All entries for December 2023

The Institute for Research in Language Teaching (Tokyo) – Celebrating a 100–Year History

Writing about web page https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collections/elt_archive/halloffame/hornby/archive

by Richard Smith

2023 marks the centenary of the Institute for Research in Language Teaching (語学教育研究所), which was originally established as the Institute for Research in English Teaching (IRET) in May 1923, with Harold E. Palmer (1877–1949) as its founding Director.

In the 1920s and 1930s, together with reform-minded Japanese academics and schoolteachers, Palmer – and, from 1936 onwards, A.S. Hornby (1898–1978), Palmer's successor both as head of research at IRET and editor of its Bulletin, engaged in an ambitious programme of materials production and practical inquiry directed at the improvement of English teaching in Japanese schools.

At that time, no such serious attention was being paid to issues of teaching English as a foreign language anywhere else in the world, including in the UK or USA. Following World War II, the importance of this pre-war work in Japan largely went unacknowledged, whether in Michigan, birthplace of the named discipline of applied linguistics (1946 or so onwards), or in the UK, where Hornby was instrumental in establishing 'ELT' as a recognized field of interest.

Nevertheless, pre-war IRET initiatives had been influential in establishing the value of research into the teaching of English for speakers of other languages– with a less theory-driven, less 'applicationist' orientation, though, than was to become dominant in post-war applied linguistics. Just two manifestations of post-war IRET influence internationally, both connected with Hornby's continuing work in the UK, were what later became the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English– originally conceived as an IRET project and first published in Japan in 1942, and the journal English Language Teaching(now, ELT Journal), set up by the British Council at Hornby's suggestion in 1946, explicitly on the model of the IRET Bulletin.

'English' changed to 'Language' in the title of the Institute in 1942, and its post-war activities have been less internationally inclined, as other research centres and initiatives became established post-war both in Japan and elsewhere. In fact, close-to-practice, localized research to benefit English teachers in Japanese schools has remained the Institute's top priority, and this can be seen as its main strength as imported applied linguistic fashions have come and gone elsewhere (JACET [the Japan Association of College English Teachers], originally an off-shoot of IRLT, has by contrast engaged strongly with worldwide applied linguistics to the extent of hosting the 1999 AILA [International Association of Applied Linguistics] World Congress. To coincide with the conference, IRLT brought out an international edition of Palmer's Selected Writings(in 10 volumes) but fashions have moved on, and these did not garner much interest outside Japan. (My book The writings of Harold E. Palmer: An overview was issued as a companion volume to that remarkable set of volumes (pictured below), which we have in the Warwick ELT Archive).

The most recent list (in Japanese) of IRLT's active research / discussion groups, which still bring together novice and experienced schoolteachers, research students and academics committed to the improvement of English teaching in Japanese schools, displays the following areas of practical focus:

• Teaching methodology(with a particular focus on how teachers can use English in the classroom and use textbooks as a resource)
• Lesson study, involving video-recording and collaborative discussion of actual lessons
• Palmer research– participants read works by Harold Palmer and discuss their relevance to current teaching
• Elementary school English teaching, involving discussion of issues in the transition to junior high school as well as how to teach English at elementary level
• Discourse grammar(with a particular focus on applications in high school English teaching)
• Junior and Senior High School English teaching, according to particular topics – for example, a recent focus has been placed on how to activate students’ self-expression in English
• Researcher training(open to all members of the Institute)

In a recent talk ('Why history (of ELT)? Whose history?') for the Warwick Applied Linguistics seminar series, I acknowledged the value for me personally of participating in IRLT activities in Tokyo in the 1990s – the way this showed me the potential benefits of promoting 'historical sense' in the wider ELT profession and the way it led indirectly to construction of the Warwick ELT Archive; and in another recent talk, this time for IRLT itself, I highlighted the value of a tradition of experience-based, close-to-practice research characteristic of work by Palmer, Hornby, IRET and IRLT, viewing this as a counterbalance to prevalent top-down, 'linguistics applied' type conceptions of the relationship between research and teaching. The IRLT contribution to the development of my own thinking as a teacher educator and ELT researcher is, I think, clear, as is my continuing belief that the Institute's contributions and achievements should be more widely known.

Finally, then, as a kind of 100th birthday memento for IRLT, we've been making publicly accessible online some items in the Warwick ELT Archive collection which relate specifically to A.S. Hornby's work with IRET in Japan and his subsequent relations with Japan. Made widely accessible for the first time here are a variety of interesting items which have found their way to us, including photographs, a copy of the IRET Bulletin edited by Hornby, a 1942 catalogue with details of IRET publications (for those who read Japanese) and both a 1956 recorded talk in Tokyo and a 1969 NHK radio interview.

Fittingly, this – and other ongoing digitization work – has been made possible by a generous grant from the A.S. Hornby Educational Trust, itself set up more than 60 years ago with royalties from the dictionary Hornby compiled with two colleagues at other Japanese universities, E.V. Gatenby and H. Wakefield. The dictionary would not have been conceived or published without the inspiration and support of the Institute for Research in English Teaching, now 100 years old and still going strong.

