Page 17 - ELG1601 Apr Issue 435

ELjobs
April 2016 Page 17

Reaching out to Thirty years and counting

the wider world Founding editor of Teacher Trainer Tessa Woodward surveys the

publication’s long history and recalls some short-lived revolutions
Robert Sharples tells Melanie Butler
why British EAL is looking overseas wonder where you were us cool! And, because we are still and, a favourite of Jim Scrive- done by teacher trainers, teacher
and what you were doing in very much alive and kicking, we ner, authentic, cestricted and educators and teacher mentors
I 1986? Some of you, gentle are celebrating at Iatefl with a clarification (ARC), plus cor- trying to understand their train-
eachers working with pupils funding cuts and, in England, the readers, were probably not yet thirtieth-birthday panel. pora and concordances, BIELT ees and to increase the impact of
from diverse language back- move away from local control of born! But by that time I had Our policy from the start was, (the short-lived British Institute what they do.
Tgrounds in UK schools are schools has meant that teachers been a Tesol in-house teacher- as well as snagging some big for English Language Teaching So, here we are in Volume 30,
reaching out to their colleagues are increasingly finding them- trainer, then Cambridge English names, to get as many starter writ- project) and MI wax and wane in 2016, halfway through the
abroad, whether in EFL, Clil, selves without guidance. tutor for DOTE (a now vanished ers into print as possible, however (that’s the multiple intelligences second decade of the twenty-
English-medium education or ELL Local networks of teachers set entry-level qualification for non- much mentoring this took. That theory popularised by Howard first century. The journal has
in North America, to exchange up by Naldic to meet its members’ native speaker teachers), plus a policy remains the same. Gardner and others). built up a thirty-year bank of
research, ideas and best practice. needs will be reinforced by the new pre- and in-service trainer for a In terms of content, as the I note that in Volume 15, Issue material. We now have a website
International examples will form publication, which aims to take an few years. field of Tesol teacher training 3 (2001), we did have an article (www.tttjournal.co.uk), where
an essential part of a new publica- evidence-based approach combin- I had searched around but has changed, so has the con- about using ‘electronic mail’ you can read back-issue articles.
tion to be launched in the autumn ing classroom ideas with the latest there was very little in those tent of the journal. Early on we during the teaching practice We have brought in a ‘flip page’
by Naldic, the national subject research. The magazine, which will days in terms of books, articles had many articles on different placement. Surely that would digital version of the journal and
association for teachers of English come out once a term, will include or support organisations for a methods, including the Silent never catch on? But from then people can subscribe online.
as an additional language (EAL), classroom ideas and bite-sized Tesol trainer. So when I was Way, Total Physical Response on the number of articles men- And in terms of the support now
as the field is known in the UK. descriptions of relevant research encouraged by Mario Rinvolucri and Psycho-Dramatic Language tioning electronic technologies available to the working teacher?
‘A lot of EAL specialists in UK written in plain English, along with of Pilgrims to start a newslet- Learning. Later came pieces on such as email, Skype, podcasts, We have teachers’ resource books,
schools started out in EFL,’ Nal- more in-depth investigations of ter for teacher trainers I said I’d ‘the Post Method Era’ before the YouTube videos, tablets, smart- websites, blogs, networks, organi-
dic’s Robert Sharples, himself research and practice in a particular give it a go. topic faded out altogether. The phones et al sky-rockets. sations, webzines, conferences
a former EFL teacher, told the area. In the first edition, for exam- The idea was to provide a only pieces on technology in By Volume 20 though, already and workshops aplenty.
Gazette. ‘We are seeing teaching ple, Professor Victoria Murphy will paper place where people inter- the early days were one on flip ten years ago now, notes of cau- And for the working teacher
assistants paid to take Celtas, and take an in-depth look at the evidence ested in Tesol teacher training, charts and a new idea – Radio tion had begun to creep in as trainer? Well, things have
classroom teachers of other sub- for the use of phonics in EAL. whether experienced teachers, Assisted Practice in teaching authors tried to temper all-con- improved a bit. There are a few
jects opting to do it, though this is ‘It’s a subject our members directors of studies, exam course practice observation. suming e-novelty enthusiasm more books, a special interest
not an ideal solution.’ often get asked about,’ says tutors or inspectors going out to Slowly the ideas of action with calls to remember what the group or two with threads at con-
Lack of training in the area is a Sharples. It is also a subject of schools, could talk to each other research and teacher reflec- technology is for and to consider ferences, a very rare MA course
key problem, according to Naldic. interest to those in EFL, Clil, on a regular basis, take a peek at tion began to appear. And whether it actually enhances … but I think the Teacher Trainer
Recent surveys confirm that UK EMI – indeed almost anybody each other’s work, recommend reading through the years, I learning and teaching. journal is still needed!
teachers in training cite teach- involved with children and sec- ideas and books, and between see milestones coming up by Some issues return again and Come and learn more about
ing multilingual classes as their ond language acquisition. n us build up a pool of experience the road and then slowly being again over the years, though us at the birthday panel – it’s on
second-biggest area of concern, within our field. left behind as interest in topics labels change. I am thinking Wednesday 13 April from 12pm
beaten only by problem behav- For more info about the new The first issue came out in such as neourolinguistic pro- here of teacher development, I in Hall 11b. n
iour. In the past, local government magazine email enquiries@ 1986 and we are still going thirty gramming (NLP), total quality mean professional development,
provided schools with support for naldic.org.uk or visit www.naldic. years later, though we have been management (TQM), presenta- I mean CPD, for example! And Tessa Woodward is founding
best practice in this area. However org.uk, relaunching this term through several redesigns to keep tion practice production (PPP) the journal is always full of work editor of the Teacher Trainer

