free to start your sketchnoting journey today by copying these icons into their own special notebook. For more tips, download my free sketchnoting guide here.

Sandra Story – The Past, Present and Future of ELT

Jaime Ancajima – Thinking & Speaking out of the box!

Dr. Kathleen Jogan (presented by Maria Brown) – 31+ Tech Tools for Teachers

Jamie Duncan – The Mindset of Successful English Speakers

Jesse Dylal – A.I. & ELT: Preparing for the future

Laura Holland – Maintaining human connection in the age of A.I

Randall Davis – Re-imagining Teaching – from Crisis to Creativity

James Papple – Transforming ELT & Empowering Educators with A.I.

Joe McVeigh – Looking In, Loooking Out: learning from ourselves & others

Roger W. Gee – All about affixes

Maria Brown – Graphic Organisers for Reluctant Writers

Laura G. Holland – Songs for all ages: Milking material for maximum benefit

I hope you enjoyed my sketchnote summaries. I especially hope that you took the time to copy some of these icons to a notebook of your own. This is a great way to start your sketchnoting journey. Feel free to share them on socials and tag me @EmilyBrysonELT!

if you’d like more ideas to get started with sketchnoting, check out my FREE GUIDE or sign up to my ONLINE COURSE! It fits perfectly with my Build your Visual Vocabulary module, which is designed to boost your confidence with simple doodles.

If you’d like me to create a sketchnote summary of one of your workshops, webinars or plenaries, just get in touch. I can create digital or analogue notes. You can see examples of my digital sketchnotes here: www.EmilyBrysonELT.com/sketchnoting/

There’s much more to graphic facilitation than just simple doodles. It’s not just drawing in or with a class. There is a whole world of visual metaphors, storytelling, templates, visual vocabulary containers and all sorts of other magic!

One of the most important tools is the visual template. In this post, I’ll explore what a visual template is and why they are so much fun to use.

What is a visual template?

A visual template is a graphic facilitation tool. It creates a hand-drawn space for people to add ideas, thoughts, information or doodles. The aim is to use it to guide a task, project, meeting, class or to help solve a problem.

In many ways, visual templates are similar (or perhaps even are) graphic organisers. A graphic organiser provides a space for people to answer questions or focus their thoughts too. They tend to take the form of tables, diagrams, or a series boxes.

Since starting my graphic facilitation journey, and applying it to all things English Language Teaching, I’ve been pondering what the difference between a graphic organiser and a visual template is…

What’s the difference between a graphic organiser and a visual template?

I’ve spoken to quite a few other visual practitioners at length on this and have come to the conclusion that:

• a graphic organiser uses simple boxes, circles, squares and diagrams to create a space for thinking. They can be quite plain, simple and functional. They usually have text to guide thinking because there are no other visual clues.

For example:

while…

• a visual template uses visual metaphors, storytelling and hand drawn icons to provide an inspiring space to add ideas. There’s an added magic to a visual template because, instead of a box, a visual template will use an icon such as a mountain, a hot air balloon or a lightbulb as a blank space to add ideas. They don’t need to use text to guide thinking, because the imagery allows the brain to connect with the story behind it.

In short, visual templates are snazzier, more fun and more visually engaging than graphic organisers, in my humble opinion.

Here’s an example from my book Pathways to Success: Visual Tools for Goal-Setting, Self-Evaluation and Progession.

In this visual template, there are a few visual metaphors. These help to de-sensitise tricky topics, inspire and add a fun visual story.

• The mountain – is often used to signify difficulties, challenges or working towards a goal. The summit of the mountain could be an aspiration or objective.
• The hot air balloon – can be used to represent a method of reaching goals. Adding hot air, positive thoughts or tasks can help the balloon rise and move upwards. Adding more weight, baggage or negative thoughts could have the opposite effect.

The beauty of visual templates is that they can be used in many ways for various purposes. I’ve used the mountain in class, in webinars and to plan my own business. It’s perfect for printing, drawing, interactive whiteboards and online use. And it can be adapted for personal goal-setting, business goal-setting, reflecting on wellbeing and a multitude of other topics, so it’s a winner in terms of minimising preparation time!

If you’d like more ideas like this, you can buy my Pathways to Success: Visual Tools for Goal-Setting, Self-Evaluation and Progession. It has sixteen visual templates which you can use, re-use, adapt and re-purpose in as many ways as you can possibly think. I’ve provided some usage notes to get you started, as well as a printer-friendly and a colour version of each template.

If you’d like to try before you buy, check out this webinar recording (start at 7.45 mins to skip the intro).

And, if you’d like to create your own visual tools like this, I have various courses which can help you. You might want to start with Dis(?)Organised Graphics and Graphic Organisers with the fabulous Clare Hayward, where we share some cool teaching tips on using canva, graphic organisers and visual templates!

I was absolutely honoured to be asked to visually record the IATEFL Young Learners’ Special Interest Group Webconference in January.

It was an incredible event, with a vast array of top ELT Professionals sharing their expertise.

I had the pleasure of visually recording the following sessions:

• The power of self-regulation: a lesson from Captain Marvel by Andre Hedlund
• Unlocking potential: exploring play based learning for young learners by Marie Davou
• Making English language learning socially just by Dario Banegas
• Empowering Education: nurturing hope and equity in underserved communities by Anju Moses and Dinesha Sinaratne
• Understanding & embracing uniqueness: nurturing mental wellbeing in education by Nicky Francis & Candace Donovan
• Extending the walls of the classroom: across the sky by Michael Lacey Freeman

Here’s a quick peek at what I created. If you’d like to know more about each session, sketchnoting or my design choices, check out the blog post I wrote for IATEFL YLTSIG. You can also see the sketchnotes in large size there too.

If you’d like me to create a sketchnote of one of your sessions, or an event you’re organising, just get in touch via socials or my contact form. I also take commissions for summarising complex reports and research OR making presentation slides snazzy!

I think IATEFL 2022 may have been my favourite IATEFL so far! A bold statement, I know. But:

– I raised over £2000 for Amala Education by cycling from Glasgow.

– I saw Voices (the coursebook series I’ve been working on,) in all its finery on the National Geographic Learning stand.

– My session on Graphic Facilitation for ELT was well received, as was my Pecha Kucha.

– Doroth Zemach of Wayzgoose Press sold every copy of my 50 Ways to Teach Life Skills book at the Indie Authors stand.

– I caught up with long lost friends and met people I know from working online.

– I had the opportunity to create lots of sketchnotes.

Usually, when I create sketchnotes, I’ll use my touchscreen laptop or an A3 sheet of paper. This year, I cycled to IATEFL so I didn’t have such a luxury. Instead I had a black pen and a bendy A5 notepad. But, as I keep telling everyone, they’re not art, they’re communication. So here they are!

Meri is a world changer. I wish she didn’t need to stand up at an International TEFL conference and talk about how so called ‘non-native teachers’ are being discriminated against for jobs. But the sad truth remains that they are. A lot. English is a global language yet still, so called ‘native speakers’ get preferential treatment. I hope that this changes in the very near future. After all, 80% of English language users are ‘non-native speakers’. The demographic of language teachers should reflect this reality. Meri, myself and all the Voices team are with you!

The answer? Not very. This is something else that needs to change. The problem is, how do we change it?

Massive thanks to every single one of these speakers. I loved every second of your sessions. You are all amazing at what you do. Keep up the good work.

If you like these sketchnotes, why not join one of my courses and have a go yourself? Click the link to find out more! 

https://www.emilybrysonelt.com/all-courses/