Job Discussion Forums

[seyz]

Hi all.

I am wondering if anyone can recommend some good resources on classroom methodology. Ideally books or websites but essentially anything is fine. The reason I ask is because I have come across.tons of theory books but have yet to read any practical books for the classroom. I have a PhD in a different field but am trying to make a go at a career in English teaching. Any suggestions here would be helpful. Thank you in advance！

[nomad soul]

[scot47]

Hiring Committee at KFUPM had a policy of NOT recommending hiring of those with PhDs in any subject, related or not. Consensus was that we wanted people who could teach, not people who had spent years doing research.

[spiral78]

I'll second scot's note - I've been on hiring committees in Europe for some time (on and off) and non-related PhDs are something we generally steer clear of. As scot notes, knowing how to do research and write it up is not related to language teaching and carries no assurance at all that one will be a good (or even acceptable) teacher. It's better not to tout the PhD - it's actually less applicable in the EFL world than business experience (many EFL teachers work with businesspeople).

I recall a guy whose PhD research was into English Medium Instruction in non-Anglophone countries - he was an exception (but still had a CELTA)!

A CELTA would definitely help make you look more employable.

[fluffyhamster]

While I'd agree that a different (completely unrelated?) PhD isn't exactly a hiring ticket, it's presumably given you the necessary thinking skills, so at least you'll be able to see through whatever nonsense may be peddled at certainly the cert level (the language awareness and analysis displayed by even supposedly experienced and skilled teachers and trainers can be quite shocking, and there seems a marked tendency to overexplain things, due to constraining and "oversimplifying" - often more like overcomplicating or forcing! - the linguistic contexts too much).

That is, I would frankly be skeptical of the degree to which these certs will actually help make one a better teacher/genuinely that helpful to learners (there are enough examples that I could link to on these very forums of these certs and their "thinking" in fact making one worse, but hey, let's not get sidetracked!!). They may though as has been said 'help make you look more employable', and if you're intent on climbing the ELT career ladder (such as it is) then you obviously need to start somewhere and be seen to be literally paying your dues. And I suppose there's ultimately something to be said for being shown how to not quite or indeed badly teach a few things LOL (at least, that's pretty much what I feel I got from my cert, others may of course beg to differ and cite amazingly undetailed experiences - "I/We/They learnt so much, and you will too!" "Er, how much is 'so much' precisely? And what was or were your background or backgrounds? Sorry to have to ask!").

I've mentioned any number of books over the years (perhaps try a search), but they essentially boil down to 1) reasonably thoughtful and thought-provoking methodology guides, that give enough reasons and historical perspective for their recommendations, and 2) reasonably large piles of resolutely empirical resources (dictionaries, grammars, and lexicogrammars). Throw in a book or two possibly on stuff like lexis, and discourse (especially conversation) and you'll be more informed and raring to prepare than simply "go" than your average cert "grad". FWIW here are some key titles in a hopefully logical-enough order:

-Lewis & Hill, Practical Techniques (LTP) (through to Lewis, The Lexical Approach (also LTP))
-Chalker & Weiner's Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar (very useful all-round reference. NB: the latest edition, edited by Bas Aarts, has dispensed with the phonetics entries, grrr!), but good online grammar glossary here http://folk.uio.no/hhasselg/terms.html , for phonetics and phonology search Google for the pdf of Roach's 'little encyclopedia of phonetics'
-ALDs (advanced learner dictionaries) such as the Oxford ALD, Longman DOCE, Cambridge ALD (includes bilingual versions), Macmillan ED, and Merriam-Webster LD, all available freely online (remember that these are often quicker ways to grasp whatever grammar or phraseology may be involved!); then, there is the Oxford Collocations Dictionary, handy for vocab building and confirming sense divisions: http://www.ozdic.com/
-Schmitt, Vocabulary in LT (CUP) and/or Schmitt & McCarthy, Vocabulary (also CUP)
-'A Lexical Syllabus for Language Learning' ( http://rdues.bcu.ac.uk/publ/Lexical_Syllabus.pdf )
-Collins COBUILD English Grammar
-Collins COBUILD Grammar Patterns 1: Verbs ( http://arts-ccr-002.bham.ac.uk/ccr/patgram/ ) (essentially a structural rather than simply lexical thesaurus, that helps brings together grammatically if not semantically similar words that would otherwise and in more conventional works remain somewhat scattered. For example, in the simplest pattern for Chapter 9's 'General it as Object', we find the 'cut it out', 'leg it', 'blow it' and 'make it', 'rough it', and 'damn it' groups, with the 'blow it' and 'make it' group including the verbs blow, bottle, chance, [cannot] hack, have had, lose, make, [cannot] make, overdo, and push)
-Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, The Grammar Book, Second or Third edition (Heinle) (helpful discourse-level findings relating to discourse markers, choices of tense or finite, and so on, though you can safely ignore the tree diagrams and most of the recommended classroom activity ideas)
-Thornbury & Slade, Conversation (CUP) (honourable mentions also to Richards' The Context of LT, Brazil's A Grammar of Speech [what other book uses the oral retelling of an urban legend as its core text?! http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/hairyarm.asp ], and Tsui's English Conversation), this sort of book could in fact profitably come right after the Lewis & Hill above!

