Teacher Discussion Forums

Or planning to dust off and read? Or thinking of buying (old as well as new books OK) etc. Hell, listening to, watching, doing etc (just out of interest).

Me, I recently bought Odlin's (ed) Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar (CUP 1994). Although I'll always have a soft spot for Bygate et al's Grammar and the Language Teacher (it's an easier read, for a start), that is unfortunately out of print, and it would still seem a good idea for teachers (me included) to be more aware of the links between grammar and more theoretical types of linguistics, SLA etc (which is what Odlin's book discusses).

Also bought another copy of Saeed's Semantics, Second Edition (Blackwell 2003) (didn't get a chance to start this back in UK), its wide-ranging treatment of the subject means that it includes several things that I have become a little better acquainted with and more interested in over the past few years (e.g. Cognitive Linguistics).

The CD player is alternating between Madonna's 'Confessions on a dancefloor' (how's that for a confession!) and Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.3 (Zilberstein, Berlin PO, Abbado).

As for movies, enjoyed Sideways a lot, midway thru the production diaries for King Kong (loved Jack Black in those platform shoes), and could always watch Batman Begins once again.

As I'm doing curriculum development at work, I am planning on getting JD Brown's "The Essentials of Curriculum Design," which is the textbook for the curriculum development class from my alma mater. I have a pretty good idea what I'm doing, but I may be missing something.

Also, as part of market research, I found that Side By Side is the best-selling coursebook in the US through Amazon.com, so I might pick one up just to add to my collection.

For DVD, I just bought:
Tom Yum Goong
Fighter in the Wind
Azumi
The Last Samurai (wife, not me)

Hey all!

Don't know why, or perhaps I do, probably those three or four short stories that have been bumping about in my head wanting to get themselves on paper, have been re-reading Charles D¡ckens. Great Expectations was followed by a parenthesis of Roald Dhal(sp) shorts, followed by A Tale of Two Cities, continuing then with Roald, and have just checked out Oliver Twist and am thoroughly enjoying not only Charles' character development, but also his wonderful use of 19th century English. As for films, hope that Polanski's "Oliver Twist" gets on DVD soon, really looking forward to that one.

The connection between D¡ckens and those shorts I want to write up? It was in the 9th grade, when we were required to read Tale that I discovered that I really, truly wanted to be a writer.

peace,
revel.

Just finished Reading Lolita in Teheran. Made me want to go back and read that book again, as well as others mentioned.

the one minute teacher by Spencer Johnson and Constance Johnson

The Lexical Approach, again!! Such a well written book, and have just finished Teaching Academic ESL Writing: Hinkel Eli which answers all my questions about writing

Hi all

Just got a copy of Designing learning for diverse classrooms - a really practical but theoretically interesting book for primary/elementary/middle teachers. Has a good section on classsroom talk and a refreshjing look at interactive tasks. It's published by the Primary English Teachers Association in Australia- you can check their website.

Mark

English & the Discourse of Colonialism - Pennycook

World Englishes - Jenkins

Linguistic Imperialism - Phillipson

Language & Culture - Kramsch

Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching - Canagarajah


Can you guess what I'm writing about?

womblingfree wrote:
Can you guess what I'm writing about?

Wimbledon Common?

I read Persopolis, In Cold Blood, and Lucky (really good, I recommend them) the past week, and have started on Le Sabotage Amoureux, a book by one of my favorite authors, Amelie Nothomb. It's based in China. And I'm going to China over spring break. And it's in French.. I feel quite pleased with myself about this one, mixing pleasure with study, efficiently killing several birds with one stone instead of being a procrastinating slob like usual.

I just finished reading a couple chapters of "What is Morphology?" including an enlightening section on Kujamaat Jóola (spoken somewhere around Nigeria, right?), a section on X bar movement in "Syntax, a generative introduction," and some stuff on French elision in Phonétique..

These days I find myself reading more papers than books. But I always have a few books sitting around that I pick up whenever I've got a few minutes to read. I've been rereading Diane Larson-Freeman's book From Grammar to Grammaring during my vacation.

You really could read forever and never get anymore than a small part of the whole.

As a fairly new teacher I'm looking for practical teaching suggestions. Right now I'm reading Explaining English Grammar by George Yule and Using the Board in the Language Classroom by Jeannine Dobbs.

After a day or two spent familiarizing myself with the intricacies of 'C-command' (don't ask...might post something later on the 'Syntax question' thread, though), I needed a break and reached for something a bit lighter: Kate Fox's Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour (Hodder & Stoughton, London 2004). The first part of the book (roughly the first third) on 'Conversation Codes' (as opposed to 'Behaviour Codes' e.g. Home, work, dress, driving "rules") looks like it could be of interest to the more sociolinguistically-inclined teachers among us, besides which, it's well written and fairly amusing generally. I'm resisting the urge to jump ahead to the 'Pub-talk' chapter...

Part One: Conversation codes

The Weather
Grooming-talk
Humour Rules
Linguistic Class Codes
Emerging Talk-rules: The Mobile Phone
Pub-talk

I'm struggling with The Sound Patterns of English by Chomsky/Halle, let's hope that it's not too over my head.

José

Wow, that would be ambitious reading for many native speakers, Jose! (I for one have never felt an overwhelming desire to tackle it!).

B.Ferret, nice name, nice book too (the Yule) - wish I had my copy with me here in Japan.

Abu, can't remember where I read about 'Grammaring' (if there's anything about it in The Grammar Book, it's probably only a mention at most), but I recall it being an interesting concept...if I ever see DLF's book I'll probably snap it up!

Sonya, you are also into some heavy stuff (like Jose!). I must admit to being a bit of a weed when I encounter lots of exotic languages to work with and through, I ultimately prefer plenty of English examples/languages without too complex a morphology...so I steered clear of the Aronoff book.

Hey womblingfree, is the Phillipson book as bad as I'm now imagining it to be? (I didn't like his review of Crystal's English as a Global Language for a start, and he himself got some negative comments from trainee teachers somewhere - see Seidlhofer's Controversies in AL).

Ssean, I'm tempted to get another copy of Lewis, but I guess it can wait...