All entries for November 2009

British Council 'Milestones in ELT' page

Writing about web page http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/transform/books/milestones-elt-a-series-classic-elt-texts-british-council

The British Council has launched its 'Milestones in ELT' initiative - URL above - which aims to place a number of its past publications online. We gave advice on selection and supplied a number of older documents for this from the Warwick ELT Archive, some of which will be uploaded later. We've also begun to develop some notes on 'ELT and The British Council' which contextualize the items uploaded. These notes are at: www.warwick.ac.uk/go/elt_archive/britishcouncil

Richard Smith : 25 Nov 2009 15:06 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

First ever courses in TEFL at British universities

Writing about web page http://www.quality-tesol-ed.org.uk/seminars/seminars.html

Richard Smith gave a plenary talk at the QuiTE (Association for the Improvement of Quality in TESOL Education) annual seminar on Friday 13th November (see website link above). Tracing the history of UK university-based ELT teacher education and research training, he identified the following as precursors of current provision (both predating the first applied linguistics programme, at the University of Edinburgh (1957 onwards)):

First TEFL training course:

University College London, summer term 1917, taught by Harold E. Palmer:

Methods of Language Teaching

[...]

S 30. (Mr. Palmer.) How to teach English to Foreigners.

Third Term: Tuesday at 5.30

(Extract from UCL Calendar 1916-17, in UCL Archives)

First yearlong course:

Institute of Education, University of London, 1935-6, taught by Lawrence Faucett:

‘The year has been mainly devoted to the establishing of the course in the teaching of English to non-Western peoples.’ (Departmental report, Sept. 1936, in Institute of Education archives)

Richard Smith : 17 Nov 2009 22:11 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Unexpected donation of Dutch English language textbooks – Jan van Griethuysen

donation_from_jan_van_griethuysen.xls

A couple of weeks ago we received an unexpected and very welcome donation of Dutch English language textbooks from Jan van Griethuysen. He accompanied the box of books and other materials (which he has listed in the file attached to this posting) with the following touching note:

The Hague, Holland 20th Oct. 2009

"Writing to you now is someone whose pastime it is to visit such events as car-boot-sales and flea-markets in search of old things, in this case usually books and papers, worth donating to archives and museums. What I find, mostly Dutch material, of course, I then give to the most appropriate institution.

Some time ago now, searching the internet for a place to which I could give a particular book I had found, I happened across your ELT-archive, and well aware of all the old English course-material I had seen in the past, I decided in future not to ignore such material, but to buy it for you. And so in the year that followed I stockpiled English-language teaching-books, found quite randomly at the flea-markets and jumble sales I had been to, until I had so many that it seemed time to go in search of a suitable cardboard box. I found one, and so it is that I can now surprise you with this, admittedly rather motley, collection. In my ignorance I may well have bought entirely unsuitable things, and so please feel free to discard anything you do not consider appropriate.

And that is all - I can but hope that I have not wasted your time, and that a percentage at least of this unexpected donation will prove to be worthy of accession to your ELT collection."

These materials are indeed very relevant to our collection, and will be catalogued and shelved in due course. Thank you very much, Jan!

Richard Smith : 16 Nov 2009 15:04 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem