The best of Teaching English Guest Writer Articles

Another example of how blogging can be a good thing even if nobody reads, in this case making me read something worthwhile that I just hadn’t quite found time for month after month after month…

Surprising myself slightly, my top two selections from this section of the huge BBC and British Council site are both from Great Uncle Mario:

1. How useful are comprehension questions

Including:

“How on earth does a course book writer in North Oxford know where the linguistic difficulties in a reading passage will lie for a 16 year old in Cairo? Or a university student in Bangkok or a senior citizen in Hamburg?”

and

“One good way of dealing with a reading passage in class is to ask the students to read the text twice and then write 7 questions, each one aimed at a different, named classmate”

And

2. Storytelling: the language teacher’s oldest technique

As is typical with me and Mr Rinvolucri, I find myself too cowardly to try some of the techniques (e.g. telling a story with two other students with all three of us sitting and facing the class) and doubting the value of some others (totally doing away with comprehension questions and just discussing our impressions of the text- where does learning anything from the text come into that??), but very much interested and challenged by his ideas

Possibly somewhere between those two but put here so I could discuss those together, is a much less surprising entry from the man who helped us all pass the DELTA, Scotty Thornbury:

3. Dogme: nothing if not critical

This I also found challenging and interesting, but more because it was about areas of theory I had never even heard of, let alone thought could be connected to TEFL. Not sure it is going to change my teaching (not sure if any of Scott’s books have done that, to be honest), but it has certainly broadened my horizons. I must give a special mention to Sara Hannam for her long, thoughtful and detailed but always very reasonable comments (which she wrote about on Burcu Akyol’s blog here).

I read the other Scott Thornbury one, Methods, post-method and metodos a few months ago, and the only thing I can remember about it is that Scott likes trawling second hand bookshops in towns he goes to for old TEFL books and the New York Review of Books, so can’t put it into the Top Ten I’m afraid but I’m sure it would be up here somewhere

Pete Sharma gets two entries, one all the way up at number four for that favourite talking point of the day:

4. Controversies in using language technology in language teaching

Couldn’t find anything to say about that that I haven’t before, so have a click and select your own highlights!

The Williseseses have seven articles on this site, but only one gets an entry here I’m afraid:

5. Criteria for identifying tasks for TBL

Although Jane Willis is a hero of mine, I still have huge problems with the holes in the theory of TBL (while its proponents are perfectly happy to point out holes in the theory of PPP etc) and tend to avoid articles on those subjects as the actual techniques don’t seem to change much and had mostly been in my repertoire before I even realised they had a name, so no comments on the other pieces by her or Dave Willis (who has had enough blog inches here recently anyway)

After all those familiar names, finally a writer who is new to me and writing about a much neglected subject:

6. Tips for ELT managers

Including analysis of teacher types, these ones being new to me:

“Movers and shakers

These are the ambitious ones. Loads of ideas and willing, mainly with their own agendas in mind rather than anything altruistic.

Keen bees

These are a delight, though often not very experienced at this stage. They will help with anything and you need to keep them busy so they don’t get disillusioned.

Bring it on-ers

Nothing is too much for these guys, the more difficult an assignment the happier they are. Give them a tough job and they will relish it.”

And

7. Managers and management training

Including a statistic that goes against every stereotype of ELT management, that only 35% of managers in her survey got no training before starting the job (although the most common form was a handover period, whereas most managers would have preferred some more theoretical training)

Back to familiar names with Rod Bolitho’s

8. Teacher-induced neuroses

With a great anecdote (something I love but am terrible at myself):

“Fear of making mistakes is the mother of all neuroses and almost certainly the most common source of anxiety in language learners in the public forum of a language classroom. I first became conscious of it as a learner in a Modern Greek evening class when the teacher-priest had the habit of pointing out our mistakes by drawing himself up to his full height and intoning lathos – the Greek for mistake – in a profoundly haughty and disapproving way which had us all believing we had committed one of the seven deadly sins”

Pete Schwarma gets another entry with:

9. Controversies in Business English

Including the great quote ‘You do an in-depth needs analysis… find out your students’ specific skills and lexical needs… and then you say… “by the most unbelievable co-incidence, we have JUST the book for you, written two years ago.”’

And I’m afraid the last writer on the Guest Writer Articles section gets left all the way down at number 10 for me, if only because teaching culture in class is one of those things I took an obsessive interest in and so am now finding it harder and harder to learn anything new about- but that’s me, I just love sitting through lectures where I understand hardly 10% of what is going on!

10. Making culture happen in the English language classroom

Here are my own attempts at that subject, just to prove that I am not entirely dismussing the idea:

Criteria for a good cultural training lesson

Important cultural differences in the classroom

TEFLtastic cultural training worksheets for EFL classes

Cultural differences in the Japanese classroom

The 15 most fun cultural training topics

(and there was you thinking I could get through a whole post without banging my own trumpet)

My only real complaint about Teaching English Articles so far is that the writers tend to stop answering comments after a while, even when they are questions directly aimed at the writer. This is natural, but I think they should have a clear policy on this or leave a comment saying “Although you are free to continue the discussion, unfortunately the writer will be unable to answer any questions past ….(date)?”

I have a feeling the very best articles are waiting for me in the other sections, hope I get the chance to read them… Recommendations gladly accepted, and of course your feedback on my own rankings (but “Although you are free to continue the discussion, unfortunately there may be days when Alex can’t be bothered writing comments even on his own blog”)

This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 12:10 pm and is filed under British Council, Cross cultural training in EFL, Dogme, Linguistics, applied linguistics and SLA, Skills, Teaching English in Japan, Teaching methods and methodologies, TEFL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.