Is the present English language curriculum in Malaysia preparing students for the new literacies of the 21st century?
This is the question raised in the Malaysian Star online:
NOT many people would use a line from Hamlet to make a link between the present state of English language teaching and learning in Malaysia and [...]
Alex Case reviews the year over on the ever excellent TEFLTastic blog:
2007 was yet another year in which the world of TEFL made its way into the consciousness of the general public for all the wrong reasons (a crack down on teachers in Korea, English teaching sex offenders etc. etc), and Japan did its fair [...]
Taiwan’s first English language village has recently opened in Taiwan, where Taiwanese children go twice a week for English immersion classes.
The Happy English Village features themed classrooms: a bank, a hotel, an airport waiting room and a coffee bar amongst others, and attracts 120 students. It was the idea of a non-profit organisation called the [...]
Hoo (Paul) Kang is the founder of the Teaching Kimchi website (www.teachingkimchi.com), a site primarily devoted to English language teaching in South Korea. He has been generous enough to spare some of his time to talk about his site and his views on teaching:
What’s the purpose of your site?
I wanted TeachingKimchi dot com to be [...]
Alex Case has been busy as usual, this time finding some great clips on youtube:
If you search “English lesson” on youtube, there are a couple of British Council lessons and stuff you could look at. Quite frankly though, televisual English lessons are something much better left to the Japanese:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS2GY8C_2sY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bySvfJ-SZBE
Reprinted with permission of the author. I [...]
After my recent post praising Raoul’s China Saloon, I’ve decided to give a short retrospective on China. Apart from the ever impressive forum, many of my posts on China have been video clips, one of my favourite ways of getting to see how people live and teach around the world. First up is a Typical [...]
I’ve always thought of myself as being more of a saloon man than a cafe dweller, and Raoul’s China Saloon has confirmed it! The Saloon is an excellent forum based on TEFLing in China. Naturally, being a one-country type of forum has enabled Raoul to specialise a bit more than the worldwide forum here at [...]
There’s a thought provoking article by Rafael Sabio in a recent online edition of the Korean Times in which he details how he feels the English education system can be improved. Here are some of his comments:
One way in which to improve the English education system in Korea is to mandate background checks. As university [...]
David Townsend, a former speech writer and special adviser to the 1976-79 Labour government ventured out of his comfort zone to go volunteering in Cambodia for a recent article in the Education Guardian:
It wasn’t when I discussed the risks of Japanese encephalitis with my GP. Or talked about malaria or dengue fever. Or even when [...]
I’ve never visited China, let alone considered teaching there, so, as ever, it’s great to see a video clip like this to get an idea of what it’s like:
I’d love to hear from anyone in Shanghai who has anything to add to this ‘typical day’.
This clip was produced by BridgeTEFL, a commercial provider of TEFL courses in [...]
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