Author: Nicole

Jim Scrivener, author of Learning Teaching and Teaching English Grammar, was kind enough to let us interview him recently. Here follows our conversation.

 

Most methodology books are similar in their approach: they are academic, didactic books and are often a chore to read. You clearly took a different approach to teaching methodology in Learning Teaching; how would you describe this difference and the value of this difference?

I wanted it to be different in both content and tone. It was important to me that the content was classroom-experience-driven rather than theory-driven. Most of what is in the book is based on my own teaching experience (and the experience of watching many other teachers in their own classes). I hoped that what I had learnt, discovered or borrowed over the years might also be of use to other teachers.

But I was also keen to find a writing style that allowed me to say “This is what I have done and discovered. Could you use this as a starting point for your own explorations?” I’d read too many books that seemed to be giving me scientifically-proven “correct” ways to do things that either made no sense with my own students or just fell apart in my hands. I wanted to write in a way that made clear that I didn’t have all the answers – but that I had some interesting ideas that could perhaps spark some great answers in the readers themselves.

 

Learning Teaching is now in its 3^rd edition. Why do you think it has been such a popular methodology course for so long?

Whenever people talk to me about the book, it’s almost invariably the tone that they mention first, rather than the content. They say things like “I had to read this on my course! But I loved it!” or “I was expecting a dry, academic, hard to read, boring book – but it felt like a friend taking to me.” I think that when a book is on a booklist for a serious course, people often expect the worst. So, perhaps there’s a sense of surprise and delight that this teaching business isn’t as obscure a mystery as they feared and that they can immediately find a tangible starting point for planning their own lessons.

 

How has Learning Teaching changed since its first edition?

Well, obviously the content has shifted with evolving ideas – new areas like CLIL, for example – and of course, much more interest in the uses of technology – and also some rethinking on many basic approaches to teaching. But the core argument – that teaching is a live, creative, personal, interpersonal art is still the same. You cannot simply go into class and apply someone else’s dead solutions. They don’t work … because we all live and work in a different context with different people, different problems and so on. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from the experience of others – so long as you find a way to reflect on it and tweak any ideas so that they become appropriate for your classes.

There’s also a basic belief that teaching is important – that there is something that human teachers can do that the pre-programmed “interactive” exercises, tablet computers and expert systems will never be able to do. Defining what that is – the difference a teacher can make – is to do with who we are and how we are as much as it’s about the content we teach. A lot of the book, in all three editions, is trying to show small ways that teaching can inspire people, help people, move people and eventually change lives.

 

If you could travel back in time and speak to yourself when you were just starting out on your teaching career, what advice would you give yourself?

“There’s no money in teaching. Are you sure you really want to do this?”

(I think I’d still say “yes”; I honestly can’t imagine any other job where I would have had so much fun).

Tony Penston, author of A Concise Grammar for English Language Teachers, was kind enough to take some time out to speak with us. Here follows our questions and his answers!

 

Why did you decide to write the Concise Grammar for English Language Teachers?

I had already produced A Grammar Course for TEFL Certificate, which had gone out of print, so it was time for a new edition, with a new title. I was teacher training in Dublin at that time and found there was no grammar book dedicated or concise enough, or affordable enough, for trainees on a certificate course.

To achieve conciseness the following guidelines were adhered to:

1. Points of grammar which rarely surface in a normal lesson or which teachers can handle in layman’s terms are omitted.
2. Examples of and comment on learner errors are kept to a bare minimum (I’ve always held that this topic is overemphasized on training courses).
3. Pronunciation and vocabulary aspects are kept to a bare minimum (online dictionaries suffice).
4. Exercises are minimal and of a formative nature (teacher trainees are normally highly motivated and don’t need exercises which can be found in student books).

The reader’s needs and preferences were also taken into account in the following ways:

1. There is no academic waffle. Teachers want to know what’s needed in the classroom, not the lecture hall.
2. The fact that many teachers learn a lot by using coursebooks was exploited rather than ignored; numerous extracts from these were included, thereby exemplifying how items were widely taught and practised.

In comparison to your book, there are a number of thick teacher’s grammar books (that get into all sorts of nitty gritty in the English Language) out there that are used in many TESOL programs. Would you say that your book is an alternative to such books or a complement?