Richard Smith : 30 Dec 2023 15:10 |  Tags: Hornby Iret Irlt Palmer |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

2nd HELE [History of English Language Education] India Conference

Here's a brief report on the 2nd_HELE [History of English Language Education] India conference(12th-13th December 2023), Hyderabad.

Following on from the 1st HELE India conference, in Delhi in December last year, the conference was held in the calm and green environment of the University of Hyderabad campus. Organized, as last year, jointly with the AINET Association of English Teachers, the conference was also supported by the A.S. Hornby Educational Trust and the university's Institute of Eminence. Professors Sunita Mishra of CELS, University of Hyderabad, and Amol Padwad of AINET and Ambedkar University Delhi were the conference co-convenors.

Professor Sunita Mishra opening the conference (photo by Santosh Mahapatra)

As can be seen from the ffull conference_programme here, there were four plenary papers, by Professors Richard Smith (University of Warwick), Parimala Rao (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi), M. Sridhar (retd., University of Hyderabad) and Shreesh Chaudhary (retd., IIT Madras). These addressed the overall conference theme of 'History of English Language Education: Theory and Practices' from different angles, involving perspectives from history of ELT (Smith), history of education (Rao), translation studies (Sridhar) and sociolinguistics (Chaudhary). There was also a panel discussion on 'Promoting HELE in academia', chaired by Prof. Sunita Mishra with panelists P. Sailaja, Parimala Rao, Richard Smith, Atanu Bhattacharya and Santosh Mahapatra.

More than 20 separate paper presentations in two parallel strands dealt with topics in 19th–20th-century English teaching and learning in India ranging from national policies and their impact or otherwise in the various (pre-Independence) Presidencies and (post-Independence) States of India to specific institutions, textbooks and local practices. The role of Indian languages other than English was not neglected, and a rich picture of the complexities of English learning and teaching in India emerged overall.

The future for research into English language education in India looks bright, with a HELE Studies Society being constituted at the conference and several PhD scholars having presented on papers with historical themes. An emerging challenge is how to attract PhD students at the outset of their research, to ensure a further expansion of good-quality historical research in the Indian context.

Prof. Amol Padwad announces formation of the HELE Studies Society (photo by Richard Smith)

At the Warwick ELT Archive we are supporting ELE researchers in India where we can and have accessed materials in the British Library to assist with their research, as well as uploading various relevant materials held in our collection. We are now contributing to the development of a shared resource of digitized primary and secondary source material to facilitate further research. Building on a previous research project, Richard Smith has been exploring the post-war involvement of the British Council in Indian ELE, while he and Jason Anderson are also making a special study of N.S. Prabhu's Communicational Teaching Project in Bangalore. Ashish Joe Sathyadas Sheela Saroj, a University of Hyderabad PhD student currently with us on a one-year Commonwealth scholaship, has been pursuing his studies of 19th-century English education in South Travancore, while Shambhavi Singh and Aichee Bhattacharya, two new PhD students from India, have recently joined our HoLLT Research Circle. Going forward, we also hope to link up more closely with the archive / historical collection of textbooks which has been developed at the University of Hyderabad by Professors P. Sailaja and Sunita Mishra at the same time as liaising with a team involving Amol Padwad, Krishna Dixit, Atana Bhattacharya and Vennela R., whose research is being supported by the Hornby Trust.

Richard Smith : 23 Dec 2023 14:23 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Unraveling the Threads of ELT Grammar History: Insights from Dr. Graham Burton's Talk

By Xi Li

On the afternoon of November 22, 2023, the Warwick ELT Archive / HoLLT Research Circle virtually welcomed Dr. Graham Burton. Hailing from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, Dr. Burton, a researcher in English language teaching and Corpus Linguistics, shared the historical insights from his recent book, Grammar in ELT and ELT Materials: Evaluating Its History and Current Practice, a work enriched by his exploration of the collections in the Warwick ELT Archive

Dr. Burton commenced his talk by recounting his journey through the Warwick ELT Archive, where he delved into primary sources, unraveling the historical tapestry of grammar syllabuses in English Language Teaching (ELT), and trying to shed light on the evolutionary nuances of ELT Grammar. Throughout his presentation, Dr. Burton not only illuminated the historical landscape but also discussed the challenges he faced during his research, including widespread neglect of the value of historical research. Furthermore, he emphasized that misconceptions and stereotypes surrounding Grammar Syllabuses persist, underscoring the pivotal role of historical research in dispelling such myths.

Following the presentation, a dynamic exchange unfolded between Dr. Burton and the meeting participants. Engaging discussions revolved around English course books and ELT pedagogical grammars taken from the shelves of the ELT Archive, providing a platform for shared insights and perspectives.

Xi Li : 05 Dec 2023 20:12 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem