Readings for Reflective Teaching Edited by Andrew Pollard

A good read if you teach very young learners

A collection of extracts from various sources on what it means to be a reflective teacher, Readings for Reflective Teaching has a misleading title in that it is not specific enough. This is a book dealing primarily with the teaching of young learners and more accurately with the teaching of primary schoolchildren in the UK.

The book is divided into eighteen sections dealing with various aspects of teaching. The selection is wide-ranging, each section typically beginning with something fairly general and subsequent readings dealing with more specific areas on that topic. The book covers a large historical period, with the first reading dating from 1933 and others from the last decade. In between there are readings from landmark essays and government documents which help to give an historical perspective of primary teaching in the UK.

If you are a primary school teacher in the UK then I am sure you will get a tremendous amount from this book. Other teachers however will need to read very selectively, and may be disappointed with the amount of relevant material.

The book begins promisingly enough, with some general extracts from important papers dealing with reflective thinking and practice in general. These are very thought provoking and can be applied to any teaching and learning situation. There is a lot here on the thought processes a reflective practitioner goes through, and the practical steps that they take. Also there are nice readings on Action Research, which provide definitions and give some practical ideas.

After that the book loses relevance for all but the specific kind of teacher that I mentioned earlier. If you teach English solely to adults then this is really where you should stop reading. If you teach English as a foreign (or second) language to young learners then it is still worth reading on. You will need to pick your way around irrelevant texts, such as UK government documents, but there is still much to be gained.

In particular there are many readings that help you see things from a pupil’s point of view. The sections on motivating students, class management and teachers’ classroom talk are particularly good at this.

The book falls down mostly in that it tries to cover too much ground. Often the most interesting readings are merely snippets. Although the introduction stresses that we should read the original essays and papers if we find anything interesting, this still feels a bit incomplete.

Perhaps I am being too picky here. The book certainly is thought provoking and serves as a useful start to many a research question. Overall though, this is a book you should only buy if you are, or plan to be, a UK primary school teacher.

Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom by Tricia Hedge

Detailed, accessible, practical and extremely useful

Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom is an enormously helpful and important book for those wishing to improve their teaching. It is jam packed not only with good ideas and examples, but also with great advice for better enabling your students to learn English. There are a few books out there that attempt to cover every aspect of teaching a language, but I’d say that in my reading so far Hedge’s book is the best.

The book is divided into three parts: A frame work for teaching and learning; Teaching the language system and Developing the language skills. These are further divided into sub sections on various topics, for example: grammar, listening and assessment to name but a few. Each section begins with some provocative questions that aim to activate your own experience and opinions and are supported by notes at the back of the book. Any one of these sections could be read in isolation and would be an excellent starting place for further, more detailed study.

The book starts unimpressively, with brief chapters on how languages are learned (covered much better and comprehensively in Lightbrown and Spada’s great volume) and if you’ve already read a book of this type then these can be safely skim read. With this first section out of the way however, it quickly becomes clear that Hedge has many, many useful and essential things to say about learning and teaching.

The writing is clear and direct, being mercifully free of much of the jargon that plagues the profession and makes so much literature impenetrable. This is not to say that the work is lightweight. Far from it, Hedge quotes from various respected names in Second Language Acquisition and English language teaching and really goes into details about important issues.

The nice thing about the book is that while it not only contains a lot of theory there are also a lot of practical ideas which simply beg to be incorporated into your teaching as soon as possible. Supporting these ideas are many examples of activities from course books and materials which I found were excellent, as the basis for writing my own activities and materials to help my students.

If Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener is important reading for teachers just starting out, then Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom is indispensable for those further on in their careers, such as teachers who perhaps wish to pursue the DELTA qualification or an MA.

How Languages are Learned by Patsy M. Lightbrown and Nina Spada

Very accessible theory

How Languages are Learned seems very much to be aimed at teachers just starting out on their careers but also has much that an experienced professional may appreciate. At around 225 pages it is a relatively slim volume but packs in a lot of information. Beginning with a discussion on popular ideas about language learning, the book then moves through first language acquisition, second language acquisition and how this is approached in classroom settings, until finally coming back full circle, to re-examine ideas about teaching in light of current theory.

The best thing about this book is its accessibility. It is an odd fact that many academics in this field seem to revel in the impenetrability of their language. Lightbrown and Spada are refreshing in the clarity they bear to the subject. The book doesn’t so much shy away from jargon as use it judiciously, always taking pains to explain new or difficult terms. One obvious way that it does this is to use capital letters to highlight words; these are then easily found upon returning to the text. The book also contains an excellent and clear glossary.

How Languages are Learned is the distillation of much research and material (including the authors’ own). A good historical overview of SLA and language teaching theory is provided which really does help one to understand where currently accepted ideas have arisen. While it appears popular in this discipline to try to discredit past approaches to teaching, (such as the grammar translation or audio lingual methods) Lightbrown and Spada don’t fall into this category. They don’t hesitate to point out the limitations of previous approaches, but do also show how in some ways, those approaches did get it right. The reader is encouraged to think critically about many methods and to use what is effective in his or her own language teaching.

This would be an excellent book to read before embarking on more difficult material such as English Language Teaching in its Social Context as it provides a good introduction to ideas and theory without overburdening the reader. I also found it to be a useful recap on other books I have read, while also being thought-provoking. The end of each chapter also provides a lot of ideas for further reading which look very interesting.

Although accessible, sometimes the book did feel a little brief; Chapter 5 “Observing learning and teaching in the second language classroom” certainly felt this way. Overall however, this is a great book and one that should be good preparation for any reader embarking on further, more in-depth reading.