I’ve seen trainees with grammar tomes who wouldn’t have the time on their intensive course to cover a fraction of their content. I feel there is a need for candour on the part of course directors regarding set books; to assign books that will not dishearten enrollees. To answer your question, I would say that my book is a complement to the more comprehensive books, but obviously mine should be used before the latter, to allow time for the experienced teacher to reach the stage where they are equipped for the nitty gritty. Mine also fits snugly beside the coursebook, as a comfort blanket for new teachers!

 

Some argue that students and teachers alike are overly preoccupied with grammar. What would you say to this?

I have found nearly all native speaker TEFL enrollees to express a fear and ignorance of grammar, as if this were what teaching English was all about. When I’m teaching I tend almost to ignore grammar, but then my students often call me to task, wanting some nuts and bolts. Another point is that coursebooks tend to follow a grammar syllabus, covertly or not, and teachers need to be prepared for their approach and terminology. It’s a difficult one – I’m all for communicative language teaching, but grammar comes a damned close second, with the caveat of knowing how and when not to teach it, of course.

 

Not only are you the author of this book, but you are also the publisher. Why did you decide to do this?

It is difficult to get the attention of the major ELT publishers so I self-published, convinced of the need for the product. I enjoyed the publishing so much (there are no editors telling you what you can’t say, and you can organize the layout however you want) that I decided to continue in that manner for the new edition. My father was a shopkeeper, I guess some aspect of that business is in my blood!

 

Biodata

Tony Penston (TCL DipTESOL, M.Phil Applied Linguistics) has been a teacher and teacher trainer at home and abroad for over 40 years. Lately he is devoting the majority of his time to writing and consultancy. His EFL interests are varied, reflected in his three books on grammar, phonetics and Irish history, though these evince his overriding interest in methodology.

 

Leo Gomez, Toronto-area teacher and the man behind Learn Your English,  is a big fan of 50 Steps to Improving Your Grammar. He shared this review with us recently:

What do I like about it? It breaks the language down into well-explained language while testing students’ prior knowledge of the TL in each step. It is attractive to look at and the whole structure of the book is very straightforward: a problem-and-solution kind of approach. I love the guided discovery aspect of it and I truly believe that a lot of ESL teachers would benefit from using a book like this.

Even better, Leo was kind enough to share an example with us of how he uses the book in class.

 

The way I’ve used it was through a Test-Teach-Test approach. It worked really well.

The framework I used was:

• Write the quote [each unit begins with a short quote] on the board and ask students if they can guess what it means and what the focus of the lesson will be on.

“Through the You, a person becomes I” –> Focus here is on pronouns and how they work.

 

• (Reflection) Test: I adapt this part sometimes to make it more challenging. For the pronoun chapter (Step 7), I dictated all the sentences and had the students underline all the pronouns and understand how they are used. Once that was finished, I asked them to write a one-sentence definition of their function.

 

• (Contextualization): Here we expand a bit on the testing aspect. This can be done by raising awareness of the TL. In the pronoun lessons, for instance, students categorized the pronouns and had to write down what they had in common.

 

• (Explanation): For the explanation part, the approach can be twofold: 1) It could be a teacher lecture (which I dread doing), or 2) I would give each group of students parts of the explanation. They study and then explain it to each other – I’m usually hovering around to field any questions that arise or clear any confusion.

 

• (Activation): This is the controlled practice or Testing (the last T). Students work individually and we work together on the answers. What usually follows is a semi-controlled practice, where students create their own exercises to test other students. The last stage is usually a speaking activity where they have to use the TL. In the case of pronouns, I asked students to describe an event that is famous in their city or a famous person (non-scripted).

 

 

Thanks to Leo for sharing this with us!

We have heard stories over the years of some of the complicated and ethically questionable ways that publishers have secured sales in different markets….

Reading an article in the EL Gazette on ESL books in the Brazilian market raised our eyebrows again. Apparently, it is being rumoured that language schools in Brazil are planning to boycott books publihsed by Oxford University Press and Pearson Education because of their involvement in school franchises. Smaller publishers are rumoured to be benefitting as a result.

Want the dirty details? Read the original article.

You have probably noticed fewer Saudi students in your school lately. If you haven’t, then you probably teach at one of the few North American schools that hasn’t benefitted from the Saudi government scholarship program that was launched in 2005.

