The Queensland Institute

The Queensland Institute Specialising in teacher development, we support language learning and teaching goals globally. The Queensland Institute Pty Ltd
ABN 39 648 028 755

🇯🇵 How can we motivate young learners to use more English — without adding more to an already busy curriculum?That was t...
07/09/2026

🇯🇵 How can we motivate young learners to use more English — without adding more to an already busy curriculum?

That was the focus of our recent online workshop program with elementary school English teachers from Kagoshima, Japan.

We explored short, practical activities for active learning and classroom management that teachers can easily incorporate into their lessons — and had plenty of fun trying them out!

We loved the enthusiasm and creative ideas our Japanese colleagues brought to the session. We can’t wait for the next instalment of our work together.

We’re also looking forward to being back in Japan later this month, connecting with colleagues in Tokyo and Kyoto across different sectors of English education. Ganbarimasu! 🇯🇵🇦🇺

🎤 New to conference presenting? You already know more than you think."Many of the things that make someone a good presen...
28/08/2026

🎤 New to conference presenting? You already know more than you think.

"Many of the things that make someone a good presenter are things good teachers already know how to do."

Our co-founder, Fiona Wiebusch QI, wrote 'The Practice of Presenting: 10 Conference Tips for Teachers' with early-career teachers in mind. It is also a useful refresher for anyone preparing to share their work with colleagues.

Fiona offers practical advice on how to:

✅ start with your audience
✅ write a strong abstract and title
✅ find the story in your work
✅ build in interaction by “asking before you tell”
✅ rehearse, refine and simplify your presentation
✅ create slides that support rather than compete with you

The article also includes:

📋 a quick 10-point preparation checklist
🎥 a micro-reflection featuring Vicki Bos' TEDxUQ talk

🔖 Save it for your next presentation, or share it with a colleague preparing for their first.

🔗 Read the article:
https://thequeenslandinstitute.com/news/the-practice-of-presenting-conference-tips

💬 What advice would you give someone presenting at a conference for the first time?



English Australia I International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) I TESOL International Association I CamTESOL Conference I Korea TESOL News I JALT - Japan Association for Language Teaching I TESOL Conferences I Iatefl I

What does responsible leadership in the age of AI look like across different education systems? 🌏That was the question a...
17/08/2026

What does responsible leadership in the age of AI look like across different education systems? 🌏

That was the question at the heart of our first AI Global Dialogues 2026 session, sponsored by INACAP Chile and facilitated by The Queensland Institute, Australia.

Educators and leaders joined us from Chile, Brazil, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Indonesia and Australia to share how their institutions are responding to AI.

Together, we explored AI governance, ethical considerations, policy implementation and institutional approaches, comparing experiences across countries and contexts.

A special thank you to our two guest speakers:

Professor Paula Tavares Pinto, UNESP - Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil, shared UNESP’s practical approach to responsible AI use, including a framework distinguishing when AI use is permitted, prohibited or conditional, while maintaining human responsibility, transparency and academic integrity.

📖 Explore Prof. Pinto’s book on Corpora and Artificial Intelligence:
https://www.letraria.net/corpora-and-artificial-intelligence-for-academic-students/

Professor Ting-Chia Hsu, from 國立臺灣師範大學 National Taiwan Normal University shared Taiwan’s evolving approach to AI capability in higher education, balancing the ability to learn and solve problems with AI with distinctly human capabilities including judgement, agency, empathy and creativity.

📖 Explore Prof. Hsu’s white paper on AI in Education Policy:
https://en.ntnu.edu.tw/news-show.php?id=13058

Across two very different institutional contexts, a common theme emerged: effective AI leadership is not simply about adopting new tools. It requires clear governance, thoughtful implementation and deliberate decisions about the role we want AI, and people, to play.

Thank you to everyone who contributed so openly, and to INACAP Chile for making this exciting new international exchange possible. Next month, we move from leadership to learning and teaching. Stay tuned!

Every learner deserves the opportunity to communicate what they know, think and can do at school.The Queensland Institut...
11/08/2026

Every learner deserves the opportunity to communicate what they know, think and can do at school.

The Queensland Institute was delighted to contribute to Independent Schools Queensland's professional learning program recently, 'Identifying, Assessing and Supporting EAL/D Learners Using the NLLIA ESL Bandscales.'

Ronnele Sanders, EAL/D Coordinator at St John's Anglican College, opened the day with a compelling observation:

“All school learning is assessed through language.”

This has profound implications for teaching and learning in every classroom.

At QI, we believe language is about communication. If learning is expressed and assessed through language, effective teaching begins with making the language demands of learning visible, so all students can participate, express ideas, and communicate their understanding with confidence.

The strategies language specialists use to support EAL/D learners don't just benefit multilingual learners. They can strengthen learning for every student.

We explore what EAL/D expertise teaches us about inclusive practice in our latest blog:

📖 Making the Language of Learning Visible: Lessons from EAL/D Education

🔗 https://thequeenslandinstitute.com/news/language-learning-eald-inclusive-teaching-qld

Thank you to the wonderful team at ISQ and all the educators who shared their expertise and perspectives across the program.

Here's to more learning and sharing together!



📷 Courtesy: Independent Schools Queensland

Early learning is where children fall in love with language. 🌏Behind every joyful language classroom is a teacher who ne...
04/08/2026

Early learning is where children fall in love with language. 🌏

Behind every joyful language classroom is a teacher who never stopped learning themselves.

Since 2022, we've been proud to partner with 國立臺灣師範大學 National Taiwan Normal University to support the professional learning of Taiwanese English and bilingual educators through blended learning, cultural and linguistic immersion, and international collaboration.

