Category: English Central Blog

We were particularly moved by a current Unicef fundraising campaign, and English Central has decided to do what we can to help spread the word… and encourage your help!

Today, we are faced with multiple emergencies all over the world. Conflict, natural disasters and climate-change events mean that 462 million children now live in crisis-affected areas and 75 million of them have had their education interrupted or have had to abandon it altogether to flee to safety. For these children, back to school may never come.

Education is especially important for children during times of crises, giving them a sense of normalcy and hope for the future in the midst of violence, instability and disaster. It provides them with the skills to build better, safer, healthier lives for themselves, their families and their communities.

UNICEF is there, on the ground before, during and after a crisis hits. Unicef has always provided temporary learning spaces, rebuilt schools, established accelerated and alternative learning programs, trained teachers and provided school children with vital school supplies. But with today’s global emergencies they are seeing a severe education-funding shortfall, in 2015 only 12% of children living in crisis and in need of education were reached.

Please join English Central in donating school supply kits today and help more children receive the essentials they need to continue to learn.

Each kit costs only $3.71 and contains a backpack, an exercise book and pencils. A donation of:

• $26 will provide 7 children supplies
• $53 will help 14 children
• $102 will provide supplies to 27 children

For every person who clicks the link below to donate, English Cental will match the donation*. On Halloween, kids no longer come around with those little orange collection boxes anymore; let’s keep the tradition of working with Unicef at this time of year, though, and do some good at little expense.

Please join us and donate today!

* We will match any contributions made by October 31st, 2016 up to a maximum of 300 backpacks. Note that this campaign is through Unicef Canada – for our US readers, you can participate nevertheless; plus, the exchange rate means that this is even easier for you to help!

Many educators may be tired of the debates over “to ban, or not to ban” the use of electronic devices in the classroom.

A recent article in the Globe and Mail by two University of Toronto Professors makes some very interesting and valid arguments for not allowing students to be wired in class. Read the article here.

Of course, the ESL classroom is a difficult educational environment than a political science lecture hall. We have been won over by Jeremy Harmer’s take on device using in class: have times during class when you encourage students to research things online because this brings the wider world and student interests into the classroom. He goes on to say that the ESL classroom is improved when you have times when you let students use their devices (the rest of the time, they are turned off). Jetstream is the newest coursebook that Jeremy has co-authored and it accomodates devices too. This is a coursebook for today! Listen to Jeremy talk about Jetstream and using devices in this recorded webinar.

 

We have always been advocates of making students aware of the skills they are learning. Why? If hey know they have skills, they are more likely to apply them on their own in the future. If you are slogging through some listening activity, for example, once all is understood, it make sense to point out that they just practiced note-taking skills or understanding asides or whatever the case may be. In too many EAP textbooks in particular, students are made to wade through lectures that are extremely dense and difficult and the goal ends up just getting through it. In the end, who cares if a student understood the listening in their EAP textbook? The value of the lesson is learning skills that they can apply when they are sitting in lecture halls themselves.

So, we are in favour of overtly teaching skills and making sure students know it. That is why we are fond of Garnet Education’s English for Academic Study Series, the Transferable Academic Skills Kit and Macmillan Education’s Skillful series.

Well, we got a boost for our argument recently fron an article in Inside Higher Education. In his article, From Retention to Persistence, author Vincent Tinto argues that educators have the wrong end of the stick when they talk about how to retain students. He says that using the term “retain” shows that the perspective is that of the school, not of the students. He says that we should be concerned that students have the persistence they need to complete their education. There are three major factors to student persistence, he argues: self-efficacy, a sense of belonging and the perceived value of the curriculum. We here at English Central can’t really influence the second two factors (well, good books might be part of the curriculum equation), but we can definitely influence self-efficacy, so let’s take a closer look at it.

Self-efficacy, he argues, is a person’s belief in their ability to succeed at a particular task or in a specific situation. This quality is learned and is malleable. Imagine how confusing and demoralizing it would be to be told that you need to show better critical thinking skills while getting what seems like mixed messages on what that actually means (stop regugitating facts and think for yourself; distinguish facts from opinions). What if students were clearly taught how to distinguish fact from opinion, how to identify parts of arguments, how to recognize when language, rathan reason, is used to persuade and so on? If such critical thinking skills were taught in a systematic way, is it not reasonable to expect that when they go on to their studies, they would believe in their critical thinking skills and their ability to analyze whatever it is they are asked to analyze?

For EAP students – or all and any students that are university-bound – it seems that an important key to their success is learning skills like critical thinking, researching, referencing, making presentations, participating in group work and so on. For EAP students specifically, textbooks with interesting topics and pretty pictures should not be the main concern. Instead, these students need to learn specific listening, reading, speaking and listening skills that they can apply once they are out of the “safe” environment of the EAP classroom in order to survive. It is for this reason that we are so wound up about the Transferable Academic Skills Kit, as well as the English for Academic Study and Skillful series. These textbooks helf students become autonomous and this is one of the most important qualities they will need to reach their academic goals.

Read the article on Inside Higher Education.

 

If you live in or near Toronto (or are looking for an excuse to move here), we are currently hiring at our head office We are looking for full and part time administrative, sales and marketing associates as well as a part time shipping and receiving assistant. If you are interested, please forwrd your resume and a cover letter to Carrie (carrie@englishcentral.net).

English Central is very pleased to announce that Ellen Zlotnick has joined our team as a Senior ESL specialist in the mid-west. Ms. Zlotnick has a very strong reputation in this industry because of the stellar work she did for Cambridge University Press and we are thrilled at our good fortune in having her join our team!

Ms. Zlotnick has a BS from Northwestern University and an MA in Education from The Ohio State University. She has more than 30 years of experience in the field of ESL, teaching and publishing. She spent almost 22 years working for Cambridge University Press as an ESL Senior Specialist.

Prior to publishing, Ms. Zlotnick worked as an Adult Education instructor at the City College of Chicago and taught adults in Madrid in a variety of settings. As a Director of Studies she designed curriculum as well as taught EAP and ESP.

She is committed to bringing the highest quality materials and service to ESL teachers.

She lives in Northeastern Ohio with her husband, twelve-year-old twins and four cats. She looks forward to working with English Central in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. She also would like to share these words:

Dear ESL Teachers:

As a former ESL/EFL teacher I understand the difference the right resources make between a successful lesson and one which you wish you could have planned differently. I understand that you have limited time and resources.

My role at English Central is to assist you in finding the right materials that will help your students as well as you… and hopefully help to improve your life/work balance.

I bring to you teaching, administrative and ESL publishing experience which together will help you and your students.

I look forward to working with you in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan.

Hope to see you at a conference this Fall or talk with you soon.

Thanks,

Ellen Zlotnick

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.