Read and listen to the views of Jason as he is interviewed about English langauge tecahing and learning, English Out There and education by two different people from quite different angles.

Add captionIt's been a busy summer I tell ya, I've hardly had a spare minute to do the thing I love most... i.e. blogging and hanging out on Social Media.  Nevertheless, after a week of spending time with two lovely twitter ladies, Shelly and Marisa, on an island in Greece (photos coming soon, I have to figure out how to get them off the Prada as my digital camera packed up and I was forced to use the camera phone...) am beginning to surface and catch up on the rather long task list...   so here are some of the links which have been flying around the rather transient 'verse - the stuff I favourited, visited, enjoyed and recommend to you - the stuff I grabbed while lurking here and there but which I'm hoping you'll enjoy finding again too :-).


Teaching English as a Foreign Language:  

*Issues in our industry
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Can't wait for part 2! RT @kenwilsonlondon BLOG POST - Motivating the Unmotivated - Part 1 http://bit.ly/bYBxPaFri Aug 27 16:05:05 via webenglish-at-home.com
englishathome
***please note URL change: http://kenwilsonelt.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/2465/


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Sorry to tell you, but if your students are bored, its your fault http://wp.me/ptcfd-6o #education #edchat #publicspeakingThu Aug 19 17:07:48 via webTristan Verboven
Aminhotep

...just in time, Trtistan's post is, while we all gear up for classes and the conference season begins :)))


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"Most of our classrooms were built under the assumption that info is scarce ..." http://bit.ly/bdG3EG #edreform #edtech gr8 post by @EnglishFri Sep 03 09:08:52 via RSSFlashgShelly S Terrell
ShellTerrell


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RT @FlyontheCWall: good common sense regarding classroom control http://ow.ly/2A6O2Mon Sep 06 15:35:40 via TweetDeckSean Banville
SeanBanville

*Teaching English Tips

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Great series of interviews on Innovations in Teaching http://bit.ly/96iHGr - podcasts include @Harmerj and @thornburyscottSun Sep 05 07:50:29 via TweetDeckCELT Athens
CELT_Athens
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RT @m_yam: RT @NikPeachey: useful Q & A of English grammar http://bit.ly/9uf8t3 #tefl #ELT #esl #tesol #esolWed Aug 25 15:39:11 via TweetDeckArjana Blazic
abfromz


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RT @kalinagoenglish: via @PrestwickHouse How to Spell http://bit.ly/cTZViG -> Loved it. Thanx! :-)Thu Aug 26 11:55:02 via TweetDeckCecilia Coelho
cecilialcoelho





General English
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RT @ddeubel: Reasons to use current events in the class. God bless Dewey! http://bit.ly/cYFvbbMon Aug 16 12:50:46 via TweetDeckJason Renshaw
englishraven

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The TEFL Times » Teaching factual writing: purpose and structure http://bit.ly/8YgJgTThu Aug 26 10:31:30 via webAdam Simpson
yearinthelifeof

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Alternatives to writing book reports after reading http://bit.ly/cZZyY5Thu Aug 26 09:04:25 via TweetDeckJez Uden
JezUden

Business English/ ESP
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Do u have European Business English ss who need 2 practice listening 2 Indian Accents = http://www.ndtv.com/video #besigFri Sep 03 09:44:05 via webKarenne Sylvester
kalinagoenglish

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The TEFL Times » Who qualifies to monitor an ESP course: a content teacher or a language teacher? http://bit.ly/dgKBEhThu Aug 26 10:33:08 via webAdam Simpson
yearinthelifeof

Tech Tools + Teaching
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RT @gcouros: So helpful: New Teacher Tech Survival List http://bit.ly/blRVnXFri Sep 03 03:15:57 via TweetDeckHenrick Oprea
hoprea
...excellent tips! One to bookmark for sure, thanks Rick



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Google Brings Voice Calling to Gmail http://bit.ly/9mtpiY via @mashableWed Aug 25 17:08:18 via twitterfeedAniya
TheEngTeacher

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RT @NikPeachey: 39 web based resources for vocab development http://bit.ly/b43amF #efl #elt #edtech #esol #tesol #eslSun Sep 05 15:59:40 via TweetDeckRussell Stannard
russell1955

