In July 2007, while shopping with my Thai wife in the Chatuchak Weekend Market from Bangkok, I saw, among many Thai beggars, a foreigner begging for money to buy a plane ticket to return home (to a Western European country)! On a yellow future board, he informed the passers-by that he has got no money to go home and that he accepts anything anyone could offer.

Being the first foreigner in Thailand that I have seen begging, I approached him. I was curious to listen to his story. How on Earth was it possible for a white man to become a beggar in Southeast Asia?

To read the rest of the article, click here.

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The full table of contents of the current issue:

Dealing with Job Burnout
by David Vincent

Are you an Effective Teacher of Reading?
by Adam Simpson

Secrets of those who do the TEFL Hiring
by members of the forum (General discussion)

The Meaning of Gay
by David Vincent

Begging ex-Teacher in Thailand
by Voicu Mihnea Simandan

Poll
Does your Employer Provide Medical Insurance? (General discussion)

Jack Snow’s Way of Dealing with the Past
by Joseph Bleazard

Teaching Collocations with the Word ‘Mind’, Using Concordance Data
by Michael Thomas

Academicus Electronicus
by Brandreth McClure

The PITS (Politically Incorrect Tasks)
by Martin McMorrow

Interview: The People behind the Websites
Sue Swift from ELT Notebook

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If life weren’t tough enough anyway, the miserable fact is that job burnout is increasingly common in the contemporary, stress filled workplace. As teachers of English, I feel we’re prone to this more than just about any other group of professionals.

While some job stress can, naturally, be regarded as a normal occurrence, how can we really know when we’ve lost the ability to control the root causes of that stress, or when they’re leading to a more serious condition, job burnout?

To read the rest of the article, click here.

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The full table of contents of the current issue.

Dealing with Job Burnout
by David Vincent

Are you an Effective Teacher of Reading?
by Adam Simpson

Secrets of those who do the TEFL Hiring
by members of the forum (General discussion)

The Meaning of Gay
by David Vincent

Begging ex-Teacher in Thailand
by Voicu Mihnea Simandan

Poll
Does your Employer Provide Medical Insurance? (General discussion)

Jack Snow’s Way of Dealing with the Past
by Joseph Bleazard

Teaching Collocations with the Word ‘Mind’, Using Concordance Data
by Michael Thomas

Academicus Electronicus
by Brandreth McClure

The PITS (Politically Incorrect Tasks)
by Martin McMorrow

Interview: The People behind the Websites
Sue Swift from ELT Notebook

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In this issue there is an important message from Mario Rinvoludicrous. In his article (in the Course outline section) super Mario writes about the contribution Pilgrims trainers have made to the teaching community through their books. He draws our attention to the major writing effort that has brought the words, thoughts, teaching experiences and imaginations of 50 or so Pilgrims trainers/writers to many people around the language teaching globe. Their will to write and share ideas is also an encouragement for very teacher around the globe. Scintillating stuff.

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C’mon boys and girls, maybe it’s time you wrote for HLT yourself, and if you have already written for HLT perhaps it is time to write again.

Here are the 13 reasons they suggest why you may want to write for HLT:

1. It enhances your CV

2. It enhances your profile in the school

3. You get published without being asked if you have published before, unlike many other publications do

4. Your students’ voices about learning and teaching can be published, which motivates them

5. You publish alongside well known authors

6. Your name becomes known in the field

7. When someone `googles` your name it pops up in a professional context

8. Readers in your field can contact you directly and exchange ideas

9. You may discover you will not only write articles but also a book

10. It is challenging fun which helps you escape the ‘stuck in the rut’ syndrome of day to day lesson planning

11. Publishing helps you to reflect on your own teaching

12. You share with other teachers and your ideas are not just sitting in your file or notebook

13. You get constructive advice from the Editor on how to go about writing

These are the sections you could aim for:

1. Major articles: 7 pages – 15 pages, sometimes in exceptional cases longer. Kind of academic style but a practical humanistic angle is vital.

2. Short Articles: anything from 1-6 pages. Less academic than major articles
Can range in tone from a short academic text to a very personal one.

3. Corpora ideas: theory or/and practice of incorporating corpus data. Ideally a bit of theory followed by practical ideas.

4. Lesson Outlines: practical classroom activities with a bit of theory if you choose to include some.

5. Student Voices: learners or pre-service teachers write about their learning experience. Good way to motivate your learners. The students, the parents and the school will see their names published.

6. Publications: review of new books published you found useful; shorter or longer article/s

7. An old exercise: an exercise you know from the past but still works and others may have forgotten about; or/and useful for the young generation of teachers.

8. Readers Letters: letters sent to the editor re. publishing in HLT, the Pilgrims experience or various teaching and learning issues

9. Book preview: glimpses of a book you are writing and planning to publish. Also books that have just come out. Write about the outline of the book and enclose representative fragments.

