Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 2; March 2000
Welcome to the Issue 2 Year 2000 of HLT. It is beginning to be time to encourage you
to have a look at our back issues and to make this easier we have now made the 8 issues of 1999
available in sections. You can now download and print out all the 1999 jokes, all the 1999
lesson outlines, all the 1999 student voices etc…..
This new arrangement could make your navigation easier.
The first part of this editorial introduces you to a journal and a conference while the second part signposts the contents of this issue of HLT.
Part 1
The Teacher Trainer
I wonder how many of the on average 600-700 readers who come to HLT each week know of the existence of The Teacher Trainer?
And yet TTT is our elder sister and now in her 14th year. If you are a teacher trainer you will find that TTT just makes your life in the training room so much easier. The journal is full of really practical ideas about how to make training more effective and more exciting. It is not one of those waffly places where the point of writing an article is to see how long a list of book references you can achieve.
If you are a language teacher you will find the review section of TTT invaluable. The reviewlets are a couple of paragraphs long and the range of books covered from within the profession and from parallel fields is exceptional. I guess reading those reviews empties my pockets of nearly $300 (US) each year.
If you are interested in humanising teacher training then THE TEACHER TRAINER is a must for you. The sub is dirt cheap: £25 per year
£48 for two years
£ 70 for three years
Send your money to Pilgrims/Orchard St/Canterbury/ CT2 8BF / UK and mark your envelope TTT. Alternatively e-mail us at trainer@pilgrims.co.uk
Humanism in Language Teaching Conference
If you sometimes read this web'zine with pleasure, then the Porto Novo LEND Conference, 30th of August- 2nd of September 2000, offers you a wonderful opportunity to work intensely with 200+ other people on humanistic topics of your choice. The Conference organiser, Valeria Gallerani, has got together a star team of animators including Alan Maley ( arguably the man who put ELT methodology on the map in the 70's and 80's, Graziella Pozzo ( an expert, on the European level, on teacher action research) Ana Robles ( HLT's Secondary teaching consultant), Adrian Underhill who used to run teacher training at IH in Hastings, UK, one of the beacons for humanistic training at world level, and Jim Wingate, a master story-teller and teacher trainer ( see review in this issue of his new book for primary teachers)
There is, however, a problem with the conference site. The place is just too beautiful, snuggling under its cliffs on the Adriatic coast of Italy, so participants have be strong-minded to opt for work rather than the blue, blue sea. Mostly they take a dip as the sun disappears to the West, beyond the clifftops.
At less than $300 (US) for food, lodging and workshops in a breathtaking setting, this conference is one of the most reasonably priced you will find anywhere in Europe this year.
To get a brochure, simply e-mail Valeria at v.gallerani@fastnet.it
Part 2
What's in HLT 2000 , Issue 2?
The Student Voices this time are pretty special. They are students of all ages and of different language levels, some of whom have belonged to the same group for a couple of decades. Their texts give a riotous, many-coloured picture of one Neapolitan classroom. Some of you may sigh and say "I wish I had students like these!"
The Major article brings you thoughts from outside EFL- here an architecture student puts forward proposals for the humanising of university architecture training with the aim of turning out architects who think first of dwellers and second of dwellings. We are not alone in wanting to make our work more human-focused.
The Lesson outlines focus on cultural issues and offer a picture of the language learner as a sort of anthropologist of the people whose language she is studying. This anthropological vision can be very empowering for some students.
The Old Exercise takes you back to the 16th Century. It is odd that the EFL community in UK and US has scant feeling of language learning and teaching as an age-old activity.
In the Secondary Section, in Short Article No 1, Halima Brewer shows how much Howard Gardner's ideas on Multiple Intelligences can help when teaching teenagers while a voice from South Brazil, that of Marcelo Baccarin, looks at the way we adults can sometimes evolve negative images of people hormoning their way from thirteen to nineteen.
If you want to know why people from North West Spain build their universities at the bottom of the sea, then you need to go to the end of the Jokes section
I apologise for the non-appearance of the Primary Teaching Section that I promised in 2000 Issue 1. This is sadly due to ill-health.
I apologise too for the late publication of this issue. I am ashamed to admit that we have gone up ten days late, and our subscribers have a right to regularity. The fault is mine: I have been spinning round Europe like a blue-arsed fly for the past six weeks.
We'll do better with the end of May Issue
If you would like to be notified each time a new issue of Humanising Language Teaching is published,
You can join the mailing list by clicking here.