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Podcast directory for educators, schools and colleges http://goo.gl/JJUk #podcast #edtech #ntchatWed Aug 25 16:19:48 via webAlexandra Francisco
alexgfrancisco

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RT wow!!! Interactive GRAMMAR games http://goo.gl/bfV9 by @anamariacult #edtech #iwb #elt #eslSun Aug 22 09:22:02 via TweetDeckMarina Petrovic
Educo11

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MYBLOG Webtools to enhance LISTENING: This afternoon, I presented a session about sites to help students improve t... http://bit.ly/aa3RjcFri Aug 20 22:26:33 via twitterfeedanamariacult
anamariacult




Mainstream Educational Links of Interest  
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Damage to language teaching 'irreparable' - Education News, Education - The Independent http://bit.ly/a2fUuXThu Aug 26 07:45:03 via TweetMemeInma Alcázar
inma_a

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RT @englishraven: Larger class sizes can result in better education http://bit.ly/aCsASP #jalt #eflThu Aug 26 01:12:01 via TweetDeckBarbara Sakamoto
barbsaka

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RT @ShellTerrell: RT @gcouros: Elizabeth Gilbert on nurt. creativity | Video http://bit.ly/bmbNXo #edchat #edreform - Lovd it! Thnx Shelly!Mon Sep 06 05:19:30 via TweetDeckCecilia Coelho
cecilialcoelho

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Digital Storytelling in Plain English. Using them as a digital explanation. Found on @wfryer 's blog http://goo.gl/aoPAFri Sep 03 18:07:41 via ShareaholicCory Plough
mrplough07

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Just commented. The post is worth your read >> The Impact of Awards (via @gcouros) http://bit.ly/aZvkpY #edchat #cpchat #educationTue Aug 24 22:07:22 via HootSuiteJeremy Macdonald
MrMacnology



Frowns, Smiles + Laughs

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RT @theteachershub: Article from BBC News - Is multi-tasking a myth? http://ow.ly/2ulHsWed Aug 25 16:02:00 via TweetDeckMiguel Mendoza
mike08

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More shock-horror from the NY Times: "Attention spans evolve and shorten": http://nyti.ms/aTDvaFSun Aug 22 08:29:49 via TweetDeckScott Thornbury
thornburyscott

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RT @cbsiskin: @dudeneyge @daisybundle Why can't they tweet and chat over a pint at the same time?? - Cos NOBODY can multitask, remember?Thu Sep 02 19:56:44 via TweetDeckGavin Dudeney
dudeneyge


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If historical events had Facebook statuses (absolutely hilarious!) http://ow.ly/2uY73 via @researchgoddess and @lisibo | Big LOL =)Thu Aug 26 08:21:08 via TweetDeckMike Harrison
harrisonmike

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Wow! What a great day! After 18 months a teacher has finally asked me how to set up a blog. Is this the thin end of the wedge? #successFri Sep 03 08:57:23 via TweetDeckOlaf Elch
olafelch

You may also like:

• ELT Guide to Twitter
• New TEFL teachers on Twitter
• More blog  posts on "Life in the Twitterverse"
• The Best of the ELT Blogosphere
  
• Tweets saved by Shelly Terrell
• Tweets saved by Larry Ferlazzo

Best,Karenneimage: Blue-winged Mountain Tanager by Benimoto, on Flickr
     

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Back to school with another guest post! I’m starting up the guest sixes here with half a dozen of the best activities for teaching online. These come from none other than one of my great mentors, Nicky Hockly. Nicky co-founded The Consultants-E, an online consultancy specialising in education and trained me as an emoderator over seven years ago. I now do the occasional course for them as a trainer, and can really say they are a great bunch to work with. Enough background already though, I’ll hand over to Nicky…

To celebrate the launch of our new book, Teaching Online (from Delta Publishing), Lindsay Clandfield and I decided to write a guest post on each other’s blogs. Our posts each describe six of our favourite teaching online activities. This way you get 12 cool online teaching ideas – 6 from me here, and 6 from Lindsay on my blog!

Here are my six favourite activities (Lindsay forced me to write six!). They are aimed at language learners, but with a bit of tweaking they can be easily made to fit other contexts, such as teacher training.

