How to cope with methodology books
Daaren E!!iott’s doubts about reading TEFL books as a way of improving your lessons and my desperate attempt to justify reading books about Korea as a form of CPD instead on building up my arm muscles with Rod Ellis’s The Study of Second Language Acquisition happened to coincide with an offline chat about how one should go about coping with “The TEFL War and Peace” and its ilk, be they difficult to deal with because they are heavy (either meaning of the word), a list of teaching ideas that tend to blur after a while, or a couple of good ideas hiding in a thousand things you’ve heard before. Thought some others might like to share their tips too.
Here’s how I do it:
- Start just reading through with pencil in hand, varying the things I draw and write on the page as much as possible to keep up my interest (“bollocks!” “????????” and “put this in my… article” being three favourites). Planning to review it or write about it in some way also helps with concentration and motivation. Keep this up until I hit some kind of wall, manifested by falling asleep every time I open it, getting to the end of the page with no idea on what I just read, or sighing continually.
- Skip a little, e.g. missing out the intros and summaries and skipping to the next section as soon as I get the idea of what this section is going to say or am sure I have no interest in it.
- Skip more, e.g. just reading intros, summaries, anecdotes, quotes and/ or case studies. Just reading quotes is one I came up with recently that probably works best in terms of getting the best bits in the shortest time.
- Start reading from the back. This works especially well when you haven’t picked up the book in a while and trying to pick up the thread from where you were again makes your heart sink.
- Read other chapters in order of interest.
- Read the bits you underlined again to see whether they make something that is left worth reading or to see whether you can write about it
- Go away and read something else for a while, be that something completely different as a break or something else on the same subject to give you more ammunition as you write “crap!!!!” in the book margins with renewed vigour
- Read other people’s reviews of the book, then go back to it to see whether you agree or not
- Go back to your pile of books and magazines to read and put that one back in the position continuing to read it deserves
- Try again when you reach that point in the pile
- Give up, in my case usually with about 60% of the book read and with diminishing returns in terms of learning much more new if I spent more time on it
And now it’s over to you, our studio audience. Yes, squinty gentleman who obviously spends too much time on a computer at the back…
December 13th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
‘Skip more’ – this is my favourite step. Most books run out of steam after 100 pages, and most authors repeat themselves in book after book (reference works aside), so I do a lot of skipping unless it is clear I am in the presence of something startlingly new.