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| Scott Thornbury | ||||||||||||
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Six Big Ideas (and One Little One) All professions – and ours not the least – suffer, to a certain extent, from “tunnel vision”. It is easy, for example, to overlook the fact that ELT is nested within the broader field of education in general, and, as such, should be concerned with more than just the delivery and consumption of “grammar mcnuggets”! In this talk I will briefly review the work of six (non-ELT) educationalists who have been instrumental in shaping my own practical theory of ELT. In so doing, I will suggest that the bigger picture, i.e. situating ELT within a broader educational framework, has important implications and benefits. One such implication (if not a benefit) is called Dogme ELT. Click here for a list of books and websites related to this talk. Is there discourse in this course? Traditionally, language teaching has targeted the three systems of phonology, lexis and gramma. But what about discourse, the system 'beyond the sentence'? How systematic is it, and can it be taught? In this talk, I review the different senses of 'discourse' and show how they operate in some very smple, classroom-friendly texts. I also demonstrate some ways that corpus linguistics can inform our understanding of discourse. Click here for an edited powerpoint, with references.. Grammar or Speaking - or both? Can you learn to speak without grammar? Can you learn grammar without speaking? Is there a special grammar of speech? What’s the best way to learn speaking? In this workshop I address these questions and demonstrate ways that speaking and grammar can be integrated. Click here for an edited powerpoint. The only effective scientific simple new preferred method “A language teaching method is a single set of procedures which teachers are to follow in the classroom. Methods are usually based on a set of beliefs about the nature of language and learning” (Nunan, 2003). Yet, given the diversity of learning contexts and of learner styles, the concept of a “single set of procedures” seems obsolete. What has replaced “method”? Or, what “sets of beliefs” might inform the “post-method condition”? In this workshop I’ll attempt to address these questions by looking at what’s been going on behind the scenes. Click here for an edited powerpoint + refs The Secret Grammar of Words “Out of the slimy mud of words… there springs the perfect order of speech.” (Eliot). In this talk I show how, with just a handful of words, you can get a bridgehead into the grammar of English, without ever having to mention grammar at all. Click here for a copy of the bibliography in Word Seven ways of looking at grammar What is grammar and how is it internalised in the mind? Is it symbolic code or is it neural connection strengths? Is it the sedimented trace of previous conversations or is it an innate human capacity? However we answer these questions obviously has an impact on the way we go about teaching second languages. In this talk I review some of the key models of grammar – often couched as metaphors – and look at their implications in terms of classroom practice. In so doing, I suggest that models grounded in both sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics offer a more valid basis for teaching than do purely linguistic descriptions. Click here to see a video of this talk given at the New School in July 2009. Click here for a copy of the bibliography in Word Click here for an edited powerpoint Speaking to learn Classroom speaking is traditionally thought of either as a way of reinforcing newly learned language structures – that is, as accuracy practice – or as a means of developing the skill of speaking itself, i.e.as fluency practice. But it is now thought that speaking may also be a site, not just for practising language, but for learning it. Having outlined some basic principles, I aim to show how they might be realised in classroom practice. Click here for an edited powerpoint Ten things you thought you knew about English grammar The way English grammar is described for teaching purposes has not changed a lot in a hundred years, despite advances in functional and corpus linguistics. We just keep adding more rules - and more exceptions. In this (relaxed) workshop, I attempt to show that there are NO exceptions, and in so doing I challenge some of the myths about English grammar, particularly the division into three (or is it sixteen?) tenses, the rules for future forms, and even the notion of grammar itself! Click here for a copy of the handout in Word.
The dialogue has been a core activity for language teaching since the 16th century! Traditionally dialogues have been used as a context for language presentation, and as a means of providing speaking practice. We will look at activities that target both these purposes, but I will also look at dialogue as a means of 'framing' learning opportunities - what is sometimes called 'dialogic teaching'. Click here to see an abridged powerpoint version of this talk.
Six Lockstep Activities (and how to improve them) Lockstep activities are those in which all students are engaged in the same activity, such as when the teacher is dictating a text, or when students are reading aloud. They are popular with teachers in contexts where classroom management is a challenge. But they can also have a positive effect on class cohesion. In this talk, I revisit some of these traditioanl actvities, and suggest ways of giving them new life. Click here for an edited powerpoint of this talk.
Six things beginning with R In this talk I re-evaluate the relevance of reading in class. I argue that the recommended routines for teaching reading (including skimming and scanning) are rather redundant given most learners can read anyway (in their first language). However reading texts offer a rich resource for a focus on register variables and on reference, and as a source for repeated word and pattern encounters, and even for rote-learning. Click here to see a vdeo clip from this talk Seven things beginning with M It’s a truism that no single method is going to meet the needs of all teachers and all learners, either locally or globally. Hence, we now operate in what is called the post-method era. Yet methods formerly provided teachers with a certain sense of security, a role which perhaps coursebooks now fulfil. This security is illusory, though, if it is not grounded in some basic principles of learning and education, principles that I attempt to identify, and which (I argue) constitute a blueprint for a coherent approach to language teaching. Click here to see an abridged powerpoint version of this talk Mario's "method": ckick here for the pdf This short, illustrated talk was part of the entertaining Pecha Kucha event at the IATEFL conference, Exeter, in 2008, and takes the form of a potted history of how food is represented and talked about in ELT coursebooks. I go so far as to actually prepare a meal based on coursebook recipes! Click
here to see an abridged powerpoint version of this talk |
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