Humanising Language Teaching
Year 6; Issue 1; January 2004

A summer at Pilgrims

Marina Soroka, Canada

(Editorial note: in this letter Marina Soroka, a Russian living in Canada, writes to Gill, who was one of her tutors on a two week Teacher Training course at Pilgrims, in summer 2003.)

Dear Gill,

I went to Pilgrims Language School for a 2-week course on July 13-26 last year.

Why?

I had been using the books written by the people who work in this school and found them stimulating both to me and to the classes I taught. The books that I am sure most of ESL teachers have come across at some point began to appear in late 80-ies in CUP and OUP. The names that guaranteed that the books would be interesting were Penny Ur, Sheelagh Deller, Mario Rinvolucri, Paul Davis, Alan Maley, Rick Cooper – to name a few.

They are devoid of the insipid inanities that fill so many textbooks; they are free of hype and they treat the student with respect. There is no patronizing. When I use the activities from the Pilgrims' books I find that I still “give” to the class the Materials (words, grammar structures needed, etc), but at the same time I expect (and I get) interesting ideas, opinions and stories. I supply the language, but I get information. It is a fair exchange.

I went because I wanted to meet those who teach in this way. The 100-something Teachers from Europe who registered for the same time-slot were there either on a grant from the European Union or from their national Ministries of Education. I was the only Russian and also the only Canadian citizen.

The courses offered were Multiple Intelligences and NLP; English for Primary teachers; Teaching Other Subjects in English; Creative Pilgrims Teacher. The classes were from 9 to 3.30 pm. At 4 pm optional 5-6 seminars were offered. At 7 pm there were more workshops. We finished at 8.30 – 9.00 pm and usually fell into our beds!

The course I took was “Creative Teacher”. We were 20 in the course and the trainers divided us into 2 groups. Each of them took a class in the morning, and they swapped us in the afternoon. It worked out very well, because they were very different and we could benefit from 2 teaching approaches. Gill Johnson who taught in the morning was very energetic and pragmatic. She gave the impression of a very experienced teacher that had seen it all and can take anything in her stride. She said later that she feels apprehensive when starting a new class, wondering whether the group would jell. But given her confidence and firmness I cannot believe that she would not lead any group of students successfully through a course.

Chaz Pugliese who was with us in the afternoons is quiet, distant and watchful. He said he was American; his favorite reading were non-fiction books, mostly about brain functioning and he taught in France. The fact that he did not behave like Eddy Murphy, chose to live in France and read “heavy stuff” made my classmates apprehensive. They thought he was being arrogant. The feeling vanished when we saw that he was very dedicated and helpful.

His way of bringing us to understand how and why we think, we act and we teach was indirect. He would start from very far and gradually, through questions and group/pair discussion we would get at a new idea. Not all enjoyed it. Teachers like to be in control and some got annoyed because they could not quickly see where Chaz was leading us. He offered us many interesting ideas but one that he returned to many times was that learning must be task-based, guiding the students through various steps towards a new and useful conclusion or information at the end of every activity. He also talked about “milking” an activity – he showed how he could walk into a class with a sheet of paper with a short poem on it and like a magician pull out of it one activity after another: vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, spelling, communication.

I loved his sessions as much as I did Gill's, but in a different way. Hers were demonstrations of how we could teach this or that aspect of language in a class. You could simply take what she offered and walk into your class with it and do it. It was clear, logical and charming. I felt, watching her, like I felt sometimes watching a good dancer – I wanted to try the same steps then and there. His activities required a different kind of thinking and those who had never used any of Humanising Language Teaching books before needed time to get used to it.

Afternoon and evening workshops were offered by the trainers who were teaching other courses, so we could have a “taste” of what those courses were.

One of the best ones was by Mario Rinvolucri, on storytelling. I have used his book “Once Upon a Time”, so I knew the stories he used. But seeing him act was marvellous.

Paul Davis gave workshops on Spoken English Grammar. He was very entertaining and gave us a lot of food for thought. I will pass on one of his statements: ESL textbooks pretend to teach spoken language through the written language grammar which only makes students' life hard. He said that even at Cambridge English oral exam grades are given for communication ability rather than for grammar correctness. As he put it, “If you are interesting to talk to, I do not care about your tenses. And if you are a bore I am not interested even if you know your past participles”. Do you agree?

Even the self-esteem seminar that I went to with clenched teeth (tired of the saccharine psycho-pap that rains on readers and talk-show viewers) made me think about my way of being and doing my work. It made me consider the ideas I had simply laughed at before. So whether I agreed or not did not matter. What mattered most was making me pay attention.

What impressed me the most about the school? The ease and naturalness with which they all behaved and taught. There was not a single computer or overhead projector in the class. The teachers came in sometimes with a stack of papers and markers, sometimes with postcards or a cassette and a tapedeck. They performed without expensive doodads and it made the classes livelier and somehow more convincing, more real. It all comes to the same: you do not need to gild a lily. Their sincerity and honesty. The teachers in Pilgrims had opinions and did not care about political correctedness which they mocked quite cruelly. They did not mince words, they did not try to please everybody and they did not deal in hypocritical goodie-goodie preaching. They were not aggressive, did not they try to convert us to their views. They were sincere and frank and this was refreshing and very unique.

The teachers were extremely well-informed and widely read. They seemed to know about every book and every school in the ESL world. They spoke languages, they had taught all over the world. Gill had taught in Africa and was going back there. Chaz said, “What would you do if without any notice and resources you had to stand in front of 600 Mexican students in a gym and teach them for two hours? It happened to me…”

Robertson Davies wrote to a friend who informed him that he was going to start sessions of psychoanalysis: “It is not use at all unless you are sure that the analyst is ethically and intellectually your superior or at least your equal.” Well, The teachers at the Pilgrims Course came up to Davies' scratch. Learning from them is a pure joy.

I was asked to write about my experiences at the course for the provincial ESL teachers' publication, so I did. And it seems like talking about the Pilgrims behind their backs, unless you read it, so I am attaching it to this letter. I hope it is OK with you and it is in a way one more “Thank-you”.

Marina Soroka, Canada.