1 Sounds of me

This activity can be used at the beginning of an online course. It helps learners to get to know each other a bit. Choose four or five songs which are significant to you in some way, and add them to and online play list (Grooveshark is a good one). Provide a link to your playlist (e.g. in a forum in your online course, or in a blog). Include why you chose each of the songs, and why they are significant to you. Your learners can listen to your playlist, and then respond to your posting with comments or questions. Learners then create their own online playlists, and post a link and explanation each. They listen to and comment on each others’ choice of music. Instead of using audio, you and learners could create online video playlists e.g. in a site like You Tube. People often have strong emotional ties to certain pieces of music, so this can be quite a powerful sharing activity. I especially like the way this activity brings in other media (audio or video) – one danger in online courses is that they become too relentlessly text-based.

2 My precious…

This is another great activity to help learners in an online course get to know each other better. Get learners to take a digital photo of an important/significant object that they own. This could be a piece of jewellery, a souvenir, a talisman or good luck charm, a drawing or painting, a CD, a piece of furniture that has been in the family for generations … (If your learners don’t own digital cameras, they could find an image of a similar object on the Internet, and use that). Learners prepare a 100-word text explaining what the object is, and why it is significant. They post their photo and text to a forum in your online course, or to a blog. They then read about and comment on each other’s objects. Like ‘Sounds of me’ above, this activity enables learners to share meaningful personal information with each other, and can really help the group to ‘gel’. It also brings in another form of media – digital images – which helps add variety to course content.

3 Podcast dictations

I find that many language learners love dictations. So how about building up a bank of dictations as a series of podcasts over time, which learners can regularly listen to and transcribe? Use a free podcasting site (such as Voice Thread, or Podomatic) to record yourself dictating a short text. You could also provide a transcript as a separate text document, so that learners can check their dictations afterwards. Add one dictation a week to your podcasting page, based on course work. This is a great way to review course content, and to also give your learners plenty of practice in listening skills, and grammar. You could even get your learners to record dictations for each other!

4 Your message to the world

This activity is good for speaking practice. It gets learners to record a short speech, based on a model you provide. Record yourself speaking for a minute or two on one of the following topics:

• What is your vision of a perfect world?
• If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be, and why?

• What is the most annoying thing in the world?

• What is the best thing in the world?

• If you could say one thing to the world, what would it be?

Upload your recording to your online course site, and get learners to listen and post comment or questions in reply. Give them the list of topics above, and ask them to record their own one or two minute speeches (e.g. using Sound Recorder on their PCs, or Simple Sound if they have a Mac). Learners then share their own recordings in a forum, and listen to and comment on each other’s. You could set a summarising task in the same forum, by asking questions such as’Who talks about world peace? Who is worried about climate change? etc, based on the recordings. Of course it’s important to remember that recording their own speech can be immensely challenging for learners, especially at lower levels. Make it clear that they don’t need to speak for a long time, and that they can rehearse and use notes to help them.

5 Web tours

This is a synchronous activity, which means you and the learners are online at the same time, in a video chat room. Your chat room needs to have shared web browsing, so that you can show each other websites in real time. We use Elluminate for our online course video chats, but there are also free platforms such as Dimdim, or WizIQ you could use. Take your learners on a tour of your favourite website in the chat room, showing a few pages, and telling them what you especially like. One of my favourites is this site of paintings of redheads in art . Get each learner to then show the group their favourite website — preferably a non-language learning site! (They will need to have chosen this site before the chat, and have the URL ready to browse to). Make sure each learner doesn’t speak for more than two or three minutes. At the end of each web tour, the other learners in the group need to come up with one question about that website for the learner. To summarise the activity, provide a list of the website names and URLs for learners to take away.

6 Am I saying this correctly?

This is a listening/viewing activity that gets learners to spot the deliberate mistakes in video subtitles. Find a short video clip (e.g. a film trailer) in your learners’ native language. Using a subtitle creator site (such as Overstream), subtitle the clip and include three or four deliberate mistakes where your English translation does not match the meaning of what is being said in the learners’ native language. Upload the video to your course site, then get learners to watch it and to note down the mistakes they spot. Create a second subtitled version of the video clip with the correct subtitles, and let learners watch that. Did they spot all the mistakes?

