I'm happy let you know that the second edition of my book Becoming an Outstanding Languages Teacher was published on August 2nd, in time for teacher trainees who begin courses this year.
Let me give you some background and tell you what's the same and what's different about the second edition.
In 2017 Routledge asked me to write a book in their series Becoming an Outstanding.... Teacher, edited by Jayne Bartlett. There was already a maths edition in the series, and others have been published since. The use of the word 'outstanding' in the title has to do with the fact that in England schools are judged by the inspection body Ofsted according to various categories, with 'outstanding' being the best. So 'outstanding' became a buzz word in English schools. For a while, bizarrely, even individual lessons could be graded 'outstanding', though this is now rare, as I understand it. So you can see the editors were using the word outstanding to sell more books!
I decided at the time to put the emphasis in my book on helping new teachers develop their craft by focusing on the nuts and bolts of lesson planning. You could say this is the USP of the book and what sets it apart from many others. So several chapters bear the tile Dissecting a lesson. In a detailed, step-by-step fashion, I describe how lessons can be constructed, including precise descriptions of possible teacher-student and student-student interactions. Research is not referenced, nor do I talk much at all about country-specific exams or professional bodies such as GCSE, IB, ACTFL and the like. I wanted the book to appeal to modern language teachers in various countries, as did Routledge. Readers do not need to have specialist knowledge of specific languages, though my assumption is that the target readership is teachers of French, German, Spanish or Italian. Examples are usually given in English. the first edition has sold well over the last few years and is standard reading in many teacher education institutions.
The book is not wedded to any particular approach or method, so the lesson sequences I describe draw on various traditions, including British oral-situational, communicative, audio-lingual, task-based and lexicogrammar. To stress the eclectic nature of the material, I was keen to include references to specific approaches which might be less known to some readers, such as TPRS, AIM and the 'knowledge organiser'-style approach used at the Michaela Community School in London and elsewhere.
I was also keen to include recommendations about tech tools which teachers might find useful, so almost every chapter has a box called 'Tech tips' featuring apps, websites and various tools teachers find useful.
So what's different in this new edition?
To start with, I have overhauled all the tech tips boxes to take account of changes in the field. To do this I trawled a lot of blogs, videos and social media posts to see what teachers are finding most useful. I'm particularly grateful to Joe Dale. His YouTube channel has all sorts of useful videos on this area. I consider him to be the most knowledgeable about digital tech for languages. I'm also grateful to the many teachers who shared with me their favourite tools and how they use them.
Secondly, I was aware that the first edition made scant reference to intercultural understanding, so I have written a new chapter on that topic, with a rationale and examples of tasks teachers and students can use.
Thirdly, I wanted to lay a bit more stress on lexicogrammar, given its increasing popularity in languages departments, not just in the UK. As you probably know, my fellow writer Gianfranco Conti has worked very hard indeed to get across the merits of EPI (Extensive Processing Instruction) and I wanted to help new teachers understand how the methodology works in practice.
Next, I decided to include a chapter to help teachers develop a repertoire of go-to strategies and techniques, to make lesson planning faster and to lighten teachers' workload. This was the theme of a few blog posts I wrote a year or two ago. It's easy for teachers to feel overwhelmed by the sheer range of resources and techniques available to them, so I feel it's helpful for teachers to develop a repertoire which works for them.
Finally, I added some different classroom activities, such as starters, fillers and plenaries, and edited the text where needed to keep within my word limit. I am grateful to Martina Bex for checking my content about TPRS and to staff at Michaela for checking through my explanation of their approach. I am also grateful to Gianfranco Conti for his continued inspiration and for helping me think more deeply about the craft. I thank the people at Taylor and Francis who helped proof the text, provide feedback and guide me through the publishing process once again. Finally, I thank my wife Professor Elspeth Jones, who helped my edit the original version of the book.
I worked on the new edition during 2021, and in particular during a lovely working week in October 2021 in North Devon, overlooking the fabulous beach at Westward Ho! (The exclamation mark is part of the town's name, by the way.)
The resulting new edition should be particularly useful for teachers in training (pre-service teachers) and for recently qualified teachers who want to build their repertoire of ideas, strategies and techniques, including the basics of how to 'run a room'.
From the blurb:
Becoming an Outstanding Languages Teacher explores the skills that it takes to deliver exceptional language teaching and produce outstanding results. Written by a highly experienced teacher and teacher educator, this book provides a wide range of approaches to teaching, along with an abundance of practical classroom ideas.
This new edition keeps the focus on the nuts and bolts of planning lessons – which will keep students engaged and stimulated when learning a language – and features a new chapter on intercultural understanding, as well as updated information on the latest digital technology tools. Reference is made to tried and tested methodologies and classroom procedures, along with exciting new approaches which teachers have found productive. The book covers:
- how to run a room;
- dissecting lessons: written texts, aural texts and visuals;
- teacher-student interactions, communicative tasks and sentence-building;
- developing phonological and phonics skill;
- purposeful games;
- teaching with words and chunks;
- teaching students with varying aptitude for language learning;
- using digital technology to support learning;
- what it means to "teach grammar";
intercultural understanding;
- building a repertoire to lighten your workload.
Packed full of strategies which are easy to implement, this book is essential reading for both pre-service teachers and experienced practitioners.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. Running a languages classroom 2. Dissecting lessons: visuals 3. Dissecting lessons: using written texts 4. Dissecting lessons: task-based lessons 5. Enjoying sounds 6. Purposeful games 7. Getting grammatical 8. Words and chunks 9. Dissecting lessons: speaking 10. Dissecting lessons: writing 11. Teaching all abilities 12. Teaching in the target language 13. Moving them forwards 14. Intercultural understanding 15. Building your outstanding repertoire Conclusion
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