Emily Bryson ELT

Sketchnote of a plenary by Laura Holland at PeruTESOL in 2024. The session is titled Maintaining Human Connection the Age of A.I. The visual notes include simple hand drawn icons and text summaries of the key takeaways.

Sketchnotes from PeruTESOL24

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.

Emily Bryson ELT front cover of Sketchnoting for English Language Teachers free guide
Emily Bryson ELT sketchnoting for ELT + build your visual vocabulary. Learn to bring your notes to life with simple drawings.

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/

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