http://ihjournal.com International House of Education and Development Tue, 15 May 2012 05:05:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 http://ihjournal.com/issue-32-contents http://ihjournal.com/issue-32-contents#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:21:28 +0000 ihjadmin http://ihjournal.com/?p=2428           Celebrating 50 years of teacher training Classroom Matters Listening and self-access: a perfect partnership – Arizio Sweeting Politeness and pragmatics in NNS interactions – Chia Suan Chong Surviving your first year as an ELT teacher: what the CELTA doesn’t prepare you for as a NQT – Lewis Waitt Management Matters Delegation – Letting go or losing control? – Maureen McGarvey Teacher Training and Development The first ever IH Teachers’ online conference: ‘a proud moment in IH history!’ – Alastair Grant Observations on observations – Chris Ożóg IH CPD scheme – Shaun Wilden Leaving a mark – Colin Barnett Special Interest Columns Young Learners – Kylie Malinowska, IHWO YL Advisor Developing Teacher – Sandy Millin, IH Newcastle Reviews  Speak Out series – reviewed by Stefano Federici, IH Rome Manzoni Digital Play – reviewed by Shaun Wilden, IHWO Communicative activities for EAP – reviewed by Norman Cain, IH Rome Manzoni Teaching the pronunciation of ELF – reviewed by Chia Suan Chong, IH London ]]> http://ihjournal.com/issue-32-contents/feed 0 http://ihjournal.com/celebrating-50-years-of-teacher-training-at-international-house http://ihjournal.com/celebrating-50-years-of-teacher-training-at-international-house#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:21:09 +0000 ihjadmin http://ihjournal.com/?p=2369 2012 is a year of celebrations in London- the Olympic Games and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  Not to be left out, IH London is celebrating its own golden jubilee – 50 years since the first ground-breaking teacher training course took place.  To mark this very special year, IH London has organised a variety of celebratory events throughout the course of 2012.      IHWO DOS Conference, London – January 2012 The celebrations kicked off at the annual IH Director of Studies Conference when the DoSes’ knowledge of teacher training at International House was tested with a special TT round of questions during the pub quiz. How much do you know about teacher training at IH?  Can you do better than the IH DoSes? Click here to see the quiz and test your knowledge! IATEFL Conference, Glasgow – March 2012 The next event to take place was a party held by IH London at the IATEFL conference in Glasgow in March. [...]]]> http://ihjournal.com/celebrating-50-years-of-teacher-training-at-international-house/feed 0 http://ihjournal.com/listening-and-self-access-a-perfect-partnership-by-arizio-sweeting http://ihjournal.com/listening-and-self-access-a-perfect-partnership-by-arizio-sweeting#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:20:47 +0000 ihjadmin http://ihjournal.com/?p=2353 Have you ever asked yourself why your learners perform well in listening activities in the classroom, but do poorly in listening tests at the end of the course? Surely, if they are able to perform competently in listening practice in class, they should be able to do well in listening tests too. Ironically enough, this is not what normally happens. In fact, what normally happens is that while learners often handle listening lessons, they tend to struggle with listening tests.   Perhaps, on one hand, this is because in the second-language listening classroom, learners’ skills development is scaffolded by what Field (2009) calls ‘the comprehension approach’, a conventional approach in which the teacher leads learners through a sequence of focused practice stages such as context set, vocabulary clarification and different sub-skills practice. In listening tests, on the other hand, learners are left to their own devices and reliant on preparation for passing exams. In other words, [...]]]> http://ihjournal.com/listening-and-self-access-a-perfect-partnership-by-arizio-sweeting/feed 0 http://ihjournal.com/politeness-and-pragmatics-in-nns-interactions-by-chia-suan-chong http://ihjournal.com/politeness-and-pragmatics-in-nns-interactions-by-chia-suan-chong#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:20:17 +0000 ihjadmin http://ihjournal.com/?p=2366 I am a teacher and teacher trainer currently working at International House London. This article is a brief summary of my MA dissertation: Non-Native Speaker Perceptions of Requests – an empirical study in politeness. There has been a lot of research into politeness over the last few decades in the fields of pragmatics, intercultural communication, and second language acquisition and interlanguage theory. If there is one thing that these researchers of different backgrounds could agree on, it is the fact that the ways of realizing politeness are not always universal. Although Spanish speakers could use different forms of ‘you’ and their corresponding verb forms to express respect, the interlocutor they choose to use the polite forms with would differ according to the country you were in. The Spanish would claim that the South Americans are much more likely to call a stranger ‘usted’. Meanwhile, the Japanese have a complete set of verbs to refer to [...]]]> http://ihjournal.com/politeness-and-pragmatics-in-nns-interactions-by-chia-suan-chong/feed 0 http://ihjournal.com/surviving-your-first-year-as-an-esl-teacher-what-the-celta-doesn%e2%80%99t-prepare-you-for-as-a-newly-qualified-teacher-by-lewis-waitt http://ihjournal.com/surviving-your-first-year-as-an-esl-teacher-what-the-celta-doesn%e2%80%99t-prepare-you-for-as-a-newly-qualified-teacher-by-lewis-waitt#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:19:29 +0000 ihjadmin http://ihjournal.com/?p=2363 When planning this article I had a very simple intention: to show that you are not alone when feeling under-prepared and over-whelmed for your first year of ESL teaching. The CELTA is an incredible qualification and gives us the license to drive; but with the benefit of hindsight, I can honestly say nothing prepares us more for the challenges of being a full-time teacher than the everyday experiences we have in school. Like most, I walked to my first ESL classroom with sweaty palms, a racing heart and hoping that I wasn’t going to crash and burn. A mixture of persistence, determination and sheer desire for independence had got me to this door, and I had been told that I was ready to go-it-alone, so why did I feel that I wasn’t? You flashback to the initial euphoria of passing, but suddenly this is overshadowed by the realisation that you are now passenger-less with the freedom of [...]]]