Some nice quotes from the last ELTJ
As promised, proof that I do pay some attention when reading TEFL magazines:
A possible explanation for why Mr Bean and TEFL go so well together:
“An adult learner has noted that what [textbook character] Arthur and learners in the alien world of a foreign language have in common is clumsiness. Like Arthur, learners may find themselves in novel and/ or surprising situations where it is difficult to know how to respond appropriately” pg 151, Eva Illes, What Makes a Coursebook Series Stand the Test of Time?
(if you want to exploit that see my Mr Bean video worksheets, including two brand new ones)
Jeremy Harmer on Task-Based Learning:
“my original question… is essentially about whether TBL works and why I, or any other teacher, should be involved in it. In my opinion, an awful lot hangs on what a task actually is…. I found myself thinking that in a book which is written for ‘teachers who want to get a better understanding of how task-based teaching works in practice’ and which is devoted to the superiority of such practices, a lack of willingness to pin down exactly what is on offer is less than totally persuasive… Whereas the work of people like Nunan (2004) seem to suggest that it is okay to teacher language first and then use it to perform a task later, other versions suggest the opposite: task first, language later… And so my reaction to reading these two books is a hugely reinforced ambivalence about TBL and a great excitement about the directions in which future research might help me to understand it” ELT Journal April 2009 pg 174-5, in a review of Doing Task-Based Teaching and Tasks in Second Language Teaching
Some other random good sense:
“not every teacher is positively disposed to writing as a means of reflection” pg 187, Rod Bolitho in a review of Reflective Language Teaching
“A process approach to writing… is desirable in theory but often makes prohibitive demands on the teacher in terms of classroom control and the ability to motivate learners” pg 185, Luke Prodromou in a review of Teacher Cognition and Language Education
“most classroom-based studies have shown not only a lack of direct correlation between an earlier start and more successful/ rapid L2 development but also a strong tendency for older children and teenagers to be more efficient learners… comparable limitations have been reported for young learners in school settings involving innovative, immersion-type programmes, where exposure to the target language is significantly increased through subject-matter teaching in the L2” pg 170-171, Christian Abello-Contesse, Age and the critical period hypothesis
And some new stuff I learnt:
“ ‘I says’ is used as a reporting clause in presentations of extended exchanges involving frequent switches between the presenter’s and a displaced speaker’s utterances… utterances are often short and the speaker standpoints often diverge…” pg 190, quote from Conversation in Context: A Corpus Driven Approach in a review of that book by Ivor Timmis
“Native speakers… are more likely to say… ‘There’s your pills’ than ‘There are your pills’ in informal situations when indicating location” pg 139, Simon Mumford summarizing the Cambridge Grammar of English in Analysis for Spoken Grammar: A Case for Production
For a much less useful blog post I got out of the last ELTJ (although a great motivator to read the whole thing, something I’d NEVER managed before starting this blog), see here.
Btw, if you were irritated by only being able to read the first bits of all the articles I linked to:
- You would’ve got even less just a few months ago, so that’s some kind of progress
- Should do more TEFL.net book reviews and get freebie copies of everything like me, shouldn’t you? (and less smuggly, my review of whether it is worth the cash for the new online version of ELT Journal is coming up in the next month or so)
Tags: Quotes
August 18th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Alex, either you’re getting excessively anal in your old age, or you have far too much free time on your hands and absolutely no idea what to do with it. Why on EARTH are you reading the ELTJ – if not using it as a source of endless mirth and humorous distraction!?
Oh, I see – you WERE being sarcastic … weren’t you?
Actually, I’ve always been in favour of a spot of TBL – Terminator-Based Learning. At the end of each week I show my students a Terminator movie, and they all seem to love it.