[seyz]

Hello everyone

Thank you all for the helpful book recommendations. I will start working my way through them. I've also found a few others that I think will be nice additions. I've ordered several of them and am looking forward to my summer reading.

Regarding my experience, while my PhD isn't in the field specifically, it is in a somewhat related field of anthropology/sociology. I also specialized in intercultural communication studies to some extent, which I find very pertinent to language learning and teaching. I have also been teaching EFL for over a year now. I started off working for a private company in Japan and am now working at a university in China. So I guess I am already "on the latter" so to speak. Ideally, though, I want to position myself as best I can for the future. I am considering a CELTA or something to the like, but again I am not really sure how helpful it would be besides making me "look" more employable as others have mentioned.

One thing that getting a PhD does, is it helps you to figure out how to approach things on your own. Obviously, this means little if employers only want to see that you have X or Y certification, but it nonetheless allows, I feel, for somewhat more flexibility. The reason why I am doing my own readings on this matter is because I know that only through knowing the same literature and having the same skills as others will I be most competitive.

Also, I don't think there has to be the huge gap between research and teaching that some of you have suggested. Just because I have a PhD doesn't mean that I want to conduct research. Although I do and am, teaching is much more what I am interested in and while I once wanted to make a go at it in American academia, the horror show that it has become has effectively scared me off for good. If I do go back to the US, it will be in a primarily teaching institution. I am quite happy as an EFL teacher and the different opportunities the field can offer.

With the risk of sending this thread off on a tangent, given that I am already "on the ladder," what might be the best way to move up it and keep open the best options possible?

[spiral78]

[MotherF]

Have you learnt a foreign language yourself?
I found my teaching improved greatly when I shied away from the methods promoted by the CELTA and instead examined what things actually helped me improve my foreign languages and tried to replicate those experiences as best I could in the classroom.

My favorite book about English teaching is The English Verb by Michael Lewis. It's not actually a practical teaching book, but changed the way I thought about English, which in term flowed into my teaching in profound ways.

For new teachers, the best thing is a course book that comes with a very good teacher's guide. Many teacher's guides are hardly worth the paper they are printed on for the native speaking teacher as they are just answer keys. But a teachers guide like the one that comes with the original English File course, it excellent for novice teachers. It offers one or two warmers for each lesson, transition ideas, extra knowledge, a bit of background, tips for common errors/ potenial misunderstandings for major language students, extention activies etc. If you just followed it to a T you'd give decent classes and with experience and getting to know your students you will be able to know what will work with them and for you and go from decent to good and on to great.

Kudos for not falling into the I'm an English speaker so I can do this trap like so many highly educated native speakers. That's the biggest first step towards being a good teacher anyone can make.

[fluffyhamster]

As you have some experience (I guess it was some sort of eikaiwa in Japan?) and have thus already made it to the entry rung of the (well, a) ladder, a cert really may not be necessary if you're happy to remain teaching more or less at the entry level and in places like China and Japan (and I've taught in both countries myself, and developed in my own way there). I mean, you can get the necessary work visas, so...? If however you plan on seeing a bit more of the world and the somewhat more varied ELT environments it has to offer then it obviously won't hurt to start getting the possibly necessary qualifications (cert, then dip and/or MA), just pack a nosepeg for anything less than an MA of your choice as I think it would be stretching it a bit to say there is much of a literature (let alone the same literature) much below that level. I don't think anyone (even me) can disagree however with the idea that a cert will provide you with the same set of "skills" as others who've done one...just don't be surprised if you aren't Liam Neeson in 4 weeks, or that the man himself doesn't come to your rescue when you start tugging to be free of the constraints LOL.

