Harmer How To Teach English

[Mike Fowler]

In32 years the book has become something of a standard and because of this it has become absolutely necessary to update/upgrade it over the years (1991, 2001, 2007, 2015). Speaking personally it has been a kind of self-willed CPD (continuing professional development). And for that I will be forever grateful. Thank you Longman, thank you Pearson!

But (and this, for me personally, is the best bit because what is left of my brain needs constant stimulation!), Plan Ceibal raises a whole lot of issues which go to the heart of what education is, from the content we offer children, to the manner in which we deliver it, and the purposes to which it is put. Here, for example, are some of the questions which I have been pondering since that visit:

The next part of the plan is that no child should be more than 300 yards from free broadband (and boy, I get mad that there are hotels around the world who charge ridiculous prices for a service that should be free?!! But I digress)

Of course not all IT experts are like this. Far from it. We all know people who are brillinat at using the resources they have to hand. They know what I also believe which is that if technology is your thing then you are sort of obliged to show it in its best pedagogic light. The medium, in this case, really is the message.

So I guess my question to you is this: as teachers, trainers and presenters what do you think we should keep from before, and what do you think we should embrace from the exciting world that confronts us? How, as teachers and methodologists, can we pay appropriate respect to what was done before whilst at the same time being open to the future?

First, be careful who you choose to use for your analogies! The Scandivanian filmmakers kept their vows for, oh, well about two or three films. And then they suddenly realised (duh) that music, lighting, tricksy editing, precisely all the artifice of film-making REALLY WORKS. Think of the immaculate and moving scene in one of my most favourite recent films (El Secreto de sus ojos) where the train pulls out of the station leaving the heartbroken woman behind on the platform; it is tear-jerking and genuinely artistic and relies on different cameras, re-takes, lighting, music, editing and re-editing. What about the amazing single-tracking shot in Atonement where all the artifice of film-making (and an incredible score) makes the scenes at Dunkirk beach totally and horrifyingly compelling. I could on forever, but this is just to say that for every Avatar (which turns even me a bit Dogme) there is a Death In Venice, City of God or Slumdog Millionaire!

When I learnt to walk my mother held my hands, this was not authentic walking, it was practice. After that I slowly, occasionally with help from other people, began to walk on my own. But at first I needed that practice.

Sometimes, often, learners need help from whichever resources and activities, in order to help them understand, then practice, and finally to become independent and produce the authentic, emergent language that most satisfies us and them and is a sign of them having learnt.

I have had to spend years trying to get even slightly good at viola playing. This has involved hours and hours of me-constructed knowledge, and some hours of co-constructed (but VERY materials-heavy) orchestral playing.

Learning an instrument is not quite like learning a language, but it is a little bit like learning a language. And solo practice, an engagement with the text, ON YOUR OWN, is the basic key to becoming any good.

Approaches like dogme may be attractive for some teachers and students, not least for the way in which the teaching and learning is for the most part negotiated. Likewise if you are teaching/learning by use of a coursebook. You may disagree, but the way the grammar, vocab, etc is presented may be just the way some learners need it for them to internalise and learn from it.

But the thing is that we are NOT all in agreement. Scott and others are quite clear in their belief that ALL learning (I am quoting from this blog) is co-constructed in a dialogic setting. That is so profoundly different from my position (not all; there are other routes) that agreement seems unlikely to be reached!!! Though as I keep saying, lots of learning is arrived at in this way.

At first, many of my students are incredibly content to do nothing more than listen to the teacher talk and plow through their book. However, I strongly believe this is not the most effective way to help them learn. Sure, work with their beliefs, but guide those beliefs and negotiate the course until better learning is occurring.

What I am trying to do is supplement what I am obliged to teach with my own tasks, giving students contextualised examples, noticing exercises etc etc. Fortunately this approach seems to work quite well.

I am the EFL coordinator and teacher in a private school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and this year we decided to stop using coursebooks with students from grade 6 onwards (age 11+). The reasons, as I explained in some blog posts, were the feeling that the coursebooks did not reflect our students needs and interests, the fact that teachers were too dependent on coursebooks and the evidence that students were losing interest and therefore more effective opportunities for learning.

However, I do not consider myself a Dogmeist (although I have been contacted by some people in this regard) nor am I against coursebooks. The fact is that grades 1 to 5 in my school still use coursebooks because we feel they benefit from the structure and safety that coursebooks provide.

It is also worth pointing out that not using a coursebook does not equal Dogme, at least in my opinion. I still create my projects around certain linguistic abilities or topics I want the students to learn, develop or master at certain stages. The language is not introduced or pointed out unless theres a need from students to learn it in order to express themselves. So what I try to do is to make sure that the materials and projects will make the knowledge of this particular language ability essential.

I absolutely agree with the idea of coursbooks with white space for students recording. Or, as we get more and more comfortable with technology mediated lessons, tablets etc with organising software to help students categorize things successfully.

What students take away from a lesson will depend on how they are constructing their own understanding of what is happening (that is Co-construction? Hmm. I think different people construct reality in different ways actually). I can see great uses for IWB software (and the tablet computers etc) in helping students do summarising work on what has happened.

If you take, as I do, the view that learning is a mixture of discovery, input, individual thinking and study and some collective action leading to insight and development, what kind of a socio-political view is that? Pluralistic? Wishy-washy?

It strikes me that the liberals are the ones who call for principled eclecticism and, more often than not, really just mean cherry picking. I think that dogme, as a movement, has shown far more concern for the principled part than it necessarily has for the eclectic.

If I have understood this correctly, Shaw says that the teacher can go in with all the best intentions in the world, but the students will not be able to get past their image of the teacher as The Authority Who Must Be Pleased.

Because this dicussion takes place among teachers, who are paid for teaching; teacher trainers; ELT book writers; and other ELT professionals, in my view it is always too heavily skewed towards the importance of the teacher in the process.

Crazy? Probably. But IF the dropout statistic is/was true then he may have had more influence on their English learning (through engagement etc) than any type of learner-agented activity might have done!

I just wanted to let you know that we picked up this blog entry on ELTNEWS.com, a website for English teachers in Japan. If you like our site it would be great if you could list it on your blog roll. In any case, I hope we will be able meet the next time you are in Japan, as I would very much like to conduct an interview with you, if you have the time.

Thank you for a quick primer on the Dogme philosophy, applications, and limitations. As somebody who has taught many successful and a few unsuccessful Dogme-style classes, I find myself increasingly attracted to quality, learner-focused textbooks that include significant, authentic material.

I think coursebooks often have more organisational structure (and the context you talk about) than some weaker Dogme-style lessons. Some students find this very reassuring. Others are less keen, perhaps.

Dear Jeremy,

I am writing to ask you something. In September I attended the Fischer Conference in Bucharest and I saw a material in your workshop related to reading. I would like to have it or to have the site where it was from. I am talking about the material in which the cavemen find a book and they try to figure it out what to do with it. It is funny and I want to play it to my students.

Thank you very much

The University of Colorado Boulder Police Department offers both in-person, SkillSoft and video presentations on Active Harmer Response. These presentations are designed for students, faculty and staff of the CU Boulder campus.

Quarterly, in-person trainings are generally held for an entire office staff or a group of combined offices who share work space. Work unit members unable to attend an in-person class can view the same content in the video recording below.

The in-person course, the SkillSoft course and the video recording, which you can watch on demand, review basic statistical data and include the Department of Homeland Security video Run. Hide. Fight." protocol. The classes discuss how you should react if you find yourself in an active harmer and/or other threatening situations. Every effort is made to address concerns, dispel myths and develop response options.

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