Archive for the ‘TEFL heroes- Scott Thornbury’ Category

We all seem to be seeing your name around a lot recently. A masterplan to become the next Thornbury/ trying to keep yourself busy while your wife watches Japanese television/ sleep disorder/ other?

I think it takes more than a few blog posts to be a Thornbury. I’m not even an Alex Case yet. I just like being part of a community.

You’ve written for ETP and (more importantly!) TEFL.net, you’ve got the popular blog, probably plenty of other things in publications that are too serious for me… what’s next?

I’m working on a book chapter about learner / teacher autonomy and blogging, which should be out in 2011. I’ve written and presented quite a bit on technology and teacher development in the last couple of years, but I’d like to set up a couple of little research projects on other areas. I’m just coming to the end of the academic year and I really want to focus on making my classes next year as good as they can be. And brush up my Japanese.

Do those kinds of things count as publications for your university?

To be honest, they aren’t especially worried. They give us a little financial support for books and conferences, and there are a couple of ethical committees to go through if we want to use student data in research, but we are employed as language teachers rather than academics or researchers. I think that’s how it should be – although research can improve or complement classroom practice, language teaching is not like, say, history or physics… a knowledge transfer subject. There is always a danger that you end up in a paper chase which distracts from the welfare of the students. No shame in being ‘just’ a teacher.

Are Eikaiwa (language schools in Japan) unfairly slagged off?

Yes and no. I think it depends on the people, and in the larger chains it’s a bit of a lottery. If the school manager is good, and you get a teacher who knows what they are doing, you can improve your English and have a good time. The chain I worked for was sound enough in it’s methodology, and didn’t con the students or teachers (too much). But with a couple of years I was the head trainer for about 50 schools with 100 teachers, with just a CELTA …. and that was considered highly qualified! You can draw your own conclusions about the industry from that….

It’s certainly getting tougher. Salaries have been stagnant or dropping for about a decade, and conditions getting worse. Students are more savvy, and know that they can find a private teacher who is more flexible, more reliable and cheaper than an Eikaiwa.

I think you’ve said that you started as the typical no training Eikaiwa teacher. Was it beneficial in the long term to be able to work things out for yourself before you got taught “the CELTA way”, or is it better to get the CELTA right off?

For me, I like to try things out myself first. I don’t think it was totally horrible for the students, either, looking back. As long as you have some cultural sensitivity and patience, and don’t forget to do up your flies, you can get by.

As someone who went into the CELTA with teaching experience and can now look back on it after doing a DELTA and MA, what do you think of it as a qualification?

It’s a good start, for a certain kind of teaching. Communicative, European, oral, ‘grammar mcnuggets’. I did my star lesson on the past perfect – the most useless tense known to humanity.

Does studying for a Masters improving your teaching much?

Compared to the DELTA, no… at least, not directly. If I was hiring, and I had to choose, I think I’d go for the DELTA qualified teacher in most cases. But I enjoyed the Masters more, and I am still benefiting from the slow release of learning. I considered doing an online course, but I’m so glad I went back to the UK and did it face to face. I loved teaching at a British University – one of the best courses I ever worked on was a bridging course for six very smart women starting postgrad courses at the Art and Design school. We went on gallery visits, we set up seminar sessions, we went to the pub. I also got to meet other trainee teachers from all over the world and learn about their contexts. And I lived above a pub for a while, with a kebab shop next door.

How was the concept behind your first blog different from your present one? Why did you decide to change?

The first one was very specific. I really wanted to set up a collaborative development group in a particular way. However, I soon realised that these things can’t be forced… they have to grow organically. It was a worthwhile experiment, but ultimately failed. This one is more relaxed!

Can you give us a top three favourite blog posts from your old blog or new blog?

I like this one because it came out of class preparation, and the beauty of teaching language is that you can use anything as a vehicle. I am always considering ways of getting students to think around corners. http://www.livesofteachers.com/2009/10/31/urban-legends-and-critical-thinking /

This one is a favourite because I am very interested in researching it further… I am sure there is a correlation between learners’ metaphors for teaching and learning and learner autonomy. http://www.livesofteachers.com/2009/11/07/a-gift-from-a-flower-to-a-garden＊/

And I like this interview because it gives an insight into an area of the teaching field I know little about. Some of the people I have interviewed have been bigger names than others, but I think they are all worth hearing. Miles gave a great talk in Kyoto a couple of years back, and he was on my wish list of interviewees when I started thinking about the blog. I also like this one because he isn’t a member of the twitterati… it’s nice to hear a voice from outside the elt blogging community. http://www.livesofteachers.com/2009/11/28/an-interview-with-miles-craven/

How did you come up with the idea of video interviews? Has it worked out as you expected?

