Dear HLT Readers,

Welcome to the new issue of HLT. Time flies and our summer at Pilgrims is over. We had a very good, stimulating and thought-provoking time. For some memories from the summer take a look at: English Through Japanese Art and Literature: HAIGA by Noriko Yoshida who offers a unique afternoon and evening programme at Pilgrims. Also the new 2010 courses and dates have been announced. In The New Courses We Offer You in 2010 Mario Rinvolucri introduces them. For details look at:
http://www.pilgrims.co.uk/page/?title=Courses%2C+dates+and+fees&pid=69

Please do not forget that you have got till the end of the year to apply for grants to come to Pilgrims. For deadlines check with your national offices.
Thank you for your e-mails which I always read with great interest and they are always appreciated. You can read some of them in the Readers Letters section. (Note the authors grant permission to have their e-mails published.) There has been also an exchange of articles on culture. In Reply to Anna Maria Aiazzi’s Comments on My Article Danny Singh who published an article ( June 2009 issue) replies to the criticism by Anna Maria Aiazzi (August 2009 issue). Personally I find the exchange very thought provoking.
In this issue blended learning features quite prominently. In major article 1: An Enquiry Pinpointing the Challenges of a Split-class Setting: Communicative Teaching and Multimedia as Complementary Applications Stephen Hargreaves explores blended learning in a language class.

Our teaching situation and everyday classroom reality are the focus of a number of articles: in Becoming a Facilitator of Teacher Learning Robert Feather shares with us his ups and downs in motivating teachers. In Aux Armes! Human Intelligence is at Stake Grethe Hooper Hansen writes about her concerns about teaching small children and the school reform. In Walking the Teaching Tightrope: Being Humanistic and Following a Syllabus Roger O'Keeffe writes about the dilemma we all have – teach the coursebook or the learner. In Maintaining Professional Identity in CLIL Instruction Ezana Habte-Gabr looks at the changing role of a language teacher while in Insights into Happenings During a School Year Ken Jackson shares with us stories from his classroom practice, observed with a sharp eye.

There are many practical tips and ideas for your lessons. In Advanced Vocabulary Instruction: Insights from Wittgenstein's Philosophy by Saeed Ketabi and Mohammad Ali Ayatollahi you can appreciate ideas that have been developed thanks to inspiration from a great thinker. The subject of teaching vocabulary is also the focus of Acquiring Lexical Chunks by Evelina Miscin. In their articles Poetry in Motion: A Multimodal Teaching Tool and Cats Bill Templer Roy Boardman respectively, give some suggestions how to use literature and poetry in a language class. Then there is the area of engaging the learners: Natural Interactions by Alexander Case, Activating Methods in Foreign Language Teaching by Alica Harajová, and How to Work Effectively with a Heterogeneous Classroom by R. Naryanan. Fot the teachers of young learners there is Making Stories with Little Language by Andrew Wright.

Our regular contributors have submitted some more of their great ideas which I am always happy to publish in HLT: Stories for Explaining and Understanding by Simon Mumford, English as a Lingua Franca by Monica Hoogstad and Off the Beaten Path: Edward de Bono's PO by Hall Houston.

There are a lot of interesting things going on in the publishing world. You can read an auto-review by Nick Owen - Stories: The Most Natural Carriers of Communication and Learning, and reviews of ‘Grammar for Young Learners’ (OUP), ‘Drama and Improvisation’(OUP) and ‘Uncovering CLIL’ ( Macmillan) in Short Book Reviews by Hanna Kryszewska. In the book preview section we get a whiff of a new book: Provoking Thought: Memory and Thinking in ELT by Hall Houston.

Last not least, for your entertainment there is are two charming stories in the jokes section: Half Cup of Tea, submitted by Cynthia Beresford and A Spoonful of Salt submitted by Alan Maley which are variations on the same theme: shy men. And of course there are some poems: English Through the Five Senses by Tony Canadas Ruiz, In the Plumb Line of Fire by Ibn Tyne and Half the Leaves Mud by Adrian Higgins.

Enjoy the issue

Hania Kryszewska
HLT Editor
hania.kryszewska@pilgrims.co.uk