Our 2026 program brought together 50 elementary English teachers from across Taiwan and reinforced one lesson that continues to stand out: the best professional learning doesn't ask teachers to teach like someone else—it helps them build on the strengths of their own context.

As one participant reflected:

"It is the best program I have attended in my career so far... it rekindled my passion for teaching and improving my own English skills."

A heartfelt thank you to our wonderful partners at Duchesne College within The University of Queensland, John Paul College and Moreton Bay College for making this year's program such a meaningful experience.

Our latest blog explores why investing in elementary English teachers creates lasting impact for generations of learners:

🔗 https://thequeenslandinstitute.com/news/early-learning-taiwan-elementary-english-teachers

🎶 Musical highlight: Stay until the end of the blog to hear our Taiwanese colleagues singing a heartfelt farewell to their QI trainers.

Best wishes to our dear colleagues as you return to Taiwan. Thank you for learning with us—we can't wait to see the impact you'll continue to make. 💞



Study Queensland The Queensland Institute

What inspires the people who design professional learning?For us, it's being lifelong learners ourselves.Over the past s...
15/07/2026

What inspires the people who design professional learning?

For us, it's being lifelong learners ourselves.

Over the past six months, the The Queensland Institute(QI) team has attended three very different conferences across Australia—from English Australia's PD Fest in Brisbane, to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Future Makers National Summit in Sydney, and the Australian Teacher Education Association's conference on the Gold Coast.

Each offered fresh perspectives on teaching, leadership, innovation and the future of education. More importantly, each reminded us that the best professional learning doesn't stop when the conference ends. It lives on in the conversations we have, the programs we design, and the educators we work alongside.

We're excited to share some of our favourite moments, key takeaways and resources in our latest blog.

📖 The Joy of Professional Learning: Reflections from Three Inspiring Conferences

🔗 Read the full article here: https://thequeenslandinstitute.com/news/professional-learning-conferences-2026

At QI, we believe good teaching is half learning. Here's to the joy of continuing to learn together in 2026 and beyond!

08/07/2026

We were truly touched by this beautiful gift from our Hong Kong student teachers. ❤️

Thank you for your kindness, your enthusiasm, and for making this program so special. We're honoured to share this video with permission from the students, who kindly created it for the The Queensland Institute team.

To every member of the HKU-QI 2026 cohort, thank you for trusting us with this part of your teaching journey. We know you'll go on to inspire countless students throughout your teaching careers, and we're so proud to welcome you into our QI family of global educators.

As one journey comes to an end, another is already on the horizon. Next week, we look forward to welcoming our colleagues from to Brisbane and continuing our mission of empowering global educators to teach with confidence and creativity in the language classroom. 🌏❤️



Vicki Bos Ceara At Chalk Fiona Wiebusch QI Philippa Coleman

🇦🇺You know you're in Brisbane when...🦘 Kangaroos are happy to pose for photos🌈 A rainbow lorikeet decides your head is t...
22/06/2026

🇦🇺You know you're in Brisbane when...

🦘 Kangaroos are happy to pose for photos
🌈 A rainbow lorikeet decides your head is the perfect perch
🧋 Aussie school kids ask you about bubble tea
🎨 A shopping trolley turns into art at GOMA
🍦 Your ice cream comes with a whale tail
🌅 The sun sets over Moreton Bay
🤝 Your QI trainers become your colleagues!

Our student teachers from The University of Hong Kong are having an amazing time, experiencing Australian education, culture, and community both inside and outside the classroom.

We're incredibly grateful to our partners at UQ College, Brisbane 360 - Bus and Coach Charter, Australian Homestay Network, The CHALK Crew, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art and Moreton Bay College for making their time here so memorable.

🇭🇰 For six years now, The Queensland Institute has been proud to support professional learning and international education partnerships between Hong Kong and Australia. It's a friendship that continues to grow, and we always learn as much from our Hong Kong colleagues as they do from us.

Learn more about QI's special connection with Hong Kong:
https://thequeenslandinstitute.com/news/category/Hong+Kong



Study Queensland Study Australia Brisbane City Council

18/06/2026

🎥 Classroom Spotlight: 🇨🇱 Learning in Action

Can you guess the grammar being practised in this wonderful lesson from our Chilean colleague, Marcela Alegría Soto from Escuela José Manuel Balmaceda San Javier?

Marcela shared:

"We learned the vocabulary and pronunciation together, and then the students created a song using a rhythm they already knew. This helped them feel confident and engaged while practising English. After working with the grammar and singing in English, the students then described the metacognitive processes they went through during the lesson in Spanish. They were happy and proud! And that makes me happy too!"

At The Queensland Institute, we love seeing teachers bring learning to life through creativity, music, and language. It's an approach we encourage in all of our English teacher training programs because it builds confidence, engagement, and meaningful language use.

We particularly love that these students weren't simply repeating English—they were creating with it.

Congratulations to Marcela and her delightful students on their excellent singing and English pronunciation. Thank you for sharing your learning journey with us. We're proud of you too! ❤️

📚 Learn more about our work with Chilean teachers and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles via our website:

https://thequeenslandinstitute.com/news/connecting-chilean-english-teachers-inclusive-education

*Parent and student permission granted*

Municipalidad San Javier

26/05/2026

✨ What’s coming up at The Queensland Institute? 👀

It’s unboxing day… which can only mean one thing...

More teachers are on their way to Brisbane! 🇦🇺📚

We’re busy preparing welcome packs, resources, and a few surprises before another exciting season of global learning begins. 🌏✨

Watch to the end to see this year’s new books and classroom resources! 👀📖

Stay tuned for all the teaching adventures ahead and follow along here:
https://linktr.ee/The_Queensland_Institute

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