The IALC Study Travel Report is a great resource for those in the industry, as it gives very comprehensive numbers on who is going where for what and seeing what the trends are.
Fun teaser: the next big thing is predicted to be English-language nurseries.
A great summary is available from the EL Gazette, but if you like your information in raw form, download the actual report.
If you are at all like us here at English Central, you bristle at these young kids going to teach English overseas who don’t think they need any training because either they are native speakers or because they did an English major in college. Bless the occasional one who has enough respect for teaching that they decide to take a course…. but sadly, pity them because they usually do not do enough research into which programs are decent ones and just go with the cheap and quick weekend course that ends up being a waste of time (and that makes them think that there isn’t much to teaching after all).
Well, rejoice! Cambridge English has just released a free MOOC with Future Learn. The goal of this MOOC is to educate these kids (and others interested into getting into the ELT gig) on what good teaching is and how important it is to get appropriate training. We suspect it may be a soft sales approach to getting more people to take CELTA, but we would actually have to do the course to be sure and that’s not going to happen because we have books to sell. However, even if that is the case, we would’t object, because CELTA is as good as it gets when it comes to short teacher-training courses and if it stems the tide of people taking bogus weekend courses, the world of ELT and the respect for our profession will be all that much better off.
The remaining question is: how will the kids find out about it? We are not entirely sure, but we hope you will pass the word along to anyone who could benefit.
The Transferable Academic Skills Kit is pretty much the only book of its kind. What do you think makes this resource so unique?
I think TASK is unique because it is so practical, with a focus on activities and exercises to help students develop essential academic skills. It is also highly flexible, allowing students to dip into specific modules according to their needs or interests. And the focus on transferable skills means that it can be used in a variety of contexts, by students of almost any background or level.
Why did your team put this material together?
The book was originally put together by a team from the University Reading, led by Anthony Manning, TASK’s creator and one of the principal authors. The material grew directly out of our experience teaching students on the International Foundation Programme here at Reading. We understood the importance of supporting students transitioning into higher education by helping them acquire a set of skills and tools that they could apply across any academic discipline and even beyond university. It therefore provides students with their own individual toolkit to draw on when faced with new situations – in and out of the classroom.
How is the second edition different from the first edition?
The new TASK has the same core aims and structure, but the material has been updated to ensure it is still relevant to the current HE context. Some modules were removed; IT Skills, for example, had become less relevant to our increasingly digital students. Other modules were re-worked, with new exercises and/or topics added, or with a new focus: for instance instead of Teamworking we created Group Work and Projects. I should add that it’s a testament to our own good group work that quite a number of the authors contributed to the final version of this module! Another important change was in re-working and extending the previous module on Research and Referencing into two new units: Research and Online Sources, and Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism. This was to recognise the importance of these challenging topics, and to offer students space for a deeper exploration, more practice, and more activities. Finally, another exciting addition, especially for me as a non-maths specialist, is a brand new module on Numeracy, reflecting the recognition that maths is essential for everyone and in a wide range of fields.
Seeing as this material does not teach language skills and most EAP classes are defined by the skill(s) they teach, how can TASK fit into an EAP program’s curriculum?
TASK can usefully complement any EAP programme, precisely because of its focus on academic skills practice. Its modular nature means units can be used at any point in the curriculum, either alongside language work, or as standalone topics in their own right. For example: Presentations could enhance work on spoken language by offering additional practice activities; Critical Thinking could be added at any point to engage students in written and spoken exercises.
Dr Elisabeth Wilding is Deputy Head of the International Study and Language Institute (ISLI) at the University of Reading, which specialises in providing a range of language courses and academic training to international students. Elisabeth’s teaching and research interests relate to technology-enhanced learning and academic skills development. She has co-authored two course books in the 2015 TASK (Transferable Academic Skills Kit) series: Presentations and Research and Online Sources.
This year, BC TEAL’s annual conference will be held on the Surrey campus of Simon Fraser University. This year’s conference theme is Building Community and plenary speakers are Shelly Terrell, Laurel Pollard and our friend Lindsay Clandfield. We look forward to attending and seeing all our friends on the west coast!
TESL Hamilton will be holding its annual conference and AGM on April 23rd. We will be there in spirit rather than in body, which of course means that we have sent along some special little gifts for attendees.
For those of you in the Berkely area, April 16th is a day of gathering. We will be attending virtually, which means that you won’t get to see our smiling faces, but there will be some gifts from us in your conference bag… so make sure you pick one up!
Presented by Fiona Mee as part of DELTA Publishing’s free webinar series.