We find that learners tend to enjoy this sort of intensive listening activity, especially when they can compare English with their native language. For lower-level learners, you can include deliberate mistakes on obvious items such as vocabulary. For higher levels, the mistakes can focus on more subtle differences in meaning.

These are just six of my favourite activities – there are plenty more in our book! If you try out any of these activities (or the six activities Lindsay has posted on my blog), let us know how it goes in the Comments section below. And if you have any favourite online teaching activities yourself, we’d love to hear about them.

Free Teaching Online Webinar 22 September

You can experience some of our teaching online activities by coming along to our free Teaching Online webinar on Wednesday 22 September 16.30h – 17.30h CET (Central European Time). Check the time in your country , and if you can make it, sign up online with your name and email. We will email you a link to the webinar room half an hour before the webinar is due to start. We will hold a raffle during the webinar to give away free copies of the book!

It’s back to school time, well for many teachers it is anyway. I’m going to be taking a group for the next two months before my travel commitments pick up again and I’m preparing my first classes. One idea I often use is something I picked up from a colleague of mine in Barcelona, Mark McKinnon. It’s called a “lucky dip” and consists of a series of questions on a theme. Each question is written on a different long thin strip of paper. The papers are then all clutched together and the student picks one (the lucky dip) and answers it. I’ve used it with many one-to-one classes, and with groupwork in larger classes. Here a six different categories of questions that I’ve used for “first classes”. Maybe they’ll be helpful for a first class for you?

1 Summer holiday

Describe your summer holiday in five words or less. What did you do this summer holiday that was different to other summers? What was “typical” of this summer for you? What would you have done if you’d had an extra week of holidays? Describe in detail one thing that you bought or paid for this summer. How have summer holidays changed for you since you were a child?

2 Summer news

Can you remember three international news stories from this summer (what were they)? Did you follow the football World Cup or another sports event (what was your favourite part)? What was the strangest news item you heard about this summer? Look at these three headlines from this summer’s news (you need to supply the headlines for this): what do you know about each news story?

3 The English language

What are your favourite words in English? What is the most difficult thing for you about learning English? Who was your first English teacher and what was he/she like? Look through your English coursebook (if you are using one), find three topics you think are interesting and compare with a partner. How important is English in your country? Imagine everybody in the world spoke English; what would be some of the possible disadvantages of this situation?

4 Establishing good habits

When do you study best: morning, afternoon or night? Where do you like to study? Can you think of one good way to remember new words? How much do you aim on studying English outside class every week? Set yourself a goal. Do you know any good websites to practise your English? Share with a partner.

5 Names

Are you named after someone in your family (who)? Do you have a nickname (what is it, and who calls you this)? If you had a child (or another child) now, what would you call him/her? Do you think a person’s name determines, in a way, the kind of life they will have? If you could have any other name, what would it be? What names do you think are particularly ugly?

6 Music and film

Do you listen to different kinds of music for different moods you are in (e.g. your “happy music”, your “sad music”)? What was the latest CD/song you bought? Would you like to study a song in English class (which one)? What was the last film you saw? If they made a film of your life, who would you like to play you? Think of three great films and three absolutely awful films, then compare lists with a parnter.

As usual, I’ve tried here to steer away from the typical questions. Feel free to add more to these lists. One can never have too many questions up one’s sleeve to ask students and get them talking!

I recommend a good learner’s dictionary (or two), not just for your students but also for you, the instructor. Naturally, you already know the meanings of almost all words that students are likely to ask you about, but the problem is that on-the-spot definitions (and even written ones) sometimes come out in the vein of “Well, it’s a sensation that…uh, a feeling that you get–well, most people get they’re frightened –oh, do you know frightened? I mean scared…and…”

Yeah.

There’s a reason for the profession of lexicography and the existence of special dictionaries! When I use the definitions in learners’ dictionaries to define words that are a little hard to explain, I find that students often understand the words much faster–I neither spend a lot of time confusing them nor do they have to resort to their L1 dictionaries (and they don’t get confused by the circular explanations, academic vocabulary, and obsolete historical definitions in regular English dictionaries).

