Welcome to the June issue of HLT
The Pilgrims summer is nigh. If you are not coming to Pilgrims this summer you may take advantage of the grants available for 2013 and 2014. Read more in: Short Course Outline 2013-2014
If you would like to ‘meet’ some of the Pilgrims trainers, you can meet them in this issue through their articles: Kati Somogyi-Tóth - Listening to the English, Tim Hahn - Remembering to Forget, Rosie Norman - Leveling the Playing Fields for One-To-One, Danny Singh - How Bernardo Bertolucci Changed My Life, Hanna Kryszewska - Short Book Reviews.
Pilgrims trainers attend conferences all over the world. In this editorial you can find information about conferences which will be attended by some of us. Please do not hesitate to approach them and chat to them. In From Stale Custom to Infinite Variety by Andrew Wright and Alan Maley you can read about such inspiring professional meetings. You may also watch various conferences on-line, among others the IATEFL conferences, where Pecha Kucha events are always a great success. In her article Using Pecha Kuchas in the Classroom Bethany Cagnol shares with HLT readers her ideas for using Pecha Kuchas in a language class.
Also you can meet Paul Davis and Hanna (Hania) Kryszewska ( Pilgrims trainers and authors) at www.youtube.com/watch?v=QocLmWUkqbs where Andi White, also a Pilgrims trainer, interviews them about their new book “The Company Words Keep”. You may like to blog with the authors at: www.deltapublishing.co.uk/titles/methodology/the-company-words-keep or watch the British Council webinars where Hania and other Pilgrims trainers have delivered some of the webinars (www.teachingenglish.org.uk/webinars).
Attending webinars live on-line or watching recorded past ones is a new way to develop professionally. Highly recommended. There is also a new self-publishing idea which is worth knowing about. To find out more read The Round: A New Publishing Idea by Luke Meddings. On The Round you can self-publish your books or purchase the ones you find interesting.
In this issue thare are also articles by Pilgrims and HLT friends: Alan Maley - Creative Writing for Students and Teachers, Andrew Wright - From Stale Custom to Infinite Variety, and regular contributors: Sezgi Yalin - A Potpourri of Activities, Michael Berman - Moral Dilemmas: Using Stories and Anecdotes in the Business English Class and Making the Boring Bits Interesting, Simon Mumford - Simultaneous Skills and Activities, and Feride Hekimgil - How NOT to Teach Reading: Beware the Call of Functionalism.
Although Georgi Lozanov was not a Pilgrims trainer and was never our quest or speaker, he inspired all of us and he will be greatly missed. Bonnie Tsai and Alan Maley pay tribute to this great mind.
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Dr Georgi Lozanov passed away on 6 May 2012 Sliven, Bulgaria.
He left happy and celebrated in his own land after many years of misunderstanding and exile. Bulgaria paid its respects to him in the last 4 years of his life.
His school Suggestopaedia is alive and being applied at present in one Bulgarian School and will continue the application all over the country
"The reserves (unused potential capacity) of the human brain/mind and the way to reach these reserves safely were and still are my great dream... "
“I have always considered that, metaphorically speaking, we, humans, are fallen angels, locked-up gods, ...."
“I did what I could. I hope that the future generations will follow in our steps...”
Dr.Georgi Lozanov,
Quotes from his book "Suggestopaedia and Reservopaedia” (2009)
by Bonnie Tsai, a suggestopaedic teacher and trainer, a true Lozanov follower
Georgi Lozanov
I have to confess that I never met Lozanov in person. My first contact with his thinking and practice was through dear and much lamented Peter O'Connell, then Director of School of English Studies in Eastbourne. Peter had immediately latched on to the revolutionary ideas of Lozanov, and had typically travelled to Sofia to find out more at first hand. I was then at the British Council in Paris. The 1970's were the heady days of experimentation and innovation in ELT, and what Peter told me about Suggestopoedia came like a thunderbolt. The approach flouted just about everything we had been taught to believe. It made students feel at ease, not uneasy. It used music in hitherto unknown ways. It used enormously long texts. It involved the teacher in reading material aloud in unusual ways. It was something else. It was not long before a small number of courageous pioneers, like Fanny Saferis, were trying it out for themselves. I have never been a practitioner of Suggestopoedia but I owe a debt of gratitude to Lozanov for his inspirational role in shaking us out of our comfortable thinking ruts. May he be long remembered.
by Alan Maley, Former President of IATEFL
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In the previous editorial I promised more on a new trend in language teaching, i.e. teaching thinking skills. In “Thinking in the EFL Class”: an Auto Review by Tessa Woodward the author of the book presents her new Helbling book to HLT readers. This book is aimed at adult learners. If you want to find out more about thinking skills for young learners read the review of ‘Teaching Young Learners to Think: ELT-Activities for young learners aged 6-12’ by Herbert Puchta and Marion Williams in Short Book Reviews.
The debate on Rudolf Steiner and language teaching continues. If you have followed it and want to know more read A Reply to Stefan Rathert's Article and a Discussion of Steiner School Foreign Language Teaching by Peter Lutzker, and Stefan Rathert’s letter in the Letter section.
As usual there is a wealth of articles; three articles focus on being a teacher: major article by Zainab Al Balushy: Am I an Ideal Teacher?, and articles by Thomas Ewens: The Language Teacher as Listener, and by Mandana Arfa Kaboodvand: A Personal Experience. More contributions come from teachers from all over the world: Japan, Romania, Slovenia, Portugal, Mexico, Bangladesh, Oman, Turkey, Italy and UK. This is a truly international crowd, just the right spirit for the upcoming Olympic Games. If you want to conduct a lesson on the event I am sure you will be inspired by Going to London for 2012 Olympic Games by Martina Toso.
Enjoy the issue
Hania Kryszewska
HLT Editor
e-mail: hania.kryszewska@pilgrims.co.uk
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