Because of the declining price of oil and ensuing bugetary deficits, it announced last year that the program would be overhauled and scaled back. At the beginning of the summer, a vice president of ELS predicted that this summer’s would see a 60 to 70% decline over last summer. Is that what you have seen?

For the grim details, check out the article on Inside Higher Ed.

Researcher Ross Finnie recently wrote in the Ottawa Citizen that the most important thing to teach in post-secondary education – in order to make the investment pay off as far as graduates’ employability is concerned – is “to better understand the more general skill sets that open a range of employment opportunities and career paths over time.” And what is he talking about? Transferable skills such as critical thinking, teamwork and numeracy.

These transferable skills are just as important, if not more so, for international students as there is a cutural dimension to these skills and a lack of awareness and competency will set them even further back.

Read the article here.

Get the Transferable Academic Skills Kit.

A study recently found that 41% of students outside the UK no longer found it to be a desireable study destination because of the recent Brexit vote. The most popular alternative, according to The Independent, was Canada with 32%. Germany came in second with 21% and 20% would chose either the US or Australia.

Read more gory details here.

We were recently contacted by a potential customer who wanted a copy of a specialist, backlist book. We didn’t have it in stock and had to order it in for him. When the book arrived, we contacted him to tell him it was ready to ship, at which point he told us that he had in the meantime purchased the book online and was going to scan every page and post it online because “information should be free”. We debated whether we should reply to this man and give him an education. We eventually decided against it because he seemed to be quite self-righteous and a little unhinged, and there is no talking to people like that.

It made me more sad than angry, to be honest. There have been no shortage of teachers who have told us that they photocopied a book off a friend, or that they bought one student book and endlessly photocopied it for their students because the school had no resources. As an aside, I would like to point out that these schools that don’t have materials for the classroom and are thus the worst for violation of copyright are invariably goverment-funded. It is no surprise that the govenment has never made it a priority to to enforce copyright laws! The other thing that made me sad was how self-serving this man’s argument was. The book that he had ordered was Campaign: English for the Military. Macmillan spent a lot of money developing that course and the authors spent quite a bit of time writing it – all for a limited market. Presumably they thought there was enough potential reward to merit the investment, but I assume the payoff would have been modest.

People love to villainize – or simpy not care – about educational publishers. I will admit that I often am amazed at their poor business sense, but they are deserving of respect. They take (or perhaps “took” is more apt at this point) risks and published materials that are the base of the classroom and students’ learning. They are all hurting right now, though, and anyone photocopying books right now should know that by not paying publishers for their work, they are ensuring there will be fewer and fewer quality books to photocopy in the future. Teachers and schools complain that books are expensive, but so are salaries. A teacher without a course to teach is not a terribly effective teacher, so it just makes sense that some money would be invested in the course materials as well.

Add into all of this the recent changes in copyright law in Canada, and there is good reason to drink. Reently, lawyer Richard Owens wrote an article for the Financial Times about how fixing Canada’s copyright laws are essential if we wat to keep educational publishers from dying. We are all part of a team – teachers, students, schools, publishers – and we need good content to continue to be produced. Even if I haven’t ignited the flame of passion for this issue, please imagine that it is sexy (and know that it is important) and read Fix Canada’s Publishing Laws before it puts Publishers out of Business.

Oh, and just as an FYI, ESL textbooks are all workbooks and therefore EXEMPT from copyright agreements. It is always illegal to photocopy an ESL textbook, even if your school has bought a copying license.

 

In a recent column on the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario’s blog, researcher Sarah Brumwell points out that the recent attention to character education in the K-12 sector should be a lesson to the post-secondary sector. Post-secondary institutions are increasingly seeing their function as being to prepare students for the workforce, and therefore they must focus more attention on the transferable skills – such as teamwork and critical thinking – that are key to success in the workplace.

Take a look at the blog post and then, if you are further convinced of the need to teach these transferable skills, take a look here.

It would seem to be one of the questions that we have been asking forever and have never really been able to answer: what makes a good teacher? In all likelihood, this will continue to be the case – we will always ask and there will never be a definitive answer. However, this may be one of those situations where the journey itself is the destination: asking the question and reflecting on it is a valuable exercise in and of itself.

It was in this spirit that we enjoyed reading “What Makes a Good teacher?” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. We recommend having a read.