Principled Possibilities - Ideas for Teaching is a unique publication representing the summation of four years of graduate study, and my own experiences, discoveries, experiments and successes over eight years of teaching throughout Asia and the Pacific. Uniquely the book includes: - a wide selection of academic papers, conference and training presentations, and curriculum and planning documents, - links to websites and other resources for exploring the topics further and contacting the author, - ideas ranging from working with absolute young beginners to adult and upper-intermediate level students, - discussions of current challenges and controversies in teaching, - approaches to online and computer-assisted learning, and - suggestions in the field of English language teaching.  


Here is the full introduction to give you some more details:My transition from office work to education was a late one, and came about more by accident than design.

Having successfully trained as a classical musician, I realised that performance opportunities would be limited at my age, so it seemed that music education would be the most logical progression. Having successfully trained as a teacher, I discovered that music teaching opportunities would also be scarce, apart from those occasionally arising in outback Australia.

At the suggestion of a friend I decided to dip my toes into the field of English language teaching by working at a winter camp in Shanghai, China. It was the joy of that experience which sparked my desire to work and travel further.

Several training courses later I began my new career, at first in Australia with children and later with adults from Europe, South America and Asia. From there I have experienced life in the Sultanate of Brunei, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan, where I am presently located.

While there is much material available in the field of EFL (English as a Foreign Language), I feel that my own experiences, discoveries, experiments, successes and failures over the last eight years in a variety of settings, with children to adults, and with absolute beginners to upper-intermediate students, are worth sharing with others.

The present book, therefore, includes academic papers, conference and training presentations, and curriculum and planning papers to assist fellow educators. Many of these were developed in the context of formal tertiary training in Queensland, Australia, and refer to issues and cases from that location. Nevertheless, they are equally relevant in other English-speaking contexts.

There are also links to my Internet-based materials and websites where electronic versions of many resources included here may be found for the reader’s convenience and further exploration.

I don’t look on this publication as the final authority on all matters of English language teaching, but as part of the ongoing professional support and discussion so vital to our dynamically evolving and collaborative field. This is why I encourage readers to continue the conversation with me and others using the links given throughout.

I wish to conclude this introduction by expressing my appreciation to fellow teachers, colleagues, university staff, and members of my personal learning network who have either directly or indirectly assisted in formulating my ideas and refining my approaches to teaching. Their originality, contributions, and occasional criticism, are all deeply valued.


How can you get this book? Click on the Lulu link on my home page, or go directly here.

I'm happy to be sharing another 47 ideas from my own teaching with readers of this blog.
As before, they are straight from my lessons, so they are offered on an "as is" basis. In other words, you will need to use your own discretion in using or adapting them to your own situation.
Most areas of ELT are covered, including extensive notes I took while completing a certificate in teaching young learners.
Specifically there are 2 new grammar items, 1 for reading, 2 for writing, 3 for speaking, 2 for drama, 15 for vocabulary, 1 under games, and 21 under general teaching support.
You will find them under the "Teach" tab.
I hope you find th

I've just added a comprehensive set of websites useful to learners outside of class. While chosen to assist adult students at the pre-intermediate level, a number would also be valuable to use with younger learners.
The sites cover all macro-skills, activities, quizzes, flashcards and other vocabulary resources, self assessment, typing practice, and text-to-voice assistance.
To access this set of sites and previous suggestions listed for younger learners, go to "Learn" then "Learning Help".

It's been a tumultuous few months for me, so I apologise for not writing sooner.
As time is short, here are the highlights:
(1) After many broken promises and unreasonable treatment by my employer, I left Malaysia in disgust in April and returned home to Toowoomba in Queensland.
(2) I spent time catching up with my family - all of whom I'm very proud of - and looking for work. After a few non-events, I managed to snare an English teaching job at my local university - the same one at which I was studying. Unfortunately their positions are very short term (10 week sessions) with no guarantees of re-employment unless there are sufficient enrolments. While I enjoyed teaching there, I wanted something more secure.
(3) After spending several months looking for work, I decided to accept a teaching job back in Hsinchu with the same government school at which I'd worked the first time. At least this was a guaranteed 12 months with renewal options.
(4) The other productive (and satisfying) thing I managed to do, was to complete my Master of Applied Linguistics program, from which I've now graduated.
So now I'm comfortably back in a familiar city, making some new teaching friends and catching up with earlier ones, enjoying a lovely new apartment, riding a scooter again, and longing for some cooler weather now autumn is here.
If you go to this link Photos June to September 2011 you'll see some of the places I've been both back home and now here in Taiwan.
My next trip will be a long weekend in Toowoomba in mid-November to attend (Anthony) my son's wedding. It will pass very quickly, but I want to be there to wish him well.

