Humanising Language Teaching
Year 6; Issue 1; January 2004

From Turkey:

Dear Mario,

I am fond of HLT magazine and I heard you want feedback as to what people read in the magazine. Here goes:

I read most of the major articles and , yes, the practical short articles. Ideas from the Corpora I also read. I usually am short of time, so I tend to skip the other sections.

Keep up the great job and don't give up on the longer articles…....

Thank you for the magazine and for asking us!

Susan Oniz

METU, Ankara

Dear Mario Rinvolucri,

I have been an HLT reader for quite some time now. I must note that I am one of those quiet types so I do not write e-mails very often. When I saw your letter asking for feedback on HLT, my first reaction was to write and ask you not to do anything so radical as scraping the Major Articles section or other sections you mentioned.

I also find the email you send out about each new edition very informative. On receiving your email, even if I am very busy ( we all have our small worlds and sometimes get lost in details ), I immediately read the major articles and have a look at the other sections. I then download, note or bookmark them so I can take notes later.

Most of the time I feel indebted to people like you. Honestly, if it weren't for your work, people like me ( the citizens of the EFL world ) would find it hard to keep up-to-date, or keep informed about the latest issues.

Need an example? Only this week-end I attended a Conference here in Ankara and attended a session on the Common European Frame Work. I had heard and read about the CEF earlier but I really did not know what to do with it, so I went to the session. Then, when I went back home in the evening and sat in front of my computer, there it was, the latest issue of HLT waiting for me, and guess what, two articles related to CEF, by different people and with differing viewpoints, giving me ideas about its possible shortcomings or successful applications.

The next day I asked more questions about it and then a colleague and I got hold of the published version and we wondered whether we could use CEF criteria in writing materials we have been preparing to give feedback to our students ( the “ can do “ statements ) the pros and cons and so on.

And this morning in class, I worked with concordance lists. My students loved the idea and said they found it very helpful. I am sure many other ideas from HLT Corpora section have already found their ways into our teaching and will continue to do so.

The CEF and the Corpora section examples are just two, the ones that come to mind as I write this letter to you. In short, I am sure that there are many other teachers all around who could have written similar letters to you. If we are silent , it is not because we do no read or appreciate the work, it is SIMPLY because we prefer to keep silent ( something cultural, most probably), so please make changes if you like but do not scrap anything.

Personally, I read everything in HLT, not all at once, maybe, but at different times.

SO, hearty thanks to you and all the people who work with you,

P. Gaye Tolunguc ( Mrs)

METU, Ankara

From Sweden

Dear Mario,

As a keen reader of HLT for the past three years, I can't help recalling the old Zen saying that goes like this:

“ When the student is ready the teacher will come”

Ten years back, at the beginning of my teaching career, I wasn't yet ready for HLT . My current job on the so-called “ Individual Programme” tries to offer a solution for high school students, who, for various reasons, can't make it and don't fit into our pretty uniform, three-year long upper secondary system.

My students are a mixed bag of individuals who have one thing in common: they lack their pass grades in English and this debars them from joining the mainstream of other national programmes. My job is to remedy this.

As my students are notorious absentees who often leave me waiting in vain, I have plenty of time on my hands. I guess we do not tackle this problem well in Sweden. Waiting for students who won't come is, frankly , a harrowing experience for any teacher.

My way of coping is to try to be very attentive to the situation at hand when my little groups of students are there with their problems. What I try to do is surrender to reality and start from the “ here and now” , rather than picking up from where we had left off.

Looking back I can see how my attention has gradually shifted:

From focusing on English to relating to people.

From reverence for other people's materials to the freedom of my own resources.

From “ Cut-and-glue “ frenzy and over-doing things to doing more with less.

From pre-planning to post-planning.

From suspicion and control to building mutual trust and empowerment.

Isn't it exciting to realise that my journey of ten years has only just begun!

Do I ever have successful lessons? You bet! These happy moments happen when I am mindful and fully aware of the present. Sometimes I even find myself doing effectively things that need doing rather then things that “ should “ be done. Needless to say, I have to nourish myself continually and that is why I enjoy reading HLT so much! It's a real source of renewal and inspiration.

Martina W Johansson