Innovation in English Language Teaching edited by David R. Hall and Ann Hewings

An interesting look at curriculum innovation

This book is the third in a series published by Routledge in its Teaching English Language Worldwide series. It is very similar in structure to English Language Teaching in its Social Context, which I reviewed last month, in that it consists of a number of essays by different authors that have been collected into one volume. I found the title to be a little misleading, as while it certainly does cover innovation in general, the focus here is mostly on advances in curriculum design. This is most obvious from the contents page where the essays are grouped into four sections: Directions in curriculum change; Political and institutional constraints in curriculum development; Planning and implementing curriculum change; Evaluating curriculum change. Despite this there is much here to interest teachers in terms of day to day teaching.

Overall I found this to be both briefer and more accessible than the other book. Innovation comes across as much more practical than the other volume. There is a lot of theory here, and it is by no means a light read (especially the final chapter). However, the shorter length of the essays and their comparative reliance on and use of research made within classrooms makes it easier to comprehend and apply to teaching situations.

As the essays don’t reference each other as much as the other book it appears that fewer of them have been specially written for it, but despite (or maybe because of) this there is an interesting range of articles. I got a lot out of this book.

Highlights are the chapter on academic writing by Ann Hewings and Martin Hewings, and also the chapter on implementing curriculum change in Hong Kong by David R. Carless. This latter chapter was great for me in terms of my work here in Taiwan teacher training.

Given the title I think that this book needs to be revised very soon and not just reprinted, but it is a good book to read in tandem with English Language Teaching in its Social Context. I am now tempted to try the first in the series (Analysing English Language in a Global Context). If you are an experienced teacher I recommend the series.

English Language Teaching in its Social Context Edited by Christopher N. Candlin and Neil Mercer

An absorbing collection of essays with practical applications

This book concerns itself with language students as members of society and how that influences their approaches to, attitudes towards and ability to learn English. These social aspects of the student are considered in terms of how they should influence the teaching of English, so that it may be the most effective. There are three sections to the book: How is language learning explained? ; Strategies and goals in the classroom context; and Analysing teaching and learning, which are comprised of both “classic” essays and specially commissioned pieces.

Starting off very theoretically, the book is quite hard-going to begin with. The first section has some useful points to make but it takes a lot of effort to glean them. It seems perverse but true that in academic fields such as Applied Linguistics and English language teaching, some writers seem not only to take pride but also pleasure, in using obscure language. Continued effort pays off though, as the second and third sections become much more practical and easily applied to one’s own teaching environment, with the last chapter being literally a practical guide to recording and transcribing talk in the classroom.

The final chapter reveals who the book is intended for, as it would be of great help to a student of a post graduate course in TESOL or Applied Linguistics. The book also is of use for practicing teachers who may want to do research in their own classrooms, or gain more insight into their students as members of societies. This is what I liked most about the book; teachers spend so much time and effort thinking about what to teach, that they can often lose sight of who they are teaching.

This is a collection of essays and as such its quality, accessibility and usefulness is variable. Notwithstanding this, the editors have tried to construct a whole from various parts and they are largely successful. Much thought has been given not just to the selection of the essays themselves but also the order in which they are placed. The essays build upon each other, with the specially commissioned ones making reference to the others.

This is the second book of a series entitled Teaching English Language Worldwide. I am now reading the third book of the series; Innovation in English Language Teaching and so far it seems to be very similar but with a focus on new ideas and approaches.

Overall this is an absorbing book with a lot of theory that can be applied usefully to many different types of classrooms and students. It is great for the teacher who wishes to consider students and their contribution to the learning process in order to maximise the effectiveness of their teaching.

Comprehensive guide to good teaching practice

Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener

With seventeen chapters plus two appendices and running to 430 pages, Learning Teaching is wide-ranging. It is a crucial book for new teachers, as it gives a lot of support that is useful in the first few years of work. As an experienced teacher I found parts of it to be a little redundant. Having said this, if you have a number of years under your belt, it is still worth a look as Scrivener encourages you to try to do things that you may have ignored so far. I thought it very useful for reflecting on my own practice and also for inspiring new ideas.

The good thing about Learning Teaching is that it gets you to focus on your students rather than yourself. This is an important aspect of teaching because many of us are far too concerned with what we are doing as teachers, rather than what students experience as learners. Also, shifting the focus away from the teacher makes classes both more interesting and relaxing.

Apart from this shift in emphasis it is also simply a good reference book. It is jam-packed with ideas; not just in the toolkit chapters and resource sections but throughout. This is a book that you should come back to again and again so as to remind yourself of strategies you have forgotten. Also useful would be to periodically do one of the many observation tasks in Appendix 1.

On the whole this book is fantastic but it does suffer in some sections precisely because it tries to be so comprehensive. While I found the chapter on speaking to be very good, many of the ideas in the reading chapter were simply old hat. One section of the book that really is disappointing deals with teaching large classes. This is a problem that many teachers around the world face every day and drives many of them to despair. Scrivener’s treatment is brief and inadequate, something I wasn’t expecting after the thorough writing elsewhere.

Occasionally Scrivener also seems to enjoy including some rather silly comments, such as in his advice on lesson planning where he encourages you to try dreaming through the lesson. Despite this, he should be commended for his encouragement to try everything, no matter how outlandish. It is only through experimentation after all that new things are learned.

In conclusion, Scrivener’s book is a very positive and encouraging guide to teaching English language. It is an important read for anyone who seriously wants to teach.