HLT Magazine (March 2001)

Humanising Language Teaching
Year 3; Issue 2; March 2001

Read My Lips
A treasury of the things politicians wish they hadn't said.
edited by Matthew Parris and Phil Mason
Penguin, 1997

The reason for reviewing this book in a 'zine for language teachers is that it constitutes a marvellous text quarry for use with upper intermediate and advanced students. The texts are also huge fun in themselves.

Let me give you a taste of two of the sections:

1. OOPS! Simple blunders

This is a great day for France
Richard Nixon, in Paris for the funeral of President Pompidou, 1974.

Dorothy Macmillan: What are you looking forward to now?
Madame de Gaulle: A penis.
General de Gaulle: My dear, I think the English don't pronounce the word quite like that. It's not ' a penis' but 'appiness'.

2. EH? Come again?

Nothing happened until I pressed the minister on the floor of the House. David Alton, Chief Liberal Whip, 1986

Bringing the leadership to its knees, occasionally, is a good way of keeping it on its toes.
Labour MP, Tony Banks, on the Conservative leadership struggle, 1990

I think most of the wrinkles have been ironed out.
Conservative MP. Teresa Gorman, on developments in hormone replacement therapy for older women, 1988.

To go round the world in a week, which I did the other day, is very exhausting.
Lord Glenarthur, Foreign Office Minister, 1988.

That speech must have affected every thinking Conservative MP and many others as well.
David Howell on Sir Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech, 1990.

I have probably known Michael Heseltine longer than anyone else for the last 16 years.
Chairman of the Henley-on-Thames Conservative Association, 1990.

If members cannot get into work tomorrow, because of the weather, we will have to postpone the walk-out.
Civil Service Union Official, during the 'Winter of Discontent', 1979.

It will be the first time the two countries [ Argentina and England] have met in a major sporting event since the Falklands War in 1982.
BBC Radio 4 News, previewing the Soccer World Cup Quarter Final, 1986

I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you've heard is not what I meant.
Richard Nixon

We spend weeks and hours every day preparing the budget.
Ronald Reagan, 1987

I have opinions of my own- strong opinions- but I don't always agree with them.
Bush ( Senior)

I have lied in good faith
Bernard Tapie, former French Minister, on trial for corruption, 1995

Sixty years of progress without change
Saudi Arabian Government slogan, October, 1992

Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.
Letter sent by Greenville County Dept of Social Services, South Carolina, 1992.

HLT will be delighted to hear from any reader who finds particularly effective ways of using these texts with her/her classes, be it with linguistic or cultural objectives.

Poetry as a Foreign Language
EFL Poetry Anthology
Edited by Martin Bates, White Adder Press, 1999.
Lynn Cottage, East Linton, East Lothian EHH40 3DA
ISBN: 0 9520827 3 X

Though UK is one of the World hubs for the teaching on English as a foreign language, the EFL community here is still unsteadily finding its feet and trying to take itself seriously.

The fact is that the UK EFL 'industry' generates millions of pounds for the national economy, but this fact alone is not enough for UK EFLers to feel proud of the professional community created by their hard work and enthusiasm.

This community-wide lack of self-confidence is manifest when people like Nick Ridley starting a magazine with the title: English Teaching professional. What medical magazine would feel the need to justify itself by having the word professional in the title? And what medical doctor would work for £12,000 a year, as some exploited EFL teachers do in London, UK.

The past two years have seen the birth of BIELT, British Institute of English Language Teaching, that sets out to maintain standards in EFL in UK. It hopes to parallel the work of bodies like RIBA, Royal Institute of British Architects, a regulatory professional body. It is quite amusing to see these Brits trying to 'invent' a structure parallel to the club-like mafia of the RIBA or the BMA ( British Medical Association ) But, cynicism apart, the creation of BIELT represents another attempt by UK EFL to assert its right to a place in the national sun.

Another indication that the UK EFL community wants to define itself was the, appearance, some fifteen years ago, of Tony Howatt's history of language teaching. If we are a community, then we must have a history.

And in 1999, the EFL Poetry Anthology appeared. I feel this to be another assertion of our reality as a body of people, somehow distinct, within the larger national community. We want our hymns, songs, dirges and jokey poems to be out there in the public arena.

The anthology opens with student poems, like this one from Finland:

Words

The anthology goes on with poems written by EFL teachers from all round the world, like this one from West Africa:

No Walls

A poem that, for me, expresses the essential, unrooted, gypsy nature of the UK or US Tefler is this one by Camille Flaherty:

Time past, Time present, Time….

Get hold of Poetry as a Foreign Language. and see for yourself.