Letter 1

Dear Hania

I have been reading HLT for some time. I was really surprised that you published the article by Michael Berman "What is Shamanic Counselling and How Much is it Worth?" Personally I can see nothing humanistic about it. What is worse, I find it inappropriate for HLT as it has nothing to do with language teaching, let alone Humanism.

Could you explain the reasons why you published this article? I may not be alone in my opinion.

Yours
Nathan Bance

Letter 2

Dear Hania

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to reply.

My repsonse is to wonder why my article should have produced such an extreme reaction from Nathan Bance, and perhaps it would be helpful if he asked himself the same question too.

Apart from providing an introduction to shamanism (from which, incidentally, guided visualisation was adapted by the originators of Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and the subject of shamanic counselling, the article also deals with the question of whether it is ethically justifiable to charge for spiritual services (which could well include helping someone with their English language problems) and whether the advertising of such services should be regulated or not. And I imagine this is a question that most of us involved in teaching have asked ourselves at one point or another.

And if Nathan Bance had attended the Symposium on Storytelling I convened at the IATEFL Conference in Aberdeen, he would have seen how the story that concludes the article, Loss of Memory, can be used in an ELT classroom.

So for Nathan Bance who, to the best of my knowledge, was not present at the Symposium (and for all your other readers too) I am attaching an article based on the session I gave at the Conference to this email which you might like to include in a future edition.

Sincerely

Michael Berman

Letter 3

Dear Hania,

As a matter of fact, I've got a joke page to send, and I'm also going to write a short article in near future. I'll send them to you as soon as I could.
I enjoyed reading your latest issue of HLT. Many thanks to all.

Wholeheartedly yours,
Khoram Balaee

Letter 4

Thanks for your humanizing editorial care. Keep up your important, inspiring work.
That's great, Hania. Thanks for your editorial empathy. Francisco Gomez

Letter 5

Hi Hania

My name is Lindsay Clandfield, and I'm a regular reader of Humanising Language Teaching. Could you tell me when the March issue is coming out (will there be one?).

Thanks, look forward to reading all the good stuff in your online magazine.

Lindsay Clandfield
Teacher-trainer/author
Elche Spain

Letter 5 - Reply

Dear Lindsay

thank you for your e-mail For your information, the issues of HLT usually come out at the end of the month This is the system I 'inherited' from Mario. Surely there will be a March issue. However there are sometimes technical problems which are not of my own making. In fact we are in the process of putting it together Thank you for your kind words about HLT Perhaps you are ready to write an article yourself

Greetings
Hania