the lives of teachers

the lives of teachers

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I talked to Professor Jennifer Jenkins about English as Lingua Franca, what it is and what it means to us as teachers. As usual, a google scholar search turns up quite a lot of good reading in this area, but I would recommend this short article as a good starting point.

Barbara Seidlhofer’s name came up in the discussion too, and I recommend this article as a very important one in the development of the field.

Seidlhofer B. (2004) ‘Teaching English as a lingua franca’. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics Vol.24: 209–239

The Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English is an ongoing attempt to build a sample of non-native interaction in English.

Here is a review (mine!) of her 2007 book ‘English as Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity’

And finally, some commentary on David Graddol’s book (and a free pdf download of the whole thing) which we mention later in the podcast.

From this particular conversation? I am still in agreement with the philosophy behind ELF… but it ELF doesn’t need my permission, as a native speaker, to exist and thrive. The fact is that non-native speakers are now driving the language forward. My difficulty, as a teacher, is what I do about it. What is a mistake, and what is just a difference? How does this impact on my writing class? How long have I got to become fluent and fully literate in another language, before I become obsolete? Listen, enjoy, and comment please. But play nice – I know this topic can get particularly feisty….

the lives of teachers

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Angela is a texbook writer, teacher, teacher trainer and sometime commenter on this very blog! You can see her interview in video form here.

If you like this podcast, please subscribe in iTunes, and write me a review! More are available in the archive – just click the ‘podcast’ tag below. I am always interested in talking to people, so email me if you would like to be interviewed for future episodes at darrenrelliott@gmail.com.

Cheers!

the lives of teachers

An audio version of the video interview we did at the JALT conference in Shizuoka, Japan.

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LINKS

Window-dressing vs. Cross-dressing in the EFL Sub-culture. (The article I referred to in the interview… revived by the magic of twitter)

The New School- Online MA programme which Scott Thornbury (amongst others) is teaching on.

Scott’s own website, where you can see his edited plenary slides and plenty more.

There has been a lot of discussion of dogme around the blogosphere recently, triggered by the tenth anniversary of the movement. Not all of it kind….

Romantic Comedy with a Sinister Twist. A Marxist Critique of Dogme ELT. « Marxist TEFL Group

Critical DOGME or DOGME with Sympathy for the Critical? | Critical Mass ELT: Reflections on the World of English Language Teaching

D is for Dogme « An A-Z of ELT

But let’s not forget the prestigious ELTON award!

the lives of teachers

An audio version of the video interview we did at JALT 2009 in Shizuoka, Japan.

I first saw Miles speak a couple of years ago at another JALT event, and at the time was very impressed with his fair but candid assessment of writing and publishing in ELT. When I started this series he was one of the people I was hoping to talk to, so I was delighted to see his name as a featured speaker.  Amongst other things, we talked about how a book is put together, design, the pain of writing, the needs of students and teachers and the future of the publishing industry.

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An Interview With Hayo Reinders from darren elliott on Vimeo.

I’m by no means a gamer*, but I was fascinated to hear Hayo address the question ‘Do computer games really contribute to language learning?’ as keynote speaker at the 4th International Wireless Ready Symposium in Nagoya, Japan. The answer? They can, but…..

I meant to ask a little more about the institutional obstacles to success in incorporating technology into language learning. One thing Hayo alluded to in his talk was the difficulty in controlling who and what learners come into contact with in the online world. Here in Japan the age of majority is twenty, so technically many of my students are still children! My personal preference would be to give them a little training in online ‘smarts’ and let them free, but I realise life is not so simple and that we have a duty of care. How should we approach this problem, then? Do you think fears about security / ‘bad’ language / inappropriate content are justified? Or that firewalls and filters just end up shackling us?

It was great to finally meet Dr. Reinders and he gives a great interview here, despite being on a nine-hour time difference from his home in London. I first came across his work when I started looking into self-access learning and learner autonomy, and we discussed these topics too. For all things ‘Reinders’ I recommend his website “Innovation in Teaching”. As well as many, many fine articles you can find a clip of Hayo on Pakistani breakfast television…..

*apart from ‘Urban Dead’, but that’s more about my love for zombies than my love for computer games

An Interview with Ritsuko Nakata from darren elliott on Vimeo.

Ritsuko Nakata has been involved in English education in Japan for many years, training and mentoring teachers of young learners, developing the MAT (model, action, talk) method, working on the multi-million selling Let’s Go! series, and (of course) teaching children. We discussed all these things and more in the longest interview yet! Thanks again to Ms. Nakata for being so giving of her time and knowledge.

Extra Links

A 2001 article from Ritsuko about discussions with the Japanese Ministry of Education  (Monbusho) regarding English education in state schools.

And one from 2000.

Barbara Sakamoto’s blog about mentoring, featuring Ritsuko.

And an interview with Barbara, who worked on Let’s Go with Ritsuko.

the lives of teachers

This is an audio version of the video interview I did with Paul Nation last November. Please head over to iTunes and subscribe to catch future podcasts.

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An Interview with Miles Craven from darren elliott on Vimeo.

I first saw Miles speak a couple of years ago at another JALT event, and at the time was very impressed with his fair but candid assessment of writing and publishing in ELT. When I started this series he was one of the people I was hoping to talk to, so I was delighted to see his name as a featured speaker at this years JALT conference in Shizuoka.  Amongst other things, we talked about how a book is put together, design, the pain of writing, the needs of students and teachers and the future of the publishing industry.

The edit point is for me to politely ask a couple of blokes to pipe down, not for Miles to dish any major dirt on well-known authors, so don’t get too excited. Once again, the worms-eye view is in operation. We do what we can with the equipment…..

An Interview with Scott Thornbury from darren elliott on Vimeo.

Scott was giving a plenary at the Japan Association of Language Teachers national conference in Shizuoka this weekend, as well as a couple of presentations, but was kind enough to spare me half an hour or so for a chat. We talked a grammar, Vygotsky and socio-linguistics (inspired by James Lantolf, who was also speaking at the conference), technology, textbooks, testing and, of course, dogme. Like his fellow Kiwi Paul Nation, he is a thoroughly nice chap. If you want to pick up some of Scott’s books (and I really recommend that you do – he has a great talent for bringing complex concepts to life)  you can get them through my store and contribute a few pennies towards the running of this site at the same time….

LINKS

Window-dressing vs. Cross-dressing in the EFL Sub-culture. (The article I referred to in the interview… revived by the magic of twitter)

The New School- Online MA programme which Scott Thornbury (amongst others) is teaching on.

Scott’s own website, where you can see his edited plenary slides and plenty more.

Apologies, as usual, for the racket in the background and the occasional cropping of vital body parts.

An Interview with Angela Buckingham from darren elliott on Vimeo.

Today I talked to textbook writer, teacher and teacher trainer Angela Buckingham about how she got into textbook writing, why the characters in her books are non-native speakers, the differences between certificate and diploma trainee teachers and working with asylum seekers in the UK Further Education context. She was great company and didn’t even mind too much when I asked her to hold up two of her textbooks to camera, and she had plenty more of interest to add after the cut. Charles, by the way, is our local OUP rep who is busy guiding her around the area. He’s a pretty good sport too!