Dear HLT Readers,

Welcome to the June issue of HLT. We were hoping to surprise you with a completely new issue of HLT featuring new organisation and new layout but as Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, wrote: “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.” (in English “The best-laid plans of mice and men / Go oft awry". So you can enjoy the new HLT organisation but you have to wait for the new layout until August. Fingers crossed, that is. Teething problems which I am sure you will sympathise with.

So let me talk you through the changes. The majority of articles will appear in what now is called Various Articles section, replacing the Major Articles and Short Articles sections. To be fair a short article may raise a major issue, while a long article does not necessarily classify as a major one just on the strength of the word count.

In the section, however, the articles will be grouped around various subheadings according to their content . In this issue they are Young Learners, Writing for Secondary/Young Adults, Adults/ESP, SEN: Adult Dyslexia, Assessment and Testing and Other e.g. English as Lingua Franca.

Another merger that has taken place is combining the old Publications and Book Preview sections into just Publications as sometimes it hard to keep track whether the given title hasn’t already appeared on the market.

I have had to say good-bye to the Corpora Ideas section as it has been increasingly more difficult to harvest articles on the subject and fill the section in each issue of HLT. Needless to say, if I receive any articles on the subject I will be very happy to publish them. Instead there is a new section in tune with the new developments in ELT, namely 21st Century Skills. The articles in this section will be carefully selected to address some of the issues represented in this diagram, and, naturally, relevant to ELT and humanism:

In this issue you can read The Rules You Live by: Clarifying Beliefs and Values in the Classroom by Brian Cullen and Ian Roth, What Blended Learning Does Not Do and Should Not Be, Mandana Arfa-Kaboodvand, The Role of Creativity in my Classroom, Eline Gijsen, and Out of Limitations Comes Creativity by Niels Rösche; all classify as topics relating to the 21st century skills.

Some of the old sections have been renamed and redefined making their formula and nature more open. And so Lesson Ideas have replaced Lesson Outlines , Old Exercise is now called Golden Classics to give justice to the little gems that are published there, and Students’ Voices will now be Voices, where also teachers, parents, managers, educators or publishers can air their views. In this issue the voices are: Archimedes and Pterodactyls by Raymond Devenney, and Grade 'R' - Who will Teach our Children to alis volat propiis? by Michael Waldeck.

Finally, Letters have been replaced by To the Editor section, to encompass the variety of messages I receive. After all who writes letters these days? Also Jokes has now become Humour so that cartoons, jokes, humorous newsletters and articles on using humour in the classroom can find home there.

Pilgrims News will continue to feature Pilgrims courses, but will also highlight conferences Pilgrims trainers and associates are attending, as well as Pilgrims supported initiatives and cooperation with various educators or organisations. In this issue you can read about The Non-native Teacher website and project.

Naturally, The Creativity Group have kept their regular place, while all the other partners such as journals and magazines, publishers, organisations and befriended websites HLT cooperates with will all be grouped together in Our Partners. Once you can see this section do not hesitate to make suggestions who else should be added.

We will continue to publish poems written by teachers, trainers or learners. In this issue don’t miss Three Poems by John Morgan.

Enjoy the June issue and I look forward to receiving your feedback. Hopefully we will meet you at the Hilltop in Canterbury this summer…

Best,

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