livening up the history of ELT

Reading two things today has made me think of trying to liven up the style of presenting information on the Warwick ELT Archive website and in this associated blog.

* The story of A.S. Hornby as presented by OUP in marketing the Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary:

http://www.oup.com/elt/local/global/promotion/hornby?oup_jspFileName=document_full.jsp&cc=hu

This is a rather embellished account, presenting A.S. Hornby as a romantic individualist and de-emphasizing the way his work grew out of a collaborative research programme with Harold Palmer in Japan. The Warwick ELT Archive page on Hornby's life  is more accurate, but pretty dull in comparison (I thought on re-reading it)  (see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/halloffame/hornby/life). It'd be good to - and I should - add some pictures, for example!

* An interesting blog post by Mark Andrews on James Joyce as a (subversive!) Berlitz teacher, at around the time (1904) Harold Palmer was teaching with the Berlitz Method - and subverting it in his own way - in Belgium:

http://markandrews.edublogs.org/2010/02/19/did-joyce-teach-unplugged-as-an-efl-teacher-in-trieste-or-yssel-entertaining-and-talking-at-his-students-the-limatt-to-what-he-did/

I enjoyed the imagining here of how Joyce might have used to teach. My overriding impression is that both the OUP page and Mark's blog entry are very attractively presented and entertaining 'reads', making me want to 'lively up' the presentation of history of ELT on the Warwick ELT Archive site and in this blog. 

Richard Smith

Richard Smith : 06 Mar 2010 15:54 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

ELT project–related documentation

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/elt_projects/bibliography/unpublished_elt_project_evaluation_reports__in_warwick_elt_archive.pdf

We've uploaded a list of all the ELT project-related documentation that we received in the course of last year's research here:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/elt_projects/bibliography/unpublished_elt_project_evaluation_reports__in_warwick_elt_archive.pdf

Thanks to Sheila Verrier for cataloguing these!

We've also heard that our application for further British Council research funding has been approved. More details here soon.

Richard Smith : 21 Feb 2010 16:57 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Catalogue of archival / unpublished items completed!

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/catalogue/the_warwick_elt_archive_catalogue_2nd_edition_part_2.pdf

A catalogue of some of the archival / unpublished items in the Warwick ELT Archive has now been completed, and has been  uploaded to the web-page above. Dario Bodegas and Sheila Verrier have worked hard on this, and we've been greatly helped by a research grant from the British Council. Thanks, Dario, Sheila and the BC! 

Here are the Preface of this catalogue, and a summary of the contents:

Preface

In summer 2009 Dario Bodegas, who had just completed studies for his MA with us at the time, kindly agreed to begin sorting, storing in box files, cataloguing and shelving the genuinely ‘archival’ items – typescripts, newspaper cuttings, pamphlets, etc. – that the Warwick ELT Archive has acquired (see Part 1 of this catalogue for a list of books on shelves, available at: www.warwick.ac.uk/go/elt_archive/catalogue). Subsequently, Sheila Verrier built on and embellished Dario’s work, this being made possible by a British Council research grant (Jan.-Dec. 2009). By December 2009, when funding ceased, the following twenty-four box files of papers – perhaps one third of our current total collection of archival / unpublished items – had been catalogued in sufficient detail to be included here. When finances allow, we will embark on a phase two of cataloguing the archival / unpublished items in our collection and will then publish an updated version of this catalogue.

Contents

• E.T. Uldall 1-3: Three box files of miscellaneous papers donated by Elizabeth Uldall, from the Dakin Collection

• Dakin Misc 1-2: Two box files of miscellaneous papers from the Dakin Collection

• JD 1-5: Five box files of Julian Dakin’s papers from the Dakin Collection

• Survey of Language Use and Language Teaching in Eastern Africa Bulletin: One box file from the Dakin Collection

• John Bright Papers: One box file of John Bright’s papers, donated by Chris Brumfit

• P.H.C. Clarke Papers: One box file of P.H.C. Clarke’s papers, donated by Chris Brumfit

• Brumfit Papers 1-2: Two box files of Christopher Brumfit’s papers, donated by Rosamond Mitchell

• Abbs Papers 1-9: Nine box files of Brian Abbs’ papers, donated by Brian Abbs

Richard Smith : 16 Dec 2009 01:33 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Duncan Hunter – PhD thesis successfully 'defended'!