I did a lot of narrative interviews for my dissertation study. I was researching teacher development, and the ways in which teachers re-established themselves when switching contexts, and everyone I interviewed had a unique story. We can learn by learning how other learn. But people are just interesting, don’t you think?

It is actually supposed to be a podcast, when I can figure out a couple of little bugs. I’d been thinking about it for ages but when I saw Paul Nation was coming to town it spurred me to action.

So far, they haven’t gone quite as I had envisioned, as each person has been fairly well known for something and the interviews have stuck to that… of course you would talk to Paul Nation about vocabulary and Scott Thornbury about Dogme and grammar, right? As I get more comfortable, I think they will broaden out a bit… plus I’m hoping to interview a wider variety of people. Anyone out there who wants to tell their story, get in touch! I’m doing them on skype now, too. I especially want to talk to non-native speakers, and people working in developing countries.

How much time does blogging and related stuff like reading others’ blogs and twittering take up?

Probably more than it should. But I have a lot of train time for thinking, reading and writing. To be honest though, I am trying to unplug a little more regularly.

Why do you think practical teaching ideas are taking more and more of a backseat in the TEFL blogosphere?

I don’t think they are, but they tend to be a certain type of practical teaching idea… fifty things you can do with flickr, all that techie stuff. But a lot of people in the blogosphere have been doing this for a while and I think they enjoy talking about the bigger picture. It’s very hard to evaluate how much my online teacher development activities improve my classroom practice (if at all). But I know they keep me engaged and interested in the profession, which at this stage of my career is what I need.

Do you think it is still worth getting published on paper?

Absolutely. But I’m a dying breed. I still remember a time when there was no internet (or video recorders!) I still subscribe to the print editions of journals I really like, and I would rather go to do research in the library than online. No doubt that will change though, as kids grow up with smart phones and kindles. And some of the intelligent, stylish writing out there (like Sara Hannam or Diarmuid Fogarty’s blogs) beats what’s on paper into a cocked hat. There are some more ‘traditional’ free journals online, too, of good quality.

What is your favourite TEFL book ever and why?

I really love ‘Language Teacher Education’ by Jon Roberts. It was one of the first more challenging books I read when I started studying, and introduced me to ideas like social constructivism and reflective practice. My copy is well annotated and highlighted, like most of my favourites.

I also have to add ‘The Phonology of English as an International Language’ by Jennifer Jenkins… it made a huge impression on me when I came across it, not least because it made a topic I found slightly painful and tiresome (phonology) seem vital and relevant.

What’s the most recent TEFL book you liked and why?

Rose Senior’s ‘The Experience of Language Teaching’ and ‘Lessons from Good Language Learners’ edited by Carol Griffiths were both excellent. Just go and read them.

And all time and recent best TEFL workshops and presentations?

I saw Ken Wilson a couple of years ago when he was in Japan and I recommend his presentations to anyone. I don’t know that I learnt anything in particular, but it was hugely entertaining and invigorating. I hope he takes that the right way if he reads this!

Last year, I saw James Lantolf give a plenary. I’d been struggling through a book of his on sociolinguistics, but hearing him talk everything fell into place. It turns out I actually don’t really like some of his ideas, but at least I understand them a bit better now….

Any non-TEFL books or persons who have influenced your teaching?

My blog is named after Michael Huberman’s book, which I will get around to reviewing soon. It’s such an ambitious study, and the career trajectories he charts are enlightening. In a similar way, Frances Fuller’s theories about the concerns of teachers made a big impact on me, as did Donald Schon’s ‘The Reflective Practitioner’. If you want it boiled down to practical terms, teachers need to understand themselves, and accept that ‘expertise’ is not always stable. Peaks, troughs and slumps are part of teaching…

But the biggest influences on my teaching are the people around me. I’m very lucky to work with some extremely good people at the moment, and I’m trying to be a magpie and pinch all their good bits. My wife’s teaching put me through university, too…. she always has a direct and simple solution when I start over-thinking things.

