A way to do away with ALTs?
(= assistant language teachers). You can see why they might want to, because although their pay is being cut and skimmed off by recruitment agencies while they get abuse for not being qualified teachers and then treated like human tape recorders when they are, none have agreed to live in a cardboard box in the classroom yet (as far as I’m aware).
Joking aside, Teaching with Bear looks like a great resource, and having most of the explanation on DVD and most of the models as NNESTs (non native English speaking teachers) is a great idea, and as Mary Slattery wrote the fabulous English for Primary Teachers (along with Jane Willis), you can expect lots of lovely classroom language in there too. Will be reviewing it for MET magazine, so I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, the sample DVD clips on the page linked to above are well worth watching if you are thinking of using a puppet in your own classes.
PS, that ALT remark was just a throwaway joke but it has got me thinking and I think I’ll get a whole blog post or two out of that difficult topic sometime soon(ish). If anyone wants to beat me too it, comments welcome here. Ditto on using puppets, sleeping in classrooms, or whatever.
