Page 5 - ELG2011 Nov Issue 473

WELCOME . EDITORS’ LETTER

Time to go back to

EARN DIGITAL BADGES

Upskill with the school room

Education Group theteam .
targeted

Share on As adult language schools crash across the world, MELANIE
BUTLER,
ELT training. Ron Ragsdale and Melanie Butler argue that Covid-19 editor-in-chief,
started teaching
EFL in Iran in
For free. has served to speed up inevitable market changes 1975. She worked
for the BBC
World Service,
Perhaps the most eye-catching story in this month’s issue is the slashing of the largest British-owned Pearson/Longman
and MET magazine before taking
language school chain, Instil Education. As we report on page 7, they have closed ten operations and over at the Gazette in 1987 and also
launching Study Travel magazine.
Introducing Bridge Micro-credentials – merged two Cambridge schools and two summer schools. Educated in ten schools in seven
It’s a dramatic story and a sad one. But not, in our opinion, the most significant news this month. countries, she speaks fluent French
free professional development courses Instead, we lead with the news that from 2024, the English language will become an optional part of and Spanish and rather rusty Italian.
for English language teachers. Explore the Pisa tests for 15-16-year-olds, the benchmark for measuring a nation’s educational success. English RON RAGSDALE,
is now officially a core subject, as important in the world of modern education as reading, maths and managing editor,
topics like error correction, materials science, and it’s a subject children will be expected to be proficient in before they leave school. gained his MA-
The importance of the market for English in national school systems is hardly news. In 2002, Ron
creation, IELTS exam prep, and more. took up a new role for Cambridge University Press, setting up a Schools ELT publishing programme, at TESOL at
Portland State
around the same time Cambridge Assessment started repackaging its main suite for schools, and University in
Oregon 25 years
governments started adopting them. The adult market for general English is no longer the mainstay of ago, and has
Learn more at Bridge.edu/tefl publishers or exam boards, and outside the programmes for adult migrants, like the one in Australia worked in ELT
featured on page 6, it is no longer a major concern for governments. publishing ever since, with teaching
stints in Istanbul and Cairo. In
U.S. Department of COURSES Association for Quality Governments care about addition to managing teams at
ACCREDITED BY Education Recognized RECOMMENDED College Credit RECOGNIZED Education and Training English in schools. In Saudi
Agency FOR CREDIT BY Recommendation Service BY Online Pearson and Cambridge ELT,
Arabia, they’re planning on including as Publishing Director, Ron
Bridge Education Group | 225 East 16th Avenue, Denver, CO 80203, USA | 1-303-785-8864 | Bridge.edu There is still an adult market for introducing it in year 1, as we has worked with Ministries and local
partners in over 30 countries.
report on page 8, along with
general English, but it is smaller and Taiwan debating bilingual MATT
less wealthy than before. schools and the Indian SALUSBURY,
news editor and
government backtracking on its
policy to banish English in journalist, has
worked for EL
primary. Gazette since
Meanwhile, state governments across the US will be celebrating the Chicago study we feature on 2007. He is also
page 10, which found 76 per cent of migrant children with L2 English do as well in school, or even joint Chair of the
London Freelance
better, than their native-speaker peers. Branch of the National Union of
The majority of the language schools in trouble around the world, be that the Wall Street chain (see Journalists and co-edits its
page 13) or the UK’s ‘zombie’ schools (page 15), specialise in adult learners. The schools pulling newsletter, the Freelance. He taught
ahead, like the new British Summer School brand on page 12, are those offering English and English language for 15 years in the
Netherlands, in Turkey, in a North
education to under-18s. London further education college
Even the threadbare, thirty-year-old communicative methodology, designed to be taught by native and now as an English for Academic
speaker teachers to low-level European adults is being called into question. Materials from overseas Purposes tutor, most recently at the
swept the board at the ELTon awards (page 16), while on page 34, Paula Rebolledo calls for her London School of Economics. He is
a native English speaker and is also
colleagues to question the relevance of the white western gurus. fluent in Dutch.
Coronavirus didn’t cause the move towards under-18s or boost the demand for English-medium
schools, but it has speeded up the change. Of the 32 UK language schools that have so far closed GILL RAGSDALE,
down, only one was a junior summer school. research news
reporter, has a
There is still an adult market for general English, but it is smaller and less wealthy than before. PhD in
Without the work rights specifically denied in the new UK visa rules (page 14) many students will go
Evolutionary
FREE elsewhere. Anthropology
from Cambridge,
Look at the operations that remain after the bloodbath at Instil Education, and we can see where
and teaches
the future is leading in the UK. From 20 operations, we now have four adult schools, one attached to
a high school, a year-round residential school for young learners, a junior summer school group and a Psychology with
the Open University, but also holds
an RSA-Cert TEFL. Gill has taught
big-name teacher training centre.
Digital Subscription A taste of things to come? EFL in the UK, Turkey, Egypt and to
refugees in the Calais ‘Jungle’ in
France. She currently teaches
MELANIE BUTLER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RON RAGSDALE, MANAGING EDITOR
English to refugees in the UK.
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4 November 2020 editorial@elgazette.com 5 5