Teach Now! Modern Foreign Languages (Becoming a Great Modern Foreign languages Teacher) is written by teacher Sally Allan and was published by Routledge in 2015. It's a practical handbook aimed fairly and squarely at MFL teacher trainees in England and Wales. It's one of the Teach Now series of handbooks edited by Geoff Barton. Sally is Assistant Head Teacher at the Forest Hall School, Stansted Mountfitchet, England.
Chapter titles include curriculum (what are the key components and challenges in teaching MFL?), essentials of pedagogy, planning and assessing, differentiation chapters dedicated to behaviour, dealing with pressure and applying for a new post.
At around 150 pages the book is brief and to the point. Experienced teachers would find it lacking in analytical detail, but for trainees it gives a decent account of major issues. The longest chapter is the first one about curriculum matters. It is sub-divided into sections on target language, the communicative approach, the four skills (including checklists of suggested activity types), teaching grammar and vocabulary and developing a 'have-a-go' culture.
There is little dogmatic here; for example, Sally does not try to make a case for target language at any cost and she has clearly had experience working with students of various abilities. You'll find a good deal of common sense advice, along with a fair number of teaching ideas, usually glossed over quickly. I would have thought young trainees would find the chapters on job applications, dealing with pressure and interview advice particularly relevant.
The book is very lightly referenced, as befits a handbook of this type, but has a useful, if selective, further reading list including. The only general handbook referred to are the ones by David Nunan from 1991 and Gill Ramage's slim but useful handbook from 2012.
Overall Sally has produced a very clear, concise and straightforward handbook, appropriate for its target readership, written in an easy and personal style and which introduces novices to a good range of aspects of modern language teaching in England and Wales.
Chapter titles include curriculum (what are the key components and challenges in teaching MFL?), essentials of pedagogy, planning and assessing, differentiation chapters dedicated to behaviour, dealing with pressure and applying for a new post.
At around 150 pages the book is brief and to the point. Experienced teachers would find it lacking in analytical detail, but for trainees it gives a decent account of major issues. The longest chapter is the first one about curriculum matters. It is sub-divided into sections on target language, the communicative approach, the four skills (including checklists of suggested activity types), teaching grammar and vocabulary and developing a 'have-a-go' culture.There is little dogmatic here; for example, Sally does not try to make a case for target language at any cost and she has clearly had experience working with students of various abilities. You'll find a good deal of common sense advice, along with a fair number of teaching ideas, usually glossed over quickly. I would have thought young trainees would find the chapters on job applications, dealing with pressure and interview advice particularly relevant.
The book is very lightly referenced, as befits a handbook of this type, but has a useful, if selective, further reading list including. The only general handbook referred to are the ones by David Nunan from 1991 and Gill Ramage's slim but useful handbook from 2012.
Overall Sally has produced a very clear, concise and straightforward handbook, appropriate for its target readership, written in an easy and personal style and which introduces novices to a good range of aspects of modern language teaching in England and Wales.
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