Abstract: Online learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) face many unique issues in choosing which program to study. The present paper begins with a review of criteria developed previously, and reassesses these based on subsequent pedagogical and technological innovations, particularly the evolution of Web 2.0 tools and “communicative language teaching” approaches. A new set of criteria were then applied to programs reviewed previously and to newer courses. These exposed ongoing problems of providers failing to adopt newer approaches despite most being available at no cost, a lack of standards, best practice models and external accreditation, and neglect in establishing a sense of community through enhanced student-teacher and student-student communication, which in turn impacts student motivation and the sense of isolation. The author suggests that more research effort it needed to encourage industry players to move forward, and to reassure learners of the quality and value for money of programs they may choose to complete.

The videos by Nik Peachey and George Siemens will not play in a Slidecast, so if you would like to view them you will need to go here:
Web 1.0 http://db.tt/U6kEP7L
Web 2.0 http://db.tt/nZfnlZz
Connectivism http://db.tt/9eCA2ds
Sorry for any inconvenience. Greg Q.

Asked by James Cook | 11 hours ago in Education and Schools | Open

Your public answer: “Hi James, I'd like to suggest that taking a college degree should be an option, but not the only option, for people. Other responses have focussed on the link between education and employment, which is certainly undeniable. But I feel they have overlooked other possible outcomes of having a better education - such as better citizens, musicians, artists, philosophers, designers, healthy minds, etc - all of which are also important for society to flourish. In other words, self development and self improvement are also very important. One other point often overlooked, is the demand for skilled labour. It's great pumping out thousands of lawyers, accountants, doctors etc. every year, but if there's no work for them is that a good investment for society or is it simply raising individuals' expectations only to leave them "high and dry" after so much effort. Finally, not everyone has either the need or the ability to complete such programs. Most of my children have not, and they are working and living happy lives after qualifying in shorter courses. Employers ought to be more realistic as well regarding what essential background is required of their employees - particularly things like parenting, life experience, travel, languages are often overlooked.”

Asked by Pedro Pereira | 7 hours ago in Mentoring | Open

Your public answer: “I agree with Renjit. A good master will expose his/her pupils to the skills and ideas needed for them to progress further in that field. As a musician and teacher myself, I can think of many cases throughout the history of Western music in which composers took proteges under their wings and the latter were only ever considered worthy if they took their mentors' ideas and developed them further. In fact, the progress of all Western music can be put down to this basic principle. However, there are some areas where this is less likely. For example, I also teach English as a second language. It would be fairly unlikely for many of my ESL/EFL students to become better at English than myself. Still, it's possible they could in some aspect of it. For example, I'm not a good creative writer, but a student of mine could become one I suppose.”

I posted this today on English Classroom 2.0 in response to a teacher who was having trouble tutoring a boy who only wanted to talk about his favourite cartoon character in Chinese. Perhaps something in my reply might be helpful to others having similar problems.
"Hello Cynthia,

It seems there is a more fundamental issue here - WHY are you tutoring him? If he doesn't want it, then you should speak to his parents and determine whether they are the ones that want him to learn rather than the boy himself. As they say "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

If you really do want to persist with him, and assuming what you are offering meets his needs and is of interest to him, then I'd suggest you start pretending you don't speak Chinese, and refuse to talk to him in anything other than English. Since he is in Grade 6, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to follow you if he's already had a few years of lessons at school.

You could use the cartoon as a talking point - but only in English. Ask him questions about what happens, the names of characters, what they look like, their personalities/interests/friends etc, some of the stories. Once you have some answers from him, you can use these to build up his vocabulary e.g. feelings, colours, hobbies, actions, etc. You may be able to put together some basic stories using the characters for him to read and, in time, he might be able to write his own stories. Later it may be possible to introduce other cartoons or folk tales etc. that have similar story lines. He could subsequently write to an English-speaking friend (pen pal) about his interests and build a broader range of conversations from there. If you have Internet access there are lots of resources to create your own cartoons or better, for him to do so.

Good luck with this challenging student,"

When reading a recent post by Karenne Sylvester called "Which came first: time or tenses?" (at http://kalinago.blogspot.com/2010/11/which-came-first-time-or-tenses.html) I thought it would be fun to see what sentences looked like without changing the form of the verb, but simply using modifiers or qualifiers to suggest the tense.
The table seen on the left (with some inspiration from http://www.athabascau.ca/courses/engl/155/support/verb_tenses.htm) is my attempt to answer that question.
What I'd like to know from readers is: when you look at these sentences, can you understand what is being said? In other words, ignoring the verb form, does the sentence communicate the intended time reference?
Having written them myself perhaps I'm too close to tell, but it seems to me that simply using the basic form of the verb (infinitive without the "to") does work. In each case the reader or listener, after getting over the initial shock, ought to be able to determine when the events were taking place relative to time.
When it comes to fluency and comprehension, it begs the question of whether we are sometimes too hard on our English learners who produce utterances like these, when we actually DO know what they mean.