Dear HLT Readers,

Welcome to the December issue. First, things first. You may not be aware that Pilgrims Teacher Training, Canterbury, UK, has been a Bronze Sponsor of IATEFL Conference for six years, sponsoring various features of the Conference. For the upcoming Conference check Pilgrims involvement at http://conference.iatefl.org/sponsorship.html

You can also read more about Pilgrims – IATEFL link in the Course Outline section:

Pilgrims News… Jointly with IATEFL: Linking, Developing and Supporting - the IATEFL Recipe for Success by Jon Burton. We hope you will visit the Pilgrims stand at IATEFL Glasgow, UK, and then we can have a chat about teaching, teacher training, possible projects, courses in the UK. We can also plan taring sessions in your country, and tasters that will persuade you, or your colleagues, to come to Pilgrims, among others, taking advantage of the Erasmus+ grants.

As for C Group news and contributions… There has been a wonderful conference about which you can read in Creativity at the 9th ELTAM-Macedonia International Conference by Aleksandra Popovski. There are also two very creative contributions: Using the Context of Dance in Language Classes by Rokhatoy Boltaeva, and Russian Theatre Techniques in Teacher Training by Elena Kashina.

It is so sad we have lost an ELT teacher, trainer and a very creative person. A Polish poet (Jan Twardowski) once said: Hurry to love people because they are gone too soon… Good bye Nic.

On a positive note, I am very happy to announce that there is a new initiative, which will be of interest to those of you who are into visual arts:

There are some distinct themes in this issue of HLT. One of them is critical thinking in the class which features in major articles: Social Constructivism and Metacognition in an EFL Context: Inspecting the Contribution of Critical Thinking to EFL Learners’ Social Intelligence by Alireza Zaker, Fostering Students’ Metacognitive Knowledge Through Written Comments by Ivan Chong, and Deep Reading and How to Rediscover It by Feride Hekimgil.

If you are interested in speaking in the ELT class, look up Personal Past Perfect: Using a Personal Story to Authentically Model a Tense by Peter Gyulay, Storytelling in the English Classroom by Beata Wojciechowska, How EFL/ESL Teachers Can Help Students Make a Successful Speech by Mark Mallinder and Hsiang-Ni Lee, and Teaching Conversation Through ‘Conversation’: A Case-study from Italy by Douglas Mark Ponton.

Two articles in this issue are devoted to course books: A modern English Language Textbook as an Integral Part of Various Learning Media by Tatiana Kozhevnkikova, and Making the Most of Your Course Book by Rory O’Kane.

There are also two articles on errors and error correction: Fear of Making Mistakes and EFL Speaking Anxiety by Michael T. R. Madill, and Systemic Approaches to Units of Editing by Shibu Simon.

For those interested in motivation, I recommend: Motivation and Teaching Phase by Bahar Kızıltunalı, and Teaching Assertiveness in the EFL Classroom by Elena Stolyarova.

Those interested in teacher training, will surely enjoy reading: What is a Native-speaking EFL Teacher Worth?: A Rational Approach, What Do Language Learners Expect? Raising the Bar in ELT/TESOL, both by Steve Mullen, and Here and Now: A Language and Culture Course for Teachers in the Post-Brexit U.K. by Mark Andrews and Uwe Pohl.

Do not miss the Student Voices section in this issue of HLT, in which Simone Lira Calabrich shares her experience of a teacher learning a new language (My French Learning Experience. A Diary Study).

As usual, there a lot of news from the publishing market in: Short Book Reviews by Hanna Kryszewska, Soft English. Methods, Softwares, Books & Games, Teaching Grammar from Rules to Reasons. Practical ideas and advice for working with grammar in the language classroom by Danny Norrington-Davies, ETpedia Young Learners. 500 ideas for English teachers of young learners by Vanessa Esteves, Don’t Send Him in Tomorrow. Shining a light on the marginalised, disenfranchised and forgotten children of today’s schools by Jarlath O’Brien, and in Readers Letters section.

Unfortunately, there has been no contribution to the Corpora Ideas section of this issue of HLT. But I have found a very interesting article on-line: Found on the Internet which you might enjoy. If you are interested in using the corpus, do contribute. Otherwise we will have to discontinue this section in HLT. Please, please please…. Would be shame if I had to scrap this section.

Enjoy this issue of HLT

Hania Kryszewska
HLT Editor
e-mail: hania.kryszewska@pilgrims.co.uk