You can listen to the episode, or follow links to your preferred podcast platforms, here. Thanks again to Nick White, Matthew Ellman and Geoff Jordan for their contributions.

NB: all views expressed on the podcast are the individual opinions of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of SLB as a cooperative.

The TBLT course plug!

Full details of the third edition of our TBLT online course, and how to sign up, are here; and here Neil describes the four main updates to the course.

“Tit for TATE”

The articles referred to are as follows:

  • Anderson, J. (2020a). The TATE model: A curriculum design framework for language teaching. ELT Journal, 74(2), 175–184. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccaa005
  • Ellis, R. (2020). In defence of a modular curriculum for tasks. ELT Journal, 74(2), 185–194. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccaa015
  • Anderson, J. (2020b). A Response to Ellis: The Dangers of a Narrowly Focused SLA Canon. ELT Journal, 74(2), 195–197. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccaa016

Situational language teaching (SLT)

Nick refers to Gurrey and Cartledge as early movers in SLT, and Cartledge as an originator of the correction code. He writes:

“The only version of the Cartledge I have is a secondary reference in Haycraft (1978):

“‘With compositions, the most comprehensive method of correcting which I have found, was suggested by H. A. Cartledge. Here, you divide up mistakes into categories and use abbreviations in the margin to indicate them. Grammar: G; Spelling: SP; Word Order: WO; Punctuation: P; Vocabulary: V; Prepositions: PR; Verb: VB.’ (Haycraft, J. 1978. An Introduction to English Language Teaching. Harlow, Essex: Longman, p. 123)

“The book I referred to which had short passages where the intention was that production would focus on a particular structure or feature:

  • Cartledge, H. A. and Baly, T. J. C. 1965. An English Course for French-Speakers Book Three. London: Longmans, Green and Co Ltd.

“Unfortunately for me, you can see I got a couple of details wrong:
I think in the podcast I set the date much earlier than the mid-1960s – that is actually correct insofar as Cartledge was writing articles for ELTJ right back in the 1940s.

“Also, despite the title, the book is definitely for African students, which I did say – but in Francophone, not Anglophone, colonial areas – so I’m guessing it was likely intended for Cameroon.

“The others are:

  • Gurrey, P. (1955). Teaching English as a Foreign Language. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.

“Percival Gurrey was based in the Institute of Education (1937-1948) and a director of the only TEFL programme around back then – Rixon and Smith (2016, p.17) note that this publication was a precursor of later ‘methodology’ books from e.g. CUP, OUP, DELTA Publishing etc..

“The Situational Language Approach properly speaking is A. S. Hornby’s brainchild.”

A summary of SLT can be found here:

  • Smith, M., & Loewen, S. (2018). Situational Language Teaching. In J. I. Liontas & M. DelliCarpini (Eds.), The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching (pp. 1–6). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0174

Context

The concept of context as Matt refers to it was first discussed in detail here:

  • Halliday, M.A.K., & Hasan, R. (1985/89). Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Oxford/Geelong: OUP/Deakin University Press.

Rich, genuine, simplified, elaborated and modified-elaborated input

These terms get a little confused in the discussion! It’s important to distinguish “rich” input from the notions of genuine/simplified/elaborated/modified-elaborated input. The most recent discussion of the latter terms by Michael Long is in the following:

  • Long, M. H. (2020). Optimal input for language learning: Genuine, simplified, elaborated, or modified elaborated? Language Teaching, 53(2), 169–182. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444819000466

Meanwhile, the notion of rich input (which is domain-, context- and task-specific) is discussed by Long in his 2015 magnum opus Second Language Acquisition and Task-Based Language Teaching (Wiley). Here the ‘shapes’ task referred to is also described, as well as the train station dialogues.

Finally, the article which compares the genuine hair salon dialogue with the coursebook version is as follows (PDF available for download here):

  • Carter, R. (1998). Orders of reality: CANCODE, communication, and culture. ELT Journal, 52(1), 43–56. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/52.1.43

Teacher education

The focus on BAK (beliefs, assumptions and knowledge) in teacher education is related to the work of Simon Borg, for example:

  • Borg, S. (2003) Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching, 36 (2). pp. 81-109.

Mario Rinvolucri is an author, a founding member of the Pilgrims* teacher-training centre, and an editor of the Humanising Language Teaching magazine. All articles and back issues are available for free at https://www.hltmag.co.uk/.

*Correction: contrary to what Geoff says in the podcast, Scott Thornbury has never been to Pilgrims or attended courses there.

Finally finally, Nick refers to an article on initial TESOL certification by Valerie Hobbs, which makes fascinating reading:

  • Hobbs, V. (2013). ‘A basic starter pack’: The TESOL Certificate as a course in survival. ELT Journal, 67(2), 163–174. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccs078

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