I'm pleased to announce a new page on 'Teacher Greg's Education Home'.

The motivation for it came from my desire to engage the many colleagues with whom I work, in a conversation about ELICOS (English Language Intensive Course of Study) and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) programs and how they operate at my institution. Like many workplaces, the pressures of just keeping on top of the teaching have meant that opportunities for genuine discussion, sharing and reflection have become rare, formal meetings have become ineffectual, and inefficiencies have naturally arisen as a result.

'TESOL forums' will be a chance to recover lost ground, to re-ignite the discussion, and to move forward in more practical ways. It will take some effort to 'sell' the idea and overcome the hesitation of others, but I'm taking the first steps while hoping this will lead them to continue the conversation.

Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. -Joan Wallach Scott
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. -Maria Robinson

Principled Possibilities - Ideas for Teaching is a unique publication representing the summation of four years of graduate study, and my own experiences, discoveries, experiments and successes over eight years of teaching throughout Asia and the Pacific. Uniquely the book includes: - a wide selection of academic papers, conference and training presentations, and curriculum and planning documents, - links to websites and other resources for exploring the topics further and contacting the author, - ideas ranging from working with absolute young beginners to adult and upper-intermediate level students, - discussions of current challenges and controversies in teaching, - approaches to online and computer-assisted learning, and - suggestions in the field of English language teaching.  


Here is the full introduction to give you some more details:My transition from office work to education was a late one, and came about more by accident than design.

Having successfully trained as a classical musician, I realised that performance opportunities would be limited at my age, so it seemed that music education would be the most logical progression. Having successfully trained as a teacher, I discovered that music teaching opportunities would also be scarce, apart from those occasionally arising in outback Australia.

At the suggestion of a friend I decided to dip my toes into the field of English language teaching by working at a winter camp in Shanghai, China. It was the joy of that experience which sparked my desire to work and travel further.

Several training courses later I began my new career, at first in Australia with children and later with adults from Europe, South America and Asia. From there I have experienced life in the Sultanate of Brunei, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan, where I am presently located.

While there is much material available in the field of EFL (English as a Foreign Language), I feel that my own experiences, discoveries, experiments, successes and failures over the last eight years in a variety of settings, with children to adults, and with absolute beginners to upper-intermediate students, are worth sharing with others.

The present book, therefore, includes academic papers, conference and training presentations, and curriculum and planning papers to assist fellow educators. Many of these were developed in the context of formal tertiary training in Queensland, Australia, and refer to issues and cases from that location. Nevertheless, they are equally relevant in other English-speaking contexts.

There are also links to my Internet-based materials and websites where electronic versions of many resources included here may be found for the reader’s convenience and further exploration.

I don’t look on this publication as the final authority on all matters of English language teaching, but as part of the ongoing professional support and discussion so vital to our dynamically evolving and collaborative field. This is why I encourage readers to continue the conversation with me and others using the links given throughout.

How can you get this book? Click on the Lulu link on my home page, or go directly here.

Greg Quinlivan Says:
May 24th, 2010 at 7:15 am comment-page-1/#comment-45

Hello, George.

A very interesting post – though a little too “left” for my liking.

Just for background – I teach EFL to elementary school kids in Taiwan, but I’ve taught elsewhere, including ESL in Australia (my home).

Here are some random thoughts which your article brought to my mind:
- GLBT doesn’t appear in school textbooks generally, let alone ESL ones, so you can’t single out individual publishers without targeting those that produce texts for other school subjects as well.
- I’m not convinced there is a place for discussing GLBT in elementary school. In fact, sex education is not offered in many places until later, let alone it’s various forms. You have to consider age appropriateness here.
- I doubt if religious schools or religious-based countries would buy such texts if GLBT or other “sensitive” subjects were included. Publishers are businesses – their motivation is making money, not ensuring the inclusion of every shade of viewpoint (though, admittedly, they play it safe in the centre).
- If you are going to include GLBT why stop there? What about different political and religious ideologies? What about indigenous perspectives and culture? What about texts on people with physical or mental disabilities? My point is that there is just not enough room in the curriculum to include everyone and everything. Perhaps some features on people doing some good in the world (e.g. helping the poor, raising environmental awareness, making breakthroughs in various fields) could counterbalance the movie and pop stars.
- I think what is more important than slavishly following celebrities or “cleaner than thou” models, is to ask (a) what do students NEED when they come to an English-speaking country or interact with English speakers, and (b) what is useful for them to learn.

As an aside, I would like to agree with Marisa about the selection of texts. I have had to teach in Australia using Headway and Cutting Edge, which was difficult because I didn’t always know the people they were talking about, why they were chosen, etc. I couldn’t relate it to my Australian lifestyle at all. Unfortunately, we are slow at developing our own alternatives that are packaged in such a way as to make them valuable to ESL schools.

Finally, at the end of the day, a good teacher will use a variety of resources (print, multi-media, on-line, their own experiences, etc) in assisting learners, and will not restrict themselves to just the text as their only source of content.

Thanks for reminding me of the need to bring critical analysis to my work in the classroom.
Greg.

Posted May 24th, 2010 at 7:15am on http://vassilakis.edublogs.org/2010/05/23/are-elt-materials-purged-of-ideology/