Road to recruitment

David McDowell from tefl.com talks about the site’s

journey from internet start-up to global resource

t seems a long time since the heady days of the
dot.com boom and bust, when the late 1990s
Isaw rivers of cash flow into many short-lived
websites. However one ’90s start-up took a very
different approach.
Launched almost twenty years ago by a for-
mer British Council centre director, tefl.com has
become a valuable resource for language school
recruitment worldwide. As co-founder Vicky
Fairley says, ‘In the early days there was only one
US-based jobs website for ELT teacher recruit-
ment, which had launched just six months before
us. The internet was growing at an enormous rate
and we considered there was a definite demand
for a Europe-based resource which would provide
language schools worldwide with direct access to a
huge pool of ELT talent.
‘We made the decision early that we would not Courtesy tefl.com
seek funding from external sources (this was long
before crowdfunding!) and, looking back, our ini-
tial website was very basic indeed.’ ON THE MAP 150,000 CVs are on tefl.com
However, the small team behind tefl.com had
indeed found a successful market niche. The site technology is constantly changing, we realised it
was actually launched almost a year before Google was time we moved on.’
appeared and long before Facebook and Twitter The new system and website launched in Novem-
were conceived of. Therefore social media was not ber 2014. It brought with it a number of innovations
an option for promoting the service – news of the including the first interactive map-based job search,
resource simply spread through recommendation. candidate pre-screening, selection of job applica-
As Vicky explains, ‘At the time the web was still tion delivery methods, online recruiter application
very much in its infancy. Not everyone was con- management, job auto-updating and, for the job-
nected, as they are now. However many language seeker, CV/résumé uploading and total control of
schools saw the potential of the internet for cost- the application process.
effective recruitment and teachers realised the value With almost 150,000 registered résumés in the
in getting their CV in front of a vast audience. system, tefl.com goes to great lengths to ensure that
‘Since its inception in 1997, tefl.com has focused jobseeker data remains fresh. Only jobseekers cur-
exclusively on the ELT jobs and enterprise sector. rently seeking a job can retain an active CV/résumé.
Whether visiting as a jobseeker or recruiter, our If a CV is not updated at least once every ninety
goal has always been to act as an efficient con- days, it is deactivated. In this way, employers can be
duit between both groups. Indeed, innovation has assured that all are current.
always been a priority. The company’s journey over the past nineteen
‘Four years ago we took the decision to totally years has been one of listening to its clients and
rewrite our online system from the ground up. Until visitors and this process is ongoing in order to
then, we had been continually adding functionality provide an innovative 21st-century employment
to a system designed in the late ’90s. However, as resource for the international ELT community. n