Page 4 - ELG1804 Apr Issue 456

WELCOME . EDITOR’S LETTER

From Mad Hatter’s tea party

to global Aladdin’s cave.

theteam
The world of ELT no longer wears a British face, writes Melanie Butler
MELANIE
Thirty years ago, EFL conferences reminded me a little of the Mad BUTLER,
editor-in-chief,
Hatter’s tea party. Handwritten cards marked the doors of the tiny rooms started teaching
where genteel British ladies with cut glass accents held court to audiences EFL in Iran in
of (mostly British) language school teachers. 1975, she worked
for the BBC
Young white male methodologists scurried around like rabbits and the World Service,
tables of the twenty- plus British publishers groaned under the weight of Pearson/Longman and Modern
brightly coloured books. Everything stopped for tea. English teacher magazine before
Modern conferences are more like Aladdin’s cave. taking over at the Gazette in
1987 and also launching Study
The language school teachers are mostly gone, replaced by postgraduate Travel magazine. Educated in ten
students and teacher trainers from all corners of the earth. schools in seven countries she
Foreign publishers take up the space left by their shrinking UK competition. speaks fluent French and Spanish
and rather rusty Italian.
The white male methodologists are still there, taking the latest rabbit out of their hats.
But Britons no longer rule the roost. Take the plenary speakers at Iatefl 2018: to kick the IRENA
conference off they have a Spanish born specialist in BARKER,
commissioning
The world of bilingualism and multilingualism who has worked in editor,
English language Greece and now the USA. studied French
and linguistics at
She is followed by an Irish tester, a Guyanese poet, an
teaching has changed. American author and a woman’s rights activist who was Durham, UK and
taught English in France for two
born in Germany and educated in Venezuela.
It no longer wears a The world of ELT has changed. years. Her subsequent 15-year
career in UK news journalism
It no longer wears a British face.
British face In this issue of the Gazette, a Polish born English includes reporting for local and
regional newspapers, a news
language teacher, shortlisted for the prestigious Global agency and a 10 year stint at the
Teacher Prize, writes about her work in Norway on page 11. Times Educational Supplement
A Singapore kindergarten chain hits the headlines as it moves magazine.
into China on page 6. And from Hong Kong, the founder of an FEDERICA
EFL tech company argues that universities in English speaking TEDESCHI,
senior reporter, is
countries should do more to help international students. a NCTJ qualified
Even the ELTons shortlist on page 36 features as many reporter who
products from Brazil as from Oxford. gained journalistic
Meanwhile back in Britain, a study, reported on page 10, finds experience in
Malta, Italy and the UK. She
that the vocabulary size of bilingual two-year-olds is correlated holds a Masters in International
to how closely English is related to their mother tongue. Relations from the University of
On page 32, Teachers based in East London appear in Latin Perugia, Italy as well as a Celta
American classrooms through the magic of technology. from Westminster College,
London and has taught languages
It is all change too in British ELT. at a university and schools in
Thom Kiddle of Nile calls on the British Council to rethink London. Federica, who also
the way the UK accreditation scheme assesses teacher freelances in video production, is
qualifications on page 13. a member of a NUJ committee.
In Northern Ireland, our news pages report, the growing ANDREA PÉREZ
number of English language learners is posing EGIDO, online
and production
problems for local schools. How the world of ELT manager,
has changed in thirty years. has a BA in
The myth of the mighty monolingual native speaker has been put back in its Journalism from
box, not before time. Complutense
University, Madrid and a Masters
But, as we reveal in our Iatefl special features, there are still fables to conquer in Corporate Communications
and fairy tales to fight, before we can answer the central question: what is the from Kingston University,
most effective way to help learners master English? London. She previously worked
MELANIE BUTLER, on the international desk at the
Spanish newspaper La Razón.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF She joined the Gazette as online
and social media editor in 2015.

editorial@elgazette.com 5