He’s been the most famous/ notorious online TEFL figure for around five years, and the age of Twitter doesn’t seem to have calmed him down at all. In this exclusive TEFLtastic interview, Sandy shows his sensitive side (more…)

Here is this month’s supply, perfect for reading while your students do their end of term tests:

Using Xtranormal.com with EFL young learner classes (a great way of doing dialogue writing etc, with link to worksheet)

18 fun activities on the topic of amusement parks (a fab topic with kids and teenagers, tied in with feelings vocab, videos etc)

23 uses for pelmanism and SNAP

Yet another 15 ways to make writing interactive (including writing game ideas)

32 variations on pelmanism

You could also take a look at yet another 30 minutes of my life wasted on navel gazing:

Alex Case does the Six Questions bit on the TEFLtradesman blog

And just to show that I’m willing to share the limelight just a little, here are a couple of articles and blog posts by others that I found interesting this month:

A linguist on the origin of Michael Jackson’s “ma ma se, ma ma se, ma ma coo sa” from the Language Log

Limits to Krashen’s ego? from The Linguist on Language

A review of the latest David Crystal book Just A Phrase I’m Going Through from Literal Minded (including my new favourite linguistics quote- 

“The early teens is a crucial period for language development. It’s a time when the child explores a vast number of linguistic worlds, and builds up a lexicon for talking about sex, politics, music, TV programmes (radio, in my day), sex, woodwork, stamps, sex, cars, boats, trains, planes, sex, and a great deal else” (p. 23)

My feud with DC seems to be over btw, in case you still can’t sleep nights fretting over that

A critical piece on Dogme being critical or not by Scott Thornbury (not on the critics of Dogme, which might be another piece and hopefully a chance to spread further the rumour that I got into a fight with ST)

And plenty more that I can’t track down, so you’ll have to waste your own freetime following Onestopblogs to find them…

1. Dave Sperling still owes me ten Euros he borrowed off me at the TESOL Spain conference

2. The EF school in Eastbourne had the alternative word for the “F” part of its sign that me and my friends graffitied on there for about a month before they got round to replacing it. We were only 13 at the time, I should point out

3. In my schools in Spain and Japan I was selected to teach footballers who were going to the UK to play because I was the only teacher who spoke Estuary English

4. I had to retake my DELTA written test because I was caught trying to look at a phonemic chart I had in my pencil case

5. I was in the same Alcoholics Anonymous group near Oxford Street in London as Andrew Wright and Michael Swan

6. I was thrown off my MA in TEFL by the disciplinary panel at King’s College London for telling Jennifer Jenkins she was a Marxist dyke and then starting a food fight in a lecture

7. I got into a bit of a scrap with Scott Thornbury at the end of conference drinks at IATEFL 2003. I was in a bad mood because they had cancelled my workshop on X in the Classroom at the last minute when they realised what X stood for, then I had a few too many… Scott’s a lot tougher than you’d think, but if you’ve noticed the scar behind his left ear then you know not to mess with me. No hard feelings from either side though.

Oh, wait a minute. I get it now, it’s supposed to be (more…)

In reverse order by when they appeared on the blog (the first two are new):

“Now Skinner did reign in the land of psychology, and it came to pass that Chomsky smote Skinner and begat Krashen, and Krashen begat Long, and lo, Long begat Merrill Swain…”

A biblical history of SLA by Scott Thornbury, “What good is Second Language Acquisition Theory?”, English Teaching Professional magazine, March 2008

“… we need to be wary of taking SLA theory too seriously. And we should be suspicious of those who argue that knowledge of theory is a professional obligation. Teaching is a highly skilled activity, but it is not, alas, rocket science. In fact, it is probably not a science at all”

Thornbury, “What good is Second Language Acquisition Theory?”, English Teaching Professional magazine, March 2008

“I appear to be regarded as something similar to flat-pack furniture: cheap, does the job and aside from initial construction, can be left to own devices without much attention.”

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/teaching/tefl/young-learners/alt-quote-of-the-day/

“…but you would have to remember always that your work was to teach a small boy English. There is a great deal of drudgery in that. Do you think you have the patience for it?”

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/tesol/eikaiwa-through-history-quote-of-the-day/

“Kim Min-suk, spokeswoman of JungChul Language School, said that her school does not employ Asian English teachers because she believes the students prefer Caucasians.

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/teaching/blue-eyed-english-teachers-quote-of-the-day/

“The Japanese had very primitive ideas concerning the fitness of men to teach… Anyone who could speak English could evidently teach it. The idea of a trained professional foreign teacher was never entertained by them… The “Professors” at first obtained were often ex-bartenders, soldiers, sailors, clerks, etc. When teaching, with pipe in mouth, and punctuating their instructions with oaths, or appearing in the classroom top-heavy, the Japanese concluded that such eccentricities were merely national peculiarities.”

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/tesol/gaijin-teachers-quote-of-the-day/

“I will practice my English with you, if you will do me the honor”

“You keep alive just to practice your English?”

