Dear HLT Readers,
The issue of HLT cosists mainly of article contributed by authors from Turkey and other countries of the Middle East. They issue has been guest edited by Simon Mumford from Turkey and I would like to thank him most heartily for his hard work and involvement. Also I would like to invite Simon to introduce this issue to you.
Guest editorial
This issue has been guest-edited at the The University of Economics in Izmir on Turkey's beautiful Aegean coast. Although it starts at the very western edge of the Middle East, it looks East, with contributors from Turkey's big cities, Ankara and Istanbul, from Kahramanmaras in the East of Turkey, and from Iran, Pakistan, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The discussion on whether, and how much, education should be in English continues in Turkey and Ferit Kiliçkaya's research into Instructors Attitudes towards English shows us that English's position as the language of education in some of the countries top universities is far from unproblematic. How much culture and language can or should be separated is the theme of Mandana Arfa Kavoodvand's piece on Culture Context: The Coexistance of Culture in ELT settings. Do students want or need to learn the culture with the language? Is it possible to separate them? These questions are being asked in Turkey as well as Iran and no doubt in other countries in the region.
Stefan Rathert asks how we can use Translation in the English Classroom to help our students and comes up with some interesting solutions based on personal experience. In Student Generated Worksheets as a Motivational Tool ( Corpora Ideas), Adam Simpson introduces an innovative idea, student-created worksheets based on a mini-corpus using a wesite search engine.
In the short article section the emphisis is on magic, secrets and wonder. Barbara Clarke reveals the magic of poetry and how to use it to motivate students in Poetry in Motion. Abi Shatz from Israel invites us to try some Magic in the English Classroom to enchant students, while Erinç Oran gets her students to marvel at the wonders of the world and The Eight Wonders of Human Beings, a metaphor to teach students about Multiple intelligences. John Thompson lets us into a secret about how he gets his students ready for a lesson in Primed for Learning and Simon Mumford reveals some ways to get students Sounding English.
In the lesson outlines, Arda Arikan helps his students become more socially aware with some Socially Responsible Teaching ideas, and Azra Ahmed looks at the language of Messages. Finally Müge Koksoy gives us two Poems and Neil Macbeath enthuses over a book of reading skills, Strategic Reading 3
Our thanks to Mario for his invitation to Izmir University of Economics to produce this Middle Eastern-flavoured HLT, to Hania for allowing us to take on the role of editor for this issue, to Banu Barutlu, Director of the School of Foreign Languages, and to my fellow members of editorial committee: Bahar Gün, Aynur Yürekli and Evrim Üstünlüoglu, and everyone else who helped make this issue possible including Suzan Oniz, Steve Darn, Rob Ledbury and Keith Farell.
Simon Mumford
Izmir University of Economics
October 2006
My end of the editorial work on the November issue I would like to welcome some regular contributors to HLT, among others Paul Bress as a poet and Lou Spaventa whose article in The Heart of the Matter series is to be found this time in the Corpora Ideas section. In Another Look at Learning Words Lou explores the problems of mastering lexis, taking on board corpora issues. Other regular contributors to HLT, present in this issue are Hall Houston and Juan Padilla, who in their articles Activities for Boosting Creativity and PowerPoint Presentation no. 2: The English Alphabet: Miscellaneous offer some practical ideas for the classroom also using modern technology. The theme of modern technology in the classroom features strongly in the article "FLEXIPAD PRO" - The Teacher's Little Helper by Walter Pichler, an article in which we are introduced to a practical device which saves our precious time, time which we waste keeping class records, calculating mean values of student performance etc. After all the more time we save in the administrative sphere, the more time we gain for being humanistic.
Mike Shreeve has made two contributions to this issue: he features as the author of major article: How the Myers Briggs Temperament Indicator (MBTI) Can Be Used in Teaching, and as a poet. In his article Mike, who is a therapist and an NLP practitioner, shares with us his ideas on how a psychological tool can be applied to classroom practice.
In their articles: "Your class is very nice, aren't they?" - Into the Grey Area of English and in Shall we have a Textbook Teaching English as a Foreign Language, David Alexander and Juan José Varela Tembra share with us their thoughts, observations and concerns regarding the practice of language teaching. The subject of concerns is echoed by Jane O'Douis in the material she has submitted for the Student Voices section: The Worst Teacher I have Ever Had. These homeworks are food for thought, texts we can all relate to not only as teachers but also as learners. After all each and every one of us has had their worst teacher.
Finally something old and something new. In the Old Exercise section I would like to remind you of the concept of mazes for language teaching: Maze: His Family by Mario Rinvolucri and Marge Berer. More mazes will be published in the January issue of HLT. As for the new Robert Feather shares with us some activities on teaching culture: The Cultural Experience (Book Preview section) which hopefully will soon be available in the form of a book with many more inspiring ideas.
I hope you will enjoy reading this issue and if you, your school, your university, your country would like to host an issue of HLT please do not hesitate to contact me.
Hania Kryszewska
Editor
E-mail: hania.kryszewska@pilgrims.co.uk
Contributor's guidelines can be vieved here.
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