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.

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.

Inside Teaching by Tim Bowen and Jonathan Marks

Inside Teaching intends to raise your self-awareness: How do you teach and what do you believe constitutes good teaching practice? As such this is a book for those of us with a few years under our belts. It is especially good if you feel set in your ways and need refreshing a little. This book challenges you to try out new things, and while not an ideas book, does indeed contain a lot of ideas to try.

Divided into chapters dealing with different aspects of teaching, this slim book is far from comprehensive. It is thought-provoking however, frequently prompting insightful and interesting questions of oneself. Lots of quotations from various teachers around world enable this questioning process. Their contributions, while sometimes feeling a little superfluous, give the reader a sounding board, and as such simulate the debate one might have with a colleague. It is clear that the authors have gone to a lot of trouble to find out what teachers actually think about teaching.

This investigation into your own teaching is further promoted by encouraging you to adopt some more formal methods of self-analysis, such as making notes to review your classes and also recording yourself from time to time. Bowen and Marks are very honest about the difficulty that many teachers may have in listening to themselves, but advise you to try and get over this as the benefits can be enormous. Urging the negotiation of goals, strategies and activities with students, this book is a spur to becoming a more transparent professional in general. Although the authors do advocate self analysis, they are realistic about the time available for it. Above all, the advice here is helpful and practicable.

While for the most part the book intends not to be prescriptive, there are times when it seems to definitely weigh in on one side or another of an issue. However, even when the book strongly advocates a particular point of view, I found this to be sensible advice indeed. A prime example of this wisdom is the section dealing with attitudes towards being observed, in which it is advised that a teacher be grateful to an observer for giving up his or her time to watch the lesson. This is certainly something I have tried to bear in mind recently and has helped to put a positive spin on observation. There is also a gentle challenge to become more familiar with areas that you know little about, or have ignored for a while.

The only chapter I didn’t enjoy was that dealing with Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning and the Silent Way, which was far too brief for me. This section, dealing with techniques many teachers find to be difficult or controversial, deserved a more thorough treatment. Having said this it did send me off on a YouTube search for clips of the three techniques. Given that the book as a whole is an encouragement for the teacher to examine his or her practice for themselves, then I guess it served its purpose very well.

On the whole, this is a book well worth reading. I found it really helped raise my consciousness of what I do and to become more considered in my approach, not only to teaching, but also to my continued development as a teacher.