Issue 33

As you may have noticed, in 2012 we have been celebrating 50 years of teacher training at International House. The first IH Teacher Training programme was launched by John and Brita Haycraft at International House London in June 1962. The Haycrafts’ vision was of a language learning experience which…

John Soars, co-author with his wife Liz of Headway, and one of International House’s best known sons, has died at the age of 60. On an unspeakably sad day in early September several hundred people, including a substantial group from the world of ELT, joined Liz and the family in Hampstead, to say…

2012 has been quite a year for celebrations in the UK with the London Olympics and International House World and International House London have also been celebrating – 50 years since the first ground-breaking teacher training course at IH London. We caught up with David Carr, Director of Teacher…

by Ben Naismith After only a cursory glance online at initial teacher training courses, one recurring selling point immediately stands out: “Learn by doing!” As one website succinctly put it, [Because] CELTA training is based on experiential learning, or “learning by doing”, teaching practice (TP)…

by Lee Mackenzie Below are some extracts of my written feedback to one particular trainee on the last CELTA course I tutored at IH San Diego. The teaching practice students were elementary level and all the CELTA trainees were American: Day 2:

by Nick Hamilton English Language Teaching has come a long way in the time I’ve been teaching and teacher training. It’s not so long ago (but before my time) that a native speaker could travel around the world and teach English simply on the basis of their status as a native speaker. That is…

by Chia Suan Chong Many CELTA trainers I know have taken the foreign language class out of their CELTA timetables in favour of other more ‘practical’ input sessions such as classroom management. But looking back at the times when I was training up to be a teacher, I realised how some of the most…

by Lou McLaughlin Although much has been written, discussed and forwarded regarding teacher training and the benefits of reflection as regards teaching skills, it still surprised me to hear two qualified teachers state that “I had to unlearn everything I was taught on my course” and “you just need…

by Barry Tomalin and Dominique Vouillemin Does business need culture? You bet it does. As business globalises at increasing speed, companies large and small are sourcing new supplies, seeking out new markets and new clients and engaging in JV’s (joint ventures) and mergers and acquisitions in…

by Alastair Grant Teachers must be encouraged – I almost said ‘freed’, to pursue an education that strives for depth of understanding. [Howard Gardner] Speaking from bitter personal experience, I’ll never forget looking at the traffic-infested road I had to cross on the day of my first formal…

by Peter Frey Introduction When I arrived in Doha as the Academic Director of the new IH school last January, I was prepared to offer our academic team a fairly standard package for teacher training in an emerging market, including: the FTEB for Business English the IH Young Learner Certificate…

by Lisa Phillips As a Director of Studies, I don’t get to teach as much as I’d like to these days but this does mean that I observe a lot. One of the definite perks of the job is that there are so many brilliant things that I’m lucky enough to see everyday – an enormous variety of activities,…

by Ioana Lazarescu When we were twelve, my best friend and I used to mix English and Romanian, our mother tongue when we spoke to each, to the point where Romanian would only make up about 10% of the language spoken. It didn’t cross our minds what we sounded like to the people around us in the…

by Hall Houston Imagine you walk by a classroom and see this: students walking around the classroom, speaking to each other in pairs, then walking away, then forming new pairs, talking, then splitting up again… What on earth is this? In case you have no idea, you’ve just witnessed a mingle, one of…

by Nick Kiley Confused by all the different frameworks, methodologies, approaches etc. that are around in TEFL? Never fear! Bovine TEFL will clarify everything for you! (Based on the popular ‘Bovine Economics’ that was circulated a few years ago (source unknown).

by Tom Scott “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” is a well-known idiomatic proverb which refers to the importance of working hard when things are difficult, and the phrase seems to have an ever-present and continued meaning in organisations around the world today. It seems that in…

by Noreen Lam If the culinary industry is a dog-eat-dog world, then ELT may be as far from that as you can possibly imagine. I have yet to come across the teacher’s variation of Gordon Ramsay’s “Hell’s Kitchen” and thank goodness for that: imagine a CELTA training course where the tutor is liable to…

By Estelle Huxley J’ai été agréablement surprise, durant la dernière formation de professeurs à laquelle j’ai participé, d’entendre un des stagiaires commencer ses commentaires sur sa première leçon par “je les ai trouvés bien ce soir. Ils étaient actifs, ils étaient contents…” Le stagiaire…

by Jeremy Harmer, Pearson - Reviewed by Jose Tapia, IH Santander When you hear that Jeremy Harmer has published a new book it might feel like you have just hit the jackpot. But without sounding too biased, (though I must confess I have a few of his books), I am sure that Essential Teacher Knowledge…

by Margaret Grieveson, DELTA Publishing - Reviewed by Siobhan Chapman, IH Prague CLIL, or Content and Language Integrated Learning, is the term used to describe an approach to language teaching whereby English (or another foreign language) is used to teach another curriculum subject. With CLIL, as…

by Jacqueline & Alastair Douglas We’ve had rather an interesting time delivering CELTA courses at IH London and we want to share some of our quirky, fun and sometimes gratifying experiences with y