10. Poems: written by teachers or students. Another opportunity to be creative.

11. Jokes: anything you choose in terms of jokes ( as long as they are publishable) or an article on humour. Anecdotes from the classroom also welcome.

For more ideas look up the website and see what other authors have written for Humanising Language Teaching. If all else fails, send your rejected article to me and I’ll probably put it in the next issue of Horizons!

Download the free ELT World journal

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15 most fun Business English lessons

15 most fun cultural training topics

15 ways to make email practice fun

15 easy ways to start using phonemics in adult classes

15 most interesting TOEIC lessons

15 warmers and fillers for true/false tasks (for children & adults)

15 things to do with a whiteboard

15 things to do with an OHP

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Very much against my better judgment, I’ve become involved with the IELTS exam recently, and was required to look for the kind of materials my students and I should exploit in the classroom. Digxa shopping comparison showed me not only a wide range of IELTS materials, but also a wide range of prices I could expect to pay if I shopped around, anywhere from $3 to $50 in the case of Jakeman & McDowell ‘Cambridge Practice Tests For Ielts’. Of course, as you’d expect, there are other categories such as electronics. How many of us live in countries where goods such as electronics are highly priced? We might want to investigate.

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Wouldn’t it be useful, we thought, if there was a wiki devoted to ELT terminology? That way anyone, teacher, trainer or trainee could have access to a useful glossary – and (and this is the BIG THING about Wikis) they could amend or change what they find there if they don’t think the explanation they are presented with is ‘quite right’.

Wikis, by the way, are easy to navigate. All you need to do is go to any page, any entry, and use the edit button. If you can’t find an entry there, you go to the letter, open up the list of terms for that letter and then edit it in order to add your new term. Or whatever. Like all effective software, wikis get easier the more you use them!
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Words of wisdom from the big man. Now, I’ve checked out the Pearson Longman Wiki and it hasn’t really expanded, in fact, I feel that the ELT Wiki has already gone further in creating a useful resource for us TEFLers, for which I already have to thank those who’ve contributed. Please don’t be shy in wading in and adding your contributions. Together, we really can maket he world of TEFL a better place.

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One thing is for certain, the world of online learning is expanding at an incredible pace. More courses are being offered and more students are enrolling every semester. Of course, teaching an online course can be done while sitting at your computer in your undies, but becoming an effective online instructor requires a good deal of practice and preparation.

Of course, teaching online does take away the face-to-face involvement with students. Nothing can replace seeing a student smile after finally understanding a difficult language point, but online teaching can be even more rewarding than traditional teaching, when you do it well.

So, what makes an effective online instructor? While I would say that good teaching involves an incredibly large number of different qualities and techniques, effective online teaching focuses on three main points:

1) You really must be clear about your expectations. Because your student(s) aren’t sitting right in front of you, it’s extremely important to be very clear. How do you know if you are clear enough when you can’t see the students sitting with a puzzled look while nodding their head in apparent agreement? Well… ask the students. Carefully evaluate the quality of their work and how close the finished product matches the aims and objectives. Another good idea is to have a colleague read your material before the course begins. If student evaluations are distributed at the end of the semester, you can use the feedback to help you improve your course and teaching techniques but keep in mind that by then you can no longer help the students learn what you want them to learn!

2) You must communicate frequently AND effectively. Most students will expect you to be sitting at your computer – waiting feverishly – whenever they send you a question by email. Of course, that is not practicable, nor is it in any way reasonable. Therefore, it’s a good idea to give students a time frame in which you plan to respond, with 24 to 48 hours being fairly reasonable. Also, it’s not enough just to communicate frequently. You must also communicate effectively. While some students (especially new online students) will want you to lead them by the hand through each step, if you already have clearly written instructions, you can direct them to these instructions. Bear in mind that most students are not usually going to be asking you questions to annoy you, they just want to make sure they are doing what you want them to do. So, be understanding, even when you get questions that seem nonsenical. If you get the same questions frequently, it’s a good idea to save the questions and your responses to create an FAQ list.

3) You must let your personality shine through. If students just wanted to read a book, they wouldn’t need you to read it for them. So, when teaching online, avoid taking the easy way out by simply posting a few readings and having students answer the questions: Add a little of your personality to your assignments and communication (bear in mind when using humor that it is difficult to convey online). Give them real-life examples that you have learned from being the subject matter expert. Create interesting and interactive assignments to help students really learn the material.

Good teaching, like being good at anything, takes practice. If you are clear – if you stay in close contact with your students – and if you create an interesting learning experience, you will be the online instructor that students want to learn from. Sermon over!

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It’s all in the way you present information or never underestimate the worth of a highlighter pen!

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