English Teaching and Learning

In a speech in 1996 by Hargreaves, he claimed (more or less) that for whatever reason teachers were a passive, unambitious group, and made a comparison between teaching and medical professionals, in particular doctors. He stated that doctors are constantly informed about developments in medicine, aware of recent research findings, and intrigued by possible future directions. He contrasted this with teaching, which he said is 'not a research-based profession'. Does he have a point, and of so, does it matter? There were many fierce opponents to Hargreaves' claim that teaching would be 'more effective and more satisfying' if it looked more to research in its field. Many claimed that it was ridiculous to compare being a doctor to being a teacher. And there were many other credible reasons why what is right for a medical doctor is not necessarily right for a teacher. However, let's indulge the idea for a while. It is difficult to talk about teaching as if it wer...

Coursebooks are the standard in ESL and EFL classrooms across the world. As a teacher, do they light your fire, or do you think they should they be used to start one? The use of course books for teaching English is a rather divisive issue. Some school insist upon their use while other educational organisations insist that teachers utilise only their wits and the students in front of them as the means to teach. Dogme language teaching famously advocated for ' teaching without published textbooks and focusing instead on conversational communication among learners and teacher '.  And yet, for someone who is new to ELT, or simply for a school or teacher who want to work from a tried-and-tested text book, they can offer guidance, inspiration, and a ready-made solution to the problem of what and how to teach.  It is worth thinking about what the purpose of learning materials is in the classroom, or to the independent learner. It is important to consider that learning ma...

Pronunciation is often a neglected area for English-language learners, both seemingly by the teacher and the learner. A kind of complicity takes place that both parties strike a deal that the teacher won't get hung up on the different ways to pronounce 'th', as long as the learner doesn't mention it either. Teachers can find pronunciation to be a difficult aspect of the language to deal with and consequently can avoid it altogether. The difficulty perhaps stems from hearing an 'error' but not being able to immediately isolate exactly what is happening to cause the mispronunciation and being able to correct it. If you are not familiar with the phonemic alphabet then it is a useful tool for both the teacher and learner. There is an online one here from the British Council. A colleague recently gave a fascinating training session on pronunciation. She went through the anatomical aspects of it  -- what goes where when we make each sound, and the differenc...

A lot of people might wonder what the secret to learning is, and I learnt it today. You can just jump to the end if you don’t want to wade through the drivel between these opening remarks and the ‘secret’. The drivel: I am often asked by English-language learners how they can improve their English. I recommend ways, as anyone does whose occupation it is to help people improve their English-language skills. I analyse their needs by speaking with her or him for a few minutes. It might be that she pauses, seemingly searching for a word mid-flow, or that he can’t create a grammatical construction he needs to express himself more precisely, as he would in his own language. It might be that her speaking is staccato or that individual sounds are mispronounced, causing a breakdown in coherence. Based on what I see or I hear, I can recommend speaking with a friend or family member in English, reading a blog or listening to a podcast on a subject she is interested in. I might tell...