I make a point of introducing learners’ dictionaries to my students and owning multiple levels of them. I tell my students that sometimes I use them myself to give definitions, because the dictionaries’ explanations are shorter, simpler, and focus on the useful/common meanings of a word. (I also spend time demonstrating how a good learner’s dictionary can save students from other dictionaries’ pitfalls, as the entries should include connotations like “disapproving”, and other features like collocations.) Anyway, I think they understand why I sometimes use these definitions with them. It would certainly be less than ideal if they thought I had to look up English words in the dictionary, but I don’t think any of them have wound up with that impression.

I think it’s useful to look at the different varieties out there to see which ones you prefer. They all have different features and different styles of defining words. Cobuild started out strong (as it was corpus-based) but has fallen behind the others in features and usability; I prefer Longman and Oxford. There’s also a recent Merriam-Webster dictionary, in “essential” and advanced, which I haven’t looked at. They produced the excellent guide to English usage that was recommended by Language Log, though, so it might be excellent. There’s a Cambridge set, as well.

Anyway, you can make use of these definitions online, too, if you’re chatting with students, blogging, or just testing out the dictionaries.

• Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
• Longman English Dictionary Online
• Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
• Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary

One word I had to define recently was “trawl” (the verb), because I linked some learners to “Japanese Power Blogger Trawls Seoul for Hidden Gems”. Interestingly, at least one of the dictionaries’ definitions precluded the usage in that headline–so it’s good to try several tricky or multifaceted words to find a dictionary that makes sense to you.

(P. S. I think there are some other learners’ dictionaries that I’m not familiar with. If you know of any that you particularly like, please recommend them in the comments!)
Possibly Related Posts:

• Redefining the Dictionary (Again)
• Korea 101 Plus
• Journals Galore
• Google Voice Now Open
• Meebo and Other IM Programs

Conversation between myself and C, an advanced English tele-student.

C: My client in Amsterdam asked me if I use an online dictionary.

Me: Really, why?  Did you ask why she asked?

C: Yes, she said sometimes I use really strange words in my emails.

Me: (laughs gently)  Are you using Leo?

C: Is that a bad dictionary? Do you know a better one?

Me: Leo's good but  I usually use Google Translate.  Well, sometimes.

C: I should talk around the words when I don't know them. (repeating a former instruction of mine)

Me: Yeeh..es - that's a very good strategy.

C: But, sometimes that takes too long.  I would prefer to know the right word.

Me: I understand.

C: I can't learn the right word if I never find it out.

Me: What about an English-English online dictionary? Like Macmillan - that's a good one, it even does pronunciation. And they have a nice blog - I must remember to feed that into our Ning.

C: But if I don't know what the word I want to say is, in English, how can I search the word I want?

Me: There is that! (laughs out loud).  You could try a thesaurus?

C: That takes too long, it's the same problem with using the Leo, I still won't know the word I want.

Me: Mmm.

C: I can't know the word if I don't ever learn it.

Me: Yes.  Hmm...that's why we're having these classes but I know exactly the way you feel.  Sometimes when I have to deal, in German, with my taxes or do stuff to do with my business...  I need an online option too.

C:  Does it work for you?

Me: I don't know - no one tells me when I use strange words.  But I think what your client is noticing is the old fashioned words.  Leo gives you all sorts of options and that includes words that aren't wrong, they're just not... not said anymore.  To be honest, I'm probably doing the same thing as you are.  I have a good German-English dictionary on my desk but these days I tend to be too lazy to look in it - it's just so big and heavy.

C: What's tend? Me: (quiet panic, hesitation).. um, tend is like attend, like pay attention but in this context, I mean more that... I mean that usually I am too lazy or that often I am too lazy to look in my heavy dictionary. C: It is quicker to use Leo.

Me: Hmm.  Yes, you tend to use Leo when you're stuck for a word. But your client thinks it sounds strange.

C: What about if I talk around the words with you and then you tell me what the right word is?

Me: We can do that.   You can also copy and paste your emails into your blog - just take out the confidential details but I can look specifically for the words that don't fit your context and I'll give you feedback on those.

C: I would like that.  I can store them in my blog.

Me: Exactly.  And when you have enough - I know Google Docs Spreadsheets has a really cool program - all you do is put these words in a list and we can also add the words from our Google Doc feedback sheet - then you can make a game to play at home. 

