Page 5 - ELG1911 Nov Issue 467

El•Gazette 467.qxp_El•Gazette 467 23/10/2019 13:09 Page 5

WELCOME . EDITORS’ LETTER

Mad dogs and Englishmen?

Are the glory days of England’s ELT empire over?

Not quite yet, argue Melanie Butler and Ron
Ragsdale, but it’s time for some fresh thinking theteam .
MELANIE BUTLER,
editor-in-chief,
“We all understand English,” said president of the EU commission, Jean-Claude Junker. “We started teaching EFL in
just don’t understand the English.” Iran in 1975. She worked
We feel the same. Ron has a British passport and a British grandmother but was born in the for the BBC World
US. Melanie was born abroad of British parents. Legally we are both migrants. Service, Pearson/
Longman and MET
It puts us among the 55 per cent of migrants who now speak English to their children at
magazine before taking over at the
home (see page 7). Five per cent of those migrants are from English-speaking countries and Gazette in 1987 and also launching
13 per cent are the foreign-born children of Brits, so not surprising! Study Travel magazine. Educated in ten
Whatever our L1, though, we migrants are advised to speak English to our children - the schools in seven countries, she speaks
English see that as a sign of integration. Unfortunately, as the study’s author points out, this fluent French and Spanish and rather
rusty Italian.
impacts negatively on the children.

This really seems to be an England problem. Scotland, Ireland and Wales all have other RON RAGSDALE,
indigenous living languages and a different attitude to L2 speakers. The Welsh tell of the managing editor,
Englishman on a bus who was infuriated by a passenger talking in a ‘foreign language’ and gained his MA-TESOL at
Portland State University
yelled “This is England, talk English!” The bus driver replied, “This is Wales and she’s talking in Oregon 25 years ago,
Welsh!” and has worked in ELT
So, are the English still at the cutting edge of ELT? publishing ever since,
Perhaps not. Our new thought leader on page 32 is a professor working at an English with teaching stints in Istanbul and
university, but Judit Kormos is Hungarian Cairo. In addition to managing teams at
Pearson and Cambridge ELT, including
born and her pioneering research into as Publishing Director, Ron has worked
...the UK still attracts the impact of student dyslexia on English with Ministries and local partners in over
language learning was inspired, not by 30 countries.
the highest number of British ELT, but by a dyslexia activist
from Hungary. MATT SALUSBURY, news
language students in On page 33, a Greek-Australian editor and journalist, has
worked for EL Gazette
professor warns the English of the since 2007. He is an
the world. dangers of using synthetic phonetics. On activist in the National
the opposite page, a Czech English Union of Journalists and
language teacher warns us that students co-edits its newsletter,
may think that all language teachers are superfluous – whether native speakers or not. the Freelance. He taught English for 15
years in the Netherlands, in Turkey, in a
All is not lost. While CLIL teachers in Spain are achieving success on page 21, a Chinese North London further education college
study on page 11 finds students progress fastest with specially-trained co-teachers, one native and now as an English for Academic
and one non-native speaker. Purposes tutor at the London School of
Meanwhile, the UK still attracts the highest number of language students in the world, Economics. He is a native English
according to the report on page 18 by Bonard and all of the Centres of Excellence listed on speaker and is also fluent in Dutch.

page 13 are in England and nearly all are well-established. There is nothing the English do GILL RAGSDALE,
better than the grand old School. research news reporter,
While grand old men Alan Maley and Adrian Underhill are still conjuring great training has a PhD in
Evolutionary
ideas on page 29.
Anthropology from
Will it be enough? Cambridge, and teaches
“‘Old and grand’ can quickly become ‘outdated and complacent’,” warns Hauke Tallon, Psychology with the
Principal of the UK’S oldest language school, on page 38, “and that would signal the end-game Open University, but also holds an RSA-
for us.” Cert TEFL. Gill has taught EFL in the UK,
Turkey, Egypt and to refugees in the
Calais ‘Jungle’ in France. She currently
MELANIE BUTLER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RON RAGSDALE, MANAGING EDITOR teaches English to refugees in the UK.

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