Congratulations to Duncan Hunter, who passed his viva for the award of PhD today, defending his thesis on the development of keywords in the early communicative movement in ELT, based on a corpus analysis of articles from ELT Journal (Title of thesis: 'Communicative Language Teaching and the ELT Journal: a Corpus-Based Approach to the History of a Discourse'). As a Postgraduate Research Fellow in the Centre for Applied Linguistics (formerly, Centre for English Language Teacher Education) from 2005 to 2008, Duncan was responsible for many enhancements of the Warwick ELT Archive, including setting up the 'Hall of Fame' pages on the website.

Thanks also to Chris Kennedy and Sue Wharton, the examiners of the thesis, which we hope to link to from the Archive website when minor corrections have been completed!

Richard Smith : 15 Dec 2009 23:43 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

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

2nd edition of ELT Archive catalogue uploaded

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/catalogue/the_warwick_elt_archive_catalogue_2nd_edition_part_1.pdf

A second edition of the Warwick ELT Archive Catalogue (of published materials up to 1979) has now been uploaded to:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/catalogue

Here is an extract from the Preface which indicates what is new about this edition:

Further work on cataloguing, primarily by Sheila Verrier, has been greatly facilitated by a British Council research grant (Jan.-Dec. 2009). Cataloguing conventions have been rationalized, and a large number of additional items have been incorporated into the collection from donations or storage. The present edition of the catalogue lists all items on shelves (‘published items’) by alphabetical order of author. There are now 3,643 separate published items in the catalogue (almost all of them books), up from 2,727 items in the first edition of the catalogue.

Thanks, Sheila, for all your work on this, and thanks again to The British Council for the financial support which made this possible! We'll be announcing publication of Part 2 of the catalogue later this term (this will be a catalogue of genuinely 'archival' materials).

Richard Smith : 26 Oct 2009 12:53 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Updates since April

Lots of things to report - but little time to write about them here until now!:

* The British Council project, which is helping to enhance the Archive (see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/elt_projects) is continuing till the end of December. We're about to publish a second edition of our catalogue of published items (Sheila Verrier has been doing a lot of work cleaning up the existing catalogue and adding / shelving new items). The British Council (in the person of Adrian Odell) has been sending items to add to our collection of materials relating to ELT projects. And we've developed an online database of UK-funded (in particular British Council administered) ELT projects, which we've opened to public view at: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/CELTE/eltarchive/Archive/index.php.

* Dario Banegas, an MA student from Argentina, kindly volunteered to start cataloguing our collection of 'genuinely archival materials'. Working very quickly and efficiently, he has catalogued important items including materials relating to ELT in East Africa (1960s) donated by Chris Brumfit; materials relating to the development of the Strategies coursebooks and other learning materials, donated by Brian Abbs; and items from the Dakin Collection. We'll be publishing lists of these items on the website shortly.

* The British Council has borrowed a number of items from us with a view to scanning them for their Teaching Engish website, as part of 75th anniversary celebrations.

Richard Smith : 22 Oct 2009 13:15 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Clare Bentall's (2003) PhD thesis on the STEP Project in Mozambique

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/projects/archive-elt-projects/

Many thanks to Clare Burstall, who has sent us a copy of her PhD thesis (2003) on teacher-learning in the STEP project in Mozambique. Together with Adrian Odell of the British Council we are attempting to build up a special collection of documents (in particular evaluation reports) relating to UK-funded projects over the last half-century.

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