C: Yes!  I want to do that.  You have to teach me how to make this game.  Did you have a nice week?  Did you finish your article yet?


Readers, have you ever been in this sort of situation? 

What do you think the best way would be for me to handle C's advanced level vocabulary acquisition without really knowing what words she specifically needs to use beforehand in these emails?  To be honest, I fear this (the above, waiting for the words to emerge) might actually be a really long process. 

How do you handle mass-vocabulary acquisition?  As you know by now, being a dogme teacher, I tend not to be too fond of presenting random lists to be learned off by heart without context... Still, I'm in a quandary - isn't there a way for me to deal with this?  Do please share your top tips...

And by the way, are you pro- or anti- dictionary usage in the classroom (online or otherwise)?   Why?



Useful links related to this posting: 
Jason Renshaw: The best compliments are complements
Scott Thornbury: A is for Attention
Google Docs Educational Gadgets
Inside Google Translate
Internet may phase out Oxford Dictionary

Best,
Karenne
education

Arizona: A nearly two decade long battle over the quality of Arizona's English Language Learners program fired back up in a Federal Courthouse in Tucson Wednesday. This hearing will determine if the state's new plan is in compliance with federal... TESOL

United States: With support for charter schools growing across the country, some education and advocacy groups are calling on policymakers and educators to give more consideration to how charter schools can do a better job of serving the nation’s increasing... TESOL

Minnesota: As ethnic diversity in the United States has increased, so has the demand for teachers equipped to educate English language learners. St. Olaf is producing students to meet this demand through an increasingly popular summer program that includes a... TESOL

The summer was just packed–unfortunately, not in the ironic Calvin and Hobbes sense. Between flying to the middle of the country to help my parents with my dad’s knee surgery, getting my new computer in working order after my laptop was stolen, and job-hunting, I haven’t been able to finish any of the posts I’ve started in my head.

Anyway, I’ve updated the links in the sidebar with a few more good ones. Check out Throw Grammar from the Train, Seoul Sub→Urban, and Japan without the sugar–and yes, I’ve purposefully not linked them here in the post, because there are a lot of great blogs over there that are worth a look!

The writer of Throw Grammar from the Train did a nice piece for the Boston Globe–you can read it at “Un-Rules.” If you have a family member who does the “Ohhh no! It’s the English teacher! I’d better watch my grammar!” thing around you, or who irritates you by sending you links to ill-informed rants by famous peevologists, you can blow that person’s mind by sending along this article. It’s unusually well-grounded for a mainstream publication.

Coming up (I think) is a post on the body half of the mind-body equation. Teachers sometimes let health drop to to the bottom of our long list of priorities. If you have any thoughts on it you’d like me to address, let me know here or on Twitter!
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Global: Over the past decade, talk of internationalization has peppered the speeches of presidents and provosts, graced strategic plans, and been incorporated into campus mission statements. But the economic downturn has forced some colleges to scale back once-ambitious plans or... TESOL

Massachusetts: To remedy concerns about what some say is a gap in city teachers’ knowledge of students’ culture, language, and customs, students and advocates from Sociedad Latina, a community-based youth organization in Roxbury, have launched a campaign to persuade city... TESOL

United States: The kindergarten class of 2010-11 is less white, less black, more Asian and much more Hispanic than in 2000, reflecting the nation's rapid racial and ethnic transformation. The profile of the 4 million children starting kindergarten reveals the... TESOL

Arizona: Arizona education department officials and administrators for the Tucson Unified School District are set to do battle over whether the school district should continue to offer its ethnic studies, particularly Mexican-American studies, in light of a new state law... TESOL

Well, this summer I took a much-needed break from blogging and tweeting and all things ELT. Well, this isn’t entirely true as I still had a million little things to do on the next two levels of Global that are due out in 2011. But… I did spend a lot of time relaxing it’s true. And I finally did some reading that was not linked directly to the world of language teaching. It was nice to get lost in a book, well in six books actually. I thought I’d share them here with you.