I second the book that MotherF mentions. I was going to add it to my post above, but didn't want things to seem too Lewis-dependent (though he's an undoubted influence!) or grammar-heavy. You can find some discussion of the main ideas he presents in TEV by searching the forums for especially the concept of 'remoteness' (remot*). The more lexical side of things meanwhile is quite well represented by empirical undertakings such as the already-mentioned COBUILD project and its publications (which were an influence on Lewis' synthesizing work The Lexical Approach), and the OCD (Oxford Collocations Dictionary), LGWSE (lexical expressions ahoy in Chapter 13!), etc.

[MotherF]

You might want to look at this old thread too.

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=94322&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

[nomad soul]

[fluffyhamster]

[seyz]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

MotherF,
Yes I have actually learned several languages. Most of my study has been autodidactic, but I do make use of methods I use on my own in the classroom. In fact, besides speaking activities, pretty much my whole lesson is structured around techniques I have found worked for me. Also, I do take teaching seriously and the reason why I am on here is because I really haven’t found many useful teaching guide or resources. Most of the books I have come across are theoretically oriented and the resources for classroom methods I’ve already encountered have been very shallow and really have not been informative. I know quite well the “native speakers” you are talking about and quite frankly I can’t imagine how those classes go. I’ve have been told I am much more “serious” than other teachers because I don’t play games and let students play with their phones all class.

Flufflyhamster,
I do not plan on staying in these entry level positions and do hope to move up in terms of rank (is that the right word?). My goal was always to work as an academic and university professor, both teaching and doing research, and I intend to continue pursuing that goal. My PhD work, though unrelated to English teaching, I think prepared me well enough to embark on research and publishing on my own in the future. I continue to write and publish my work on intercultural communication and language learning and I hope this will count for something somewhere down that line. Perhaps a CELTA might help make me more marketable, so that I guess would be the first thing to consider in the immediate future. Regarding my books, the one I’ve got my hands on now is Teaching by Principles by H.D. Brown. I found it a nice practical approach and something I am getting something out of. I’ve read several of H.D. Brown’s other books and they were a bit too theoretical for me. While they were informative nonetheless, they lacked the practical component that I am seeking.

Nomad soul,
I have no reservations about where I would like to work. There are a lot of factors I would want to consider, but essentially I want the best position I can get all around in terms of income, working hours, and quality of students.

Really, I want a resource that is going to dissect classroom methods and approaches to a T. For example, take a content based learning lesson on say American history. I would want a guide that would really dissect the process of lesson planning, classroom implementation, and assessing the results of the class overall. Simply saying something general like "A content based lesson would focus on American history from XX year - YY year" doesn't cut it. Likewise, I read this morning in an article, "Using the internet and e-mail in the classroom is a good resource for advanced writing classes." Besides about two examples of how an e-mail could be used, the rest was left up to the reader to figure out. This is essentially stating the obvious and I want some kind of resource that will really make these lessons come alive in my mind and allow me to really comprehend their use. I am going on ten years of studying languages now and simply saying "do XX in the class" really doesn't help me understand XX, its function, its implementation, and how to assess its results.

[fluffyhamster]

I doubt there are many one-stop resources covering everything (and in sufficient depth) from the more freewheeling oral-based methods of private language schools through to the more specific or academicy realms of ESP or EAP. The divide is in some ways unfortunate, but that's how the market and to some extent the qualifications have developed. Have you looked into Systemic-Functional Grammar though? I think that could provide the clearer line you're after, especially when coupled with the COBUILD and similarly Corpus-Linguistic empirical resources (their grammar certainly draws on a few Hallidayan terms and thinking, though for more of a SFG proper and with extended-text examples you can't really beat Downing & Locke's English Grammar: A University Course). That is, there's a two-way bridge spanning bottom-ups and top-downs (and approaches rather than just mere, potentially ad-hoc methods) right there. There are a number of good, more explanatory books on SFG/SFL but one of the most engaging and discursive is Geoff Thompson's Introducing Functional Grammar. Hope all this helps. I've been meaning to read some of Brown's books for years and recall the one you mentioned got decent reviews on Amazon.

[nomad soul]