In this webinar, we will explore how we can use coaching to support people through change. No change model or programme can prepare people for feelings that they never expected to have or for situations that they never expected to face. Change is a moving dynamic. However, the job of the coach is not to take someone somewhere. In fact if you try to do that you will most likely engender greater resistance than already exists. We must let people make up their own minds and find their own ways. In the webinar, I will examine the need to recognize and validate resistance as a form of creative expression and adjustment. Finally, I will present some ideas for related activities that can be used in the training room.
Fiona Mee worked as a teacher, entrepreneur and manager in Brazil and Germany before joining York Associates in 2008. She is now a company director and Operational Manager and has been responsible for managing change over the last five years. She also delivers intercultural and leadership training. Fiona is author of Managing Change from the International Management English series by Delta Publishing.
This year, TESOL celebrates its 50th anniversary and in celebration current TESOL president Dr. Andy Curtis will be doing some some reflecting forwards and backwards in his keynote. We at English Central and not capable of such optical acrobatics, but are aiming to impress nevertheless.
We will be launching the American edition of Jetstream and to help us do it in style, methodology man and Jetstream co-author Jeremy Harmer will be joining us! Jeremy will be doing 4 Jetstream-related presentations (see below) as well as being on hand in our booth to answer questions and connect with teachers.
We will have a number of giveaways at our booth (number 401, right at the front doors – you can’t miss it), so be sure to vist us!
We hope you will attend one – or all! – of Jeremy’s presentations:
Truth and Lies: Authenticity and Artifice in the Coursebook Experience
April 6th 1:00 pm – 1:45 pm in room 320 at the Baltimore Convention Center.
We have tended to see authenticity as a language issue (and, as a result, argued about what constitutes its authentic use). But there are other authenticities too: authentic experience, authentic content and authentic learning. But that’s not the whole story either. Students – just like the rest of us – are entirely susceptible to fun and fiction, imagination and play. What is NOT advisable, however, is to try and mix the two. This talk will look at what authenticity can mean in a twenty-first century coursbook – and where the fiction and lies come in!
Use It or Lose It: Performance in Language Learning
April 6th 5:00 pm – 5:45 pm in room Tubman at the Hilton Baltimore.
One of the great mysteries of language learning is how students transfer things they have memorized ‘short-term’ to a more permanent automaticity (of use).
One way of making this happen is through student performance –that range of activities which provoke them into trying to combine and use the language they have been studying (and which they studied in the past) as they struggle to produce meaningful content.
This is not a new phenomenon – after all the whole communicative movement arose from a concern with student production and performance – but we know more about it now, and we have more resources at our disposal.
You First: What Students Bring to the Coursebook Experience
April 7th 1:00 pm – 1:45 pm in room 321 at the Baltimore Convention Center
The whole point of language learning is, of course, what happens to the learners. They should not be consumers of teaching (or coursebook material). They should be the main part of the equation. So what can a coursebook (or any lesson design) do to centre everything that happens on the learners’ ‘here and now’ experience and progress?
This talk looks at how to bring students into the heart of everything that happens through a variety of activities which remind them (and us) that what is happening in their heads (and hearts) is by far the most important element in the teaching-learning equation.
How Students Get Language from a Course Book
April 8th 11:30 am – 12:15 pm in room Tilghman at the Hilton Baltimore
Students get language in a variety of ways. Sometimes teachers explain grammar and have students practice it; or they introduce words and students try to use them and then those words are revised. But there are other ways too. We can have students ‘mine’ written and spoken text for useful and, let’s not pass this by, interesting language that crops up – and which they may very well remember best of all.
This talk looks at the different ways that coursebook activites can help students engage with words, lexical phrases, grammar and functions –and how to make that engagement memorable and long-lasting.
Plus, we invite you to attend some of our partners’ presentations:
David Harrington: “Choose your Own”-Style Adventures in the ELT Classroom
April 6th 10:30 pm – 11:15 am in room Tubman at the Hilton Baltimore.
YOU are the hero! Try multipath stories as part of an extensive reading program as the focus of discussion tasks, as support for writing, to target reluctant readers, and more. Appropriate from upper elementary to adult. Examples drawn from the Atama-ii Books series, but applicable to any CYOA-style story.
“They should have learned study skills in high school.” Yes — but what if they didn’t? University students sometimes arrive with brain power and drive, but without the organization and habits necessary for academic success. The presenter will demonstrate useful techniques for teaching and practicing academic study skills.
At the begining of March, Florida Sentators passed a bill that would allow high school students to take computer coding in place of their foreign language requirement. Not everyone is on board with this change, including colleges and universities which do not recognize coding as an alternative to their language requirements!
For those of you who love to hate IELTS – or for those of you merely interested in the accuracy and effectiveness of language proficiency testing – here is the story of Kevin Wall, a 30 year old Irishman and paralympian living in Perth on a visa. He has repeatedly failed to pass the IELTS test, thus preventing him from becoming an Australian citizen and from representing Australia in the Rio Paralympic Games.