1. Race of a Lifetime, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

Who says the blurb on the cover of a book doesn’t make people buy it? This one read “Welcome to the meat grinder, flash incinerator race to become the 44th President of the United States” and it’s a journalistic account of the 2008-2009 campaigns. I remember reading Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing and enjoying it so I thought I’d give this genre a try again. It read a bit like a thriller and contained lots of tidbits and gossip and anecdotes about the candidates and on the whole was quite well-written. The stuff about Sarah Palin really just makes the mind boggle. A good summer choice.

2. Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

I’ve just heard too much about this guy now to ignore him. There have been several references to Blink and the Tipping Point on blogs I’ve read and I think I know what people are talking about but I thought I’d read it myself to make sure. Gladwell is also from my alma mater, the University of Toronto. I enjoy the popular science genre (err… I am a coursebook writer after all so have used quite a bit from this genre in the past) and this was no exception. The style reminded me of Freakonomics, so in the words of Amazon “if you liked Freakonomics, you’ll like Blink”.

3. Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer

Sometimes you just have to know what all the fuss is about. And this WAS summer after all! But I confess that while reading this on the beach I did try and conceal the cover from prying eyes. When a friend expressed incredulity at seeing it in my bag (“what’s a middle-aged man who makes a big deal about including high literature and no celebrities in his textbooks doing with that?”) I had to mumble something about research. I haven’t seen the movies (and probably won’t) but I confess that I got quite caught up in the story by the end. But a part of me was a bit alarmed at the glorification of being thin, pale-skinned and moody.

4. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

After Twilight I felt I really should up the literary ante as it were so I jumped in with both feet to Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which won the Man Booker Award in 2009. Wolf Hall is set in Tudor England during the reign of Henry VIII (of the six wives fame) and is told from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell: “lowborn boy, charmer, bully, master of deadly intrigue and, finally, most powerful of Henry VIII’s courtiers”. If I had to write two words to sum up this 650 page volume they would be “luxurious prose”. A real gem of a book you can completely get immersed in although it’s a bit heavy going to keep track of all the names (fortunately there is a cast of characters list at the beginning that I kept flipping back to).

5. Pandemonium by Christopher Brookmyre.

The Guardian newspaper says of this book: ‘Smart, funny, big-hearted and blood-splattered. What’s not to love?’ What’s not indeed, and after the weight of Wolf Hall I needed a nice light bit of pulp noir to aid digestion. I’ve read several of Brookmyre’s books, he was originally recommended to me by a Scottish mate of mine. It isn’t exactly high fiction, but I always enjoy it for the bits of informal Scottish that I pick up (try, for example, to decipher the following: “Of course she wouldnae” or “Get yerselves tae fuck.”). On reflection though, I think it was a bit more blood-splattered than big-hearted.

6. Slow Death by Rubber Duck – The Secret Danger of Everyday things, by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie

After that good dose of fiction I felt I needed to get back to the real world. This book was a Christmas gift I had never got around to reading. What a great title for a book! It’s all about PCBs and other horrendous toxins in everyday objects around the home. While it focuses more on the American and Canadian situation (Europe being slightly ahead on legislating against harmful chemicals in household products) it still made for sombre reading. The problem with these non-fiction books is that after reading them you’re primed to notice the phenomenon everywhere. After I finished Blink everything I experienced seemed to be about split-second choices (fish or chicken for dinner? Ummm… fish!). After Slow Death, everything I saw was full of deadly chemicals (don’t use that pan for the fish!). I highly recommend it though.

Right. I fully realise that this was a self-indulgent post and a bit like those awful reading lists of prime ministers and so forth but I honest-to-god did read all these books and I haven’t tried to pose by including something really high-brow, like War and Peace (ok, so Wolf Hall was an exception). What about you? What non-ELT books did you read this summer that you could tell me about? I have a couple of long-haul flights coming up this fall and could use some recommendations. Post a comment, and welcome back!

California: Much of the concern about value-added analysis of teachers, as exemplified by this weekend’s already infamous LA Times feature, comes from teachers and other advocates for urban schools that have been singled out under NCLB and Obama administration policies,... TESOL

Sri Lanka: The British High Commission in Colombo said that it has recently concluded a project aimed to improve the English language proficiency of teachers in the Northern and Eastern Provinces through direct training of local trainers who in turn... TESOL