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/teaching/teaching-abroad/asia/teaching-in-japan/how-teaching-english-can-save-your-life-quote-of-the-day/

‘to me, “distance learning” means an unusually long classroom’

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/culture/distance-learning-quote-of-the-day/ (more…)

Talking of TEFL jargon (as I was two posts ago, the brief aside in between is apparently technically called an “insertion sequence”, fnaah fnaah), am I the only one to notice that since Scott Thornbury wrote “An A to Z of ELT” his other books have suddenly become full of more jargon than you can shake a dictionary at? Has he discovered a marketing method that is even better than the recent tendancy of textbooks to “just happen to mention” graded readers and dictionaries from the same publisher?

I’m presently enjoying the feast of jargon that is Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy, a book you can read a surprisingly large amount of by clicking on the top link on this Google search page.

Innateness hypothesis- The theory that studying English is inherently boring, so why bother with games. See also “Inaneness hypothesis”*

Input- The theory that the language we expose students to should be as carefully chosen as when programming a computer or doing data input, although most experts agree that the metaphor works best if we picture the teacher trying to type with a couple of sledge hammers

Input enhancement- Using a gold plated jack on the classroom tape recorder

Intercambio de Lenguas- Spanish for “exchanging tongues”, often involving conversation exchange and its more literal translation

Interface- Also known as “innerface”, the internal cringing (more…)

So, Takeshi Kitano wins another film award at an arty festival, along no doubt with a whole load of other unwatchable crap. There are a few specifically Beat Takeshi points worth making here, such as: if the judges just watched some Japanese TV before watching his films they would realise that meandering plots, lack of action, bizarre switches from drama to comedy and characters who don’t express their feelings are not fabulously avant garde film making tricks but available for you to watch, should you be M*, on any Japanese TV drama.

There is also a more important and generalised point to make about film critics. If you really want to read through their reviews and awards and find something you are going to like, you need to learn to predict what they are likely to enjoy.

Let’s analyse them together for a bit, shall we? The average movie critic spends most of their time watching hundreds and hundreds of movies in a cinema round the corner from their house, when quite often they would quite frankly rather be sitting on a hillside thinking about their own life or putting their backpack on and going somewhere new. So, when you read their review, as well as the possibility it is actually a masterpiece you will appreciate too you also have to take account of the possibility that they only like it because:

• So little happens that they do indeed get time to think about their own lives as if they were sitting on top of that hill (e.g. Hanabi)
• There are lots of references to other films that they like because it makes them seem so intelligent and makes all that time watching movies seem worthwhile, but us ordinary mortals will miss (any Tarantino film)
• There is a plot so fiendishly difficult and bizarre that even they can’t work out what is going to happen, but leaves the rest of us just confused (Memento)
• They get to see something else, maybe exotic, that they’ve never seen before (e.g. the Forbidden City in Last Emperor) but that the rest of us who are not trapped in a dark room would do much better just going and seeing in real life
• Because they don’t get time to read books they use subtitled films as a substitute

As I’ve said, the really difficult bit is not dismissing a review just because it does fit into one of those categories (I like one of the ones in brackets above), but I still find it helps me totally dismiss a good 70% of glowing reviews as something I am unlikely to enjoy.

Although I started this post mainly as an excuse to heap scorn upon “the man with two names involving Takeshi”, the same technique actually works as a rough and ready analysis of theories on how to teach a language. For example, if we look at the kinds of people who come up with wacky new ideas on how to teach English and those who then going around spreading the “good word”, we find that many of them have already been teaching for far too many years to be healthy. Of course they need something new to revitalise their classroom routines after 20 years, but it doesn’t mean the rest of us need it too… There are many examples of this, of which Scott Thornbury’s Dogme is probably the most obvious example of something only for people in the 40s or above.

We can then narrow the focus down to proponents of specific theories. For example, if you look into the dark past of many of the teachers who now preach TBA (the Task-based Approach), you will find they were once converts to a hard-core version of the Communicative Approach which involved no actual teaching of grammar at all. If you like that, might be worth a look. If not, you have to ask yourself why such people are so keen on it.

And for my final trick, I will narrow it down to one man. If you want to understand why the Lexical Approach has resulted in page after page of theoretically useful but painfully dull teaching material (e.g. the most unteachable parts, amongst many, of Cutting Edge), try looking at Michael Lewis’s earlier theories on how to teach grammar. Enthusing to a teacher (I was a believer too!), especially a logically-minded one, but totally unmotivating to the learners.

I rest my case**

* A fabulous “Japanese English” expression, meaning the “M” from “S&M”

** Yes, I see the pun on my name. So not funny!