ESL etc.

The latest issue of the Solidarity, Sustainability, and Non-Violence newsletter is out, and it addresses the Spiritual Dimension of Sustainable Development. This is a point of view that does not often come up in my classes, and might strike a chord with some students.
I particularly liked the article Spirituality of Spiritual Development. It […]

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This talk by Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for an education system that nurtures creativity instead of stifling it, and could be used as part of an activity on changing education.

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An article Kira and I wrote was recently published in IATEFL’s GISIG newsletter. I’m not entirely sure how one gets a copy of the newsletter (joining the email list might be a good place to start) but here is our article in .doc format. The article details the project Kira and I undertook […]

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I’m a bit behind in with my participation in the TESOL’s Electronic Village Online. With moving, I’m just now catching up. I’ve joined the lesson planning discussion. I’ve found the daily email digests a bit overwhelming, but the wiki seems pretty useful.
For week two, we watched a video and read a handful of […]

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I mentioned this before and I wanted to remind you that from January 14 to February 24, TESOL is offering a free, online conference. The session are open to non-TESOL members, and are conducted through Yahoo email groups. The Electronic Village Online is run by TESOL’s computer assisted language learning (CALL) interest section, […]

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The US Peace Corps has two very practical manuals on teaching English. Because volunteers are usually not ESL professionals, the manuals are very accessible. In addition to practical teaching advice, they also feature a bunch of lesson plan ideas. One deals with TEFL / TESL in general, while the other is aimed […]

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Several months ago I wrote a paper explaining my individual activism project for JALT’s Global Issues in Language Education newsletter. Since the newsletter is mailed to my parents house, I never actually knew if it had been published. Turns out it has!

Here it is as a .doc file, and I’ve posted it below if you’d prefer to read it in your browser. And here’s the bibliographic info:

Royal, D. (2007). Global Issues, Everyday Actions. Global Issues in Language Education, 65, 15-17.

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From January 14 to February 24, TESOL is offering a free, online conference. In addition to being free, the session are open to non-TESOL members. The Electronic Village Online is run by TESOL’s computer assisted language learning (CALL) interest section, so the sessions are mostly technology-focused. To participate in a session, you […]

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Dave Willis just posted a paper on teaching spoken English on his website. I haven’t given it a close reading, but it looks like a good read for anyone interested in how the grammar of spoken English differs from that of written English. He also offers a lot of practical teaching advice.
Spoken English […]

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I realize that I’m late to the party on this one, but I just became aware of the dogme approach to English language teaching. It’s a stripped down, learner-centered approach that seems to mirror my own classes in a lot of ways. A few highlights:
The content most likely to engage learners and to […]

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