Synopsis
Teaching English: Being the Best is the essential handbook for ELT teachers who want to take their teaching to the next level, beyond best practice. Over two hundred 60-second essays on all aspects of teaching will help you to become the best teacher you can be. The book covers topics not included in other methodology books such as two new approaches to reading (the Dual Text and Deep Text approaches), opportunity cost, the competence model, being professional and avoiding burnout. It is for all English language teachers teaching adults and older teens, both newly qualified and experienced teachers alike.Best practice, the conventional wisdom, is often mistaken. One such case is using the student’s first language, which was considered taboo for most of the 20th Century but is now taking its rightful place in the language teacher’s repertoire. Other aspects of best practice communicative language teaching are challenged in this book, and principled alternatives which focus on a learning-centred approach are proposed.Teaching English: Being the Best is packed full of tips and practical ideas for immediate classroom use, as well as more detailed challenges for you to follow in creating more meaningful materials and lessons for your students. A central argument in the book is that too much of teaching is actually testing, and that learning-centred activities should have a more central role in the classroom. It is also the only methodology book with inspirational quotes from Bruce Lee, Winston Churchill, Will Rogers and Yoda.
About the Author
Robert Buckmaster (M. Ed, Dip. RSA, ADTLM) is an English teacher, trainer and educational consultant with over 25 years experience in teaching the English language to teenagers and adults. He has taught students and trained teachers in Scotland (at Edinburgh University), in central and eastern Europe, in Central Asia, in northern and southern Africa. He also examines for major English language examinations. He does most of his work for the British Council but was the Director of Studies at International House Riga for 5 years. Rob is the author of The Grammar of English Ideas (because there is a better description of English grammar) and the founder of the English Ideas Project. At heart he is a contrarian and iconoclast. One of his first published articles was about coursebook absurdities (in Modern English Teacher October 1999) and he hasn't let up on his critique of teaching and teaching materials since. Robert is a keen fly fisherman. If you can't find him in the training room he's likely to be out casting a fly to a wild brown trout or other fish in a mountain stream. Emma Valahu (MA, Dip. RSA) is an English teacher with over 25 years of teaching experience, including 2 years as a CELTA trainer. She has taught for the British Council in Eastern Europe, for Southern Cross in South America, and for Bell and Aberdeen University in the UK, in locations ranging from a bamboo hut on a beach in Ecuador to a university lecture hall. Currently, she teaches people all over the world from the comfort of her smallholding in Romania via the Internet. She would describe herself as a defier of established norms, especially in the world of English teaching but also life in general, and a free thinker. When not winning the hearts and minds of students, she is a keen reader of science and 'whodunnits'.
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