Humanising Language Teaching
Year 3; Issue 6; November 2001

By Aynsley Moore
A.K.Moore@durham.ac.uk

Whoever and wherever you are, "hello" and "welcome" to this month's edition of Humanising Language Teaching. It comes packed with original articles written by a range of scholars.

Becoming more humane teachers is indeed a honourable goal that means continuously raising awareness of a huge range of issues. They range from global issues, such as the way our profession makes the world a more/less humane place, to individual issues, such as how we interact with our learners and the foreign lands we are privileged enough to work in. It includes awareness of our teaching methodology, the voices within us, the implicit ideological assumptions we bring to bear on our diverse environments, the inhumane flaws of the language and the impacts these have. The articles in this magazine go part way to help us do this. In so doing, I hope that they help us all become more humane.

There are four Major Articles. Peter Grundy's Listening to Ourselves introduces pragmatic observations that help us identify our methodological presuppositions. How hard we listen and what we do next naturally depends upon our efforts. Teacher trainers may find this article particularly useful. Randal Holme's Metaphor, Language, Learning and Affect brings together complex theoretical and practical discourse worlds, in a thought provoking exploration of recent developments in cognitive linguistics and what it means for us as language teachers. Isamu Murakami's The Bridging Strategy: Active Use of Learners' First Language in Second Language Teaching convincingly argues for the valid use of learners' L1s in classroom teaching as a way to empower and motivate learners. It presents practical ideas for doing this and it highlights other significant issues such as the unfortunate example of teachers failing to even attempt to learn the language of their learners. Alan Maley's The Teaching of English in Difficult Circumstances: Who Needs A Health Farm When They're Starving? argues that material writers and academics generally and persistently fail to recognise the harsh conditions that the majority of teachers/learners face on a daily basis. This means that their materials and methodologies are often inappropriate. They therefore fail to really humanise English language teaching around the world.

The issue of learning the learners' L1 was apparent to me during my two-year placement as a volunteer language teacher working under the auspices of the UK's charity Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO). VSO invests considerable efforts helping volunteers to learn local, not ex-colonial, languages before their placements begin. The more difficult the language is the longer the in-country training is. They also fund further study during placements. This seems like an extremely responsible, respectful and ultimately humane approach which ought to be propagated through out the profession. Unfortunately it is not. Even the resource rich British Council fails miserably to do so. According to a friend working for them, they provide no language training nor money or time for employees to begin. I have yet to discover private language schools, employing teachers from English speaking countries, which differ from the British Council.

There are three Short Articles. Robert Phillipson's English and the World's Languages develops many issues including the theme of native English language speakers failing to acquire other languages. His perspective is crucial for all language teachers. We must be aware of the negative macro impacts of language teaching, as well as the positive impacts, so that we can help make the world more humane. Ignorance, in this case, is not bliss. Bryony Fuller's Hobbies of a Ha Tinh Hermit is an amusing account of what VSO volunteers do when they are not teaching. Anne Cullen's Diary of a Week Teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages is an honest glimpse into the fascinating world of a further education college in the north of England. It demonstrates some of the stresses and strains teachers face helping to maintain the excellent language provisions for the thousands of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees currently in the UK.

Ideas from the Corpora come from Jussi Ojajarvi's Whose Language is it Anyway? The Humanity of Language. It argues that many English words, including the words humanity and humanising, are in fact relatively inhumane.

There are two articles in Lesson Outlines. Jean Crocker's Student Centred Project Work explains how teachers can bring projects in to the classroom. Although it is aimed at students entering the academic world, there is no reason why it would not be useful for students in other contexts. Edward Harrison's Classroom Detective demonstrates a technique to be used by teachers working in difficult circumstances, where student numbers are high.

Student Voices has one article by Mohammed Al-Dainy. He writes about some highs and lows of being an Arabic student from Yemen in the UK. Julie King reviews Personalising Language Learning by Griff Griffiths and Kathy Keohane (2000).

For an Old Exercise, I present a Story Telling exercise which I have learned from Mario Rinvolucri and which I have genuinely enjoyed using successfully several times since.

One publication is previewed. It is called Volunteer Tales and it is inspired by the fascinating world of international volunteers, many of whom are language teachers.

This is the first time I have edited a magazine but, hopefully, it will not be the last. It has been an enjoyable and rewarding project. Although I would do things slightly differently next time, taking into consideration the little spare time I have while teaching at Gateshead College of Further Education and studying for an MA in Applied Linguistics (ELT) at the University of Durham, I am satisfied with the final product. I hope that you, the reader, are too. I must thank Bryony Fuller for helping me edit some of the articles, Isamu Murakami for helping me contact some of the contributors and Peter Grundy for putting me in contact with Mario Rinvolucri. Thanks must also go to everyone who has written for the magazine. I wish you all every success in your teaching, learning and living.

If we remain free to voice our perspectives, even when they are sometimes critical, and if we are able to take other perspectives into consideration, even when they somehow run contrary to our existing beliefs and practises, then we will inevitably create an increasingly humane place.