Introduction

We have created this course for people who teach English to speakers of other languages, for people who are training to do so, and for people who work with trainee teachers. Although it is primarily intended for those nearer the beginning of their careers, it will also be of use to more experienced teachers who are moving into new areas, such as course design, self-access provision or teacher training. So, whether you are just starting your career or whether you have been teaching for a long time now, we hope you will find useful suggestions in our book. Chapter 1, ‘Planning for teaching and learning’, starts by exploring the basis of successful learning processes. We look at the assessment of learners’ needs, from both a language learning and a more broadly human perspective, and then go on to look at planning a course and locating and designing suitable materials to support it. Chapter 2, ‘Meeting learners’ needs’, looks in more depth at language learners as social human beings. We consider how to foster valuable learning processes in the classroom, and offer practical tips on how to handle large groups and smaller groups. We also make suggestions on how best to support mature learners, and learners away from home. We end with a discussion of ways of collecting useful feedback from the learners themselves. Chapter 3 is the most substantial part of this book and deals with a range of language teaching activities. We look first at techniques for teaching the various aspects of language, and end with some ideas about creative things, such as games and role plays, that can contribute to the learning of a wide range of content and skills. Chapter 4 is about using flexible or self-access learning in your work, or even to replace well-chosen aspects of your normal face-to-face provision. We look at the establishment of self-access facilities, their use, and the choice and design of materials to go in them. Chapter 5 offers suggestions on ways of making use of information and communications technologies to support ESOL learning. The use of e-mail and computer conferencing can be particularly useful to people learning a language, giving them practice in a non-threatening environment, both at reading and writing in their target language. Chapter 6 is about assessment, including helping learners to benefit from selfassessment and peer-assessment. The chapter includes suggestions for helping learners to prepare successfully for public examinations. Chapter 7 is written for you! We include various suggestions from which to choose your own personal professional development activities, and also some ‘survival’ suggestions, which we hope will prove useful to you if and when they are needed. This is not a book to be read straight through from start to finish. We suggest that you scan the book to find out what is most directly relevant to you at any given time, and start from there. If you are an experienced teacher, we know that you may already be implementing, or exceeding, many of the suggestions we offer; but we hope that you will still find ideas that you had not considered before, and which you can adapt to your own teaching. If you are a new teacher, we realize that not all of our suggestions may be immediately relevant to you; we hope that you will take those that you need now (Chapter 3 might be a good place to start), and come back later to some of the others. Then if you are training teachers, we hope that these sets of tips will be useful springboards to discussion in training sessions or reminders afterwards. At the end of the book we include suggestions for further reading for all of the chapters. These books and articles will help you to look in much more detail at all of the areas which we have touched on in this book. We’ve chosen titles that we feel will be accessible to less experienced teachers, but which will also provide more experienced colleagues with food for thought.

Module I Teaching & Learning

Exploring learning processes, Assessing learners’ language need, Planning a course, Choosing the right coursebook, Designing your own materials

Module II Meeting Learner's Need

Responding to learning needs in the classroom, Using pair and group work, Working with large classes, Keeping your class in good order, Mature learners, Supporting learners away from home, Designing feedback questionnaires

Module III Language Work in Classroom

Teaching vocabulary, Teaching pronunciation, Teaching listening, Teaching reading, Teaching speaking, Teaching writing, Teaching grammar, Making good use of your coursebook, Collecting natural language data, Exploiting authentic written texts, Exploiting authentic spoken text, Using literature, Games for language learning, Role play, Using the news

Module IV Implementing Self Access

Setting up a self-access facility, Choosing self-access materials, Designing self-access materials, Supporting self-access from the classroom, Training learners to use self-access materials

Module V Information & Communication Technologies

Helping learners to get started with e-mail, Setting up computer conferencing, Choosing computer-aided packages, Designing computer-delivered assessment elements, Giving learners feedback using e-mail, Teaching Tenses, Present Tense, Past Tense, Future Tense,

Module VI Classroom Management

How to manage the class, Students Sitting arrangement, environment, teaching material, teaching methodology

Module VII Assessment

Designing classroom tests, Giving feedback on classroom tests, Getting learner self-assessment going, Getting learner peer-assessment going, Preparing learners for public examinations

Module VIII Lesson Planning

How to plan lesson, Lesson planning, daily planning, course planning, teaching planning, creating planner, activity schedule

Module IX ESA Demonstration

ESA Practical demonstration

Module X Productive & Receptive Skills

Productive & Receptive Skills

Module XI Pronunciation & Phonology

About Pronunciation & Phonology Techniques & Methods

Module XII Grammar, Modals & Passive Voice

Teaching Grammar, Modals & Passive Voice

Module XIII Personal & Professional Development

Using professional journals, Doing action research, Starting a teaching portfolio, Building your teaching portfolio,Managing your time, Dealing with stress, Working as a part-time teacher, Coping with your paperwork

Module XIV Video Demonstration

This course is intended for students who specialize in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) and is delivered as part of the MA TESOL and MA TEFL courses. It carefully examines an important concept related to materials development for English language teaching - 'authenticity'.

Module XV Teaching Receptive Skills

Teaching receptive skills, how to develop and teach excellent reading and listening skills

Module XVI Teaching Productive Skills

Teaching Productive Skills

Module XVII Teaching Pronunciation & Phonology

Teaching Pronunciation & Phonology

Module XVIII Evaluation & Testing

Evaluation & Testing of students

Module XIX Conditionals & Reported Speech

Module XX Modals, Phrasal Verbs & Passive Voice

Modals, Phrasal Verbs & Passive Voice

Teaching Special Groups

Teaching special groups