Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 2; March2000

Hello All,

This is my second issue of HLT as secondary consultant (such a big name!) and I would like to introduce myself and my section.

I teach in a state school in Spain and have been teaching there for 15 years now. I work with monolingual groups (actually bilingual, as they speak both Spanish and Galego), 20 to 30 students in a group, teenagers full of hormones and wit, doing my best to help them to learn a language many of them don't find particularly interesting and which is not my first language either.

That I am a typical teacher in a very typical school explains why I have been asked by Mario Rinvolucri to co-ordinate the search for materials that may be valuable, interesting, amusing and/or thought-provoking for those of us who work within the particular frame of secondary school, with all its advantages and disadvantages.

But just one person looking for materials is not enough. Secondary is too big, too complex, with too many threads running through for just one pair of eyes, two ears and two hands to be able to make it justice. This section needs your contributions, ideas, suggestions, activities, questions, complains and comments.

So this is a call for papers, papers about what is working in your lessons and what is not working, also about the things that trouble you and your students and papers about the small and big successes. Whatever you want to share, please send it to my e-mail (anarobles@hotsheet.com)

For this issue we have a beautiful article on creativity by Halima Brewer. Halima is a teacher and teacher trainer who works in the south of Spain and her article is full of classroom activities and practical suggestions.

In a very different register, more classroom material, from Núria de Salvador, a teacher in Barcelona. Núria's activity offers the sort of structure that allows young teenagers to work creatively without getting lost and to develop, at the same time developing both their linguistic and their relational skills.

I couldn't resist adding a list of suggestions to stimulate learning and change in the classroom written by Tom Maguire. Last, 'Speaking Circles' a short activity I am using with good results with some of my groups.

To allow you to choose how to view the articles, we have prepared them in two formats.

The first format allows you to view the articles online as web pages. The second format (rich text format) allows you to download and save the articles to your computer and then view them with your own word processor.

"Tell Me More – Curiosity in the Language Classroom"

by Halima Brewer

"Making Collages In The Secondary Classroom"

by Núria de Salvador

"Ten ways to innovate and change learning in the classroom"

by Tom Maguire

"Terrors or Teenagers"

by Marcelo Baccarin, Londrina, Brazil