> http://ihjournal.com/surviving-your-first-year-as-an-esl-teacher-what-the-celta-doesn%e2%80%99t-prepare-you-for-as-a-newly-qualified-teacher-by-lewis-waitt/feed 0 http://ihjournal.com/delegation-%e2%80%93-letting-go-or-losing-control-by-maureen-mcgarvey http://ihjournal.com/delegation-%e2%80%93-letting-go-or-losing-control-by-maureen-mcgarvey#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:19:13 +0000 ihjadmin http://ihjournal.com/?p=2345 Delegation is something which many managers feel they do, and think they are good at doing. Ask their staff though, (especially those to whom they delegate) and you may get a very different answer.  Delegating effectively brings with it obvious benefits for the manager, the delegate and the organisation. Yet too often, delegation deteriorates into a clumsy and botched process which takes a great deal of time and effort to rectify – and which certainly puts many people off delegating more in the future! What exactly is delegation? Here’s a definition: [Delegation is] …the process of entrusting authority and responsibility to others so that work can be carried out. However, delegation is not about giving up ultimate authority and responsibility for the work. Delegation is not abdication! It is a shift of decision-making authority from one level in the organisation to another, but the person who delegated the work remains accountable for the outcome of the delegated task. Reasons [...]]]> http://ihjournal.com/delegation-%e2%80%93-letting-go-or-losing-control-by-maureen-mcgarvey/feed 0 http://ihjournal.com/the-first-ever-ih-teachers%e2%80%99-online-conference-%e2%80%9ca-very-proud-moment-in-ih-history%e2%80%9d-by-alastair-grant http://ihjournal.com/the-first-ever-ih-teachers%e2%80%99-online-conference-%e2%80%9ca-very-proud-moment-in-ih-history%e2%80%9d-by-alastair-grant#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:18:40 +0000 ihjadmin http://ihjournal.com/?p=2332 What is the sound of one finger clapping? If you’d been at the world’s first IHWO Teachers’ Online Conference (TOC) on Friday 25th  November last year, you’d know…. well, ok, technically the online platform Blackboard Collaborate (very kindly provided by Oxford University Press) remains silent when an audience member presses the “applause” button, but if there had been any sound, it would have been deafening. With an estimated 150 teachers attending, representing each of the 50 IH countries, over 70 people online at any one time, over 16 sessions and plenaries, a selection of top presenters from across the four corners of IHWO, AND a crack team of organizers and moderators, the TOC was a runaway success. Little wonder Lucy Horsefield made the statement which I’ve used as a title! And again, if you weren’t there (there’s another coming soon…), I imagine you’ll be brimming with “wh” questions now, which I shall try to satisfy for you. Drumroll please. What: The [...]]]> http://ihjournal.com/the-first-ever-ih-teachers%e2%80%99-online-conference-%e2%80%9ca-very-proud-moment-in-ih-history%e2%80%9d-by-alastair-grant/feed 0 http://ihjournal.com/observations-on-observations-by-chris-ozog http://ihjournal.com/observations-on-observations-by-chris-ozog#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:18:10 +0000 ihjadmin http://ihjournal.com/?p=2328 Oh no, not an observation!  Every teacher will doubtless be able to tell you about a nightmare observation in which everything went wrong and to which the resulting dreaded feedback was every bit as critical as feared (I know I could). Such anecdotes often reveal inherent problems in the observations procedures in a school in the first place. In this article, I’ll look at observations in more depth and suggest ways in which they can be used to maximal teacher, and hence school, benefit, using IH San José de Costa Rica (IHSJ) as an example. It also lays out some guidelines for those new to observing and maybe even some ideas for old hands.  What’s the point of an observation?  There are many reasons why teachers are observed. In this article, I’ll be focusing on observing working teachers in a supportive manner, taking the premise that observations are there to help teachers develop and to promote reflective evaluation [...]]]> http://ihjournal.com/observations-on-observations-by-chris-ozog/feed 0 http://ihjournal.com/what-is-your-cpd-plan-by-shaun-wilden http://ihjournal.com/what-is-your-cpd-plan-by-shaun-wilden#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:17:40 +0000 ihjadmin http://ihjournal.com/?p=2324 CPD seems to be one of the ELT buzzwords of 2012.  The annual IATEFL conference seemed to have a greater emphasis on it than ever this year, with everyone from the publishers through to exam bodies (re)launching initiatives aimed at CPD and the language teacher.  In case you don’t know, CPD stands for Continuous Professional Development; a term for the process of taking responsibility for your own development as a teacher. A process that includes how you manage your CPD, record it, and find the most suitable way to grow beyond your initial training.  While CPD is not a new idea, the fact we live in digital times means that it has never been easier to find a CPD path that best suits you as a teacher.  It all seems far removed from when I took my first steps into the world of academic management and teacher training.  Back then the subject of teacher development was somewhat [...]]]> http://ihjournal.com/what-is-your-cpd-plan-by-shaun-wilden/feed 0 http://ihjournal.com/leaving-a-mark-by-colin-barnett http://ihjournal.com/leaving-a-mark-by-colin-barnett#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 11:17:18 +0000 ihjadmin http://ihjournal.com/?p=2321 http://ihjournal.com/leaving-a-mark-by-colin-barnett/feed 0