recent acquisitions

Writing about web page http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/elt_archive

We're very grateful to Robert Phillipson for donating the tapes of interviews with ELT professionals he made in the course of researching the thesis which became Linguistic Imperialism (Oxford University Press, 1992). He handed these over to me at the BAAL (British Association of Applied Linguistics) conference in Aberdeen and we'll be both digitalizing them and requesting permission from some of the interviewees for their interviews to be made public and even put online.

Another welcome development at the BAAL conference - approval was given to transferring the records BAAL has kept relating to its own history to the Warwick ELT Archive, some time in the near future. These will complement the documents we already have relating to the early history of applied linguistics in the UK, particularly at Edinburgh.

Richard Smith : 13 Sep 2010 19:58 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

British Council project update

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

select_bibliography_1980_onwards_11.7.10.pdf

unpublished_elt_project_evaluation_reports_and_bowers_papers.docx

I've just sent an update to the British Council about our Jan-Dec. 2010 project 'Building an archive and a record of the history of British Council involvement with ELT, 1934­-2009’. Achievements so far this year (against project aims) have included:

·        cataloguing and shelving of remaining published material

The main catalogue now contains 4,458 entries (up from 3,643 entries at the end of 2009). A Third Edition of the catalogue will be published online at the end of the year.

A list of 525 duplicate pre-1980 publications has been made and circulated to RIE South India in the first instance (for a possible donation of historical material).

We have also catalogued a selection of 1980+ publications, with a focus on British Council publications (currently, 176 items) – attached above

·        completion of cataloguing of unpublished materials

The catalogue of unpublished materials now extends to 37 box files (up from 24 at the end of 2009). A Third Edition of the catalogue will be published online at the end of the year. A sample of work completed so far this year (catalogue of all unpublished reports on British Council administered projects received during last year’s project, plus Roger Bowers papers) is attached above

   ·        gaining permission to republish or publish for the first time selected published and unpublished items (books, reports, photographs and interviews)

·        when permissions are granted, scanning or otherwise digitalising, and then uploading selected items to our website; otherwise, encouraging/enabling copyright holders to upload to their own websites

Scanning of selected unpublished items (photographs and autobiographical accounts) has begun recently, and permissions have begun to be gained for uploading some of these materials by the end of the year. Support is continuing for the British Council’s own ‘Milestones in ELT’ scanning initiative. Links have been made on the website to further documentation of the career of Lionel Billows.

·        publicising the Warwick ELT Archive to the wider ELT community

Publicity has been gained via presentations at IATEFL and to Accreditation UK inspectors; also, a forthcoming presentation at the BAAL conference.

The research dimension of the proposed project involves systematically increasing the stock of knowledge relating to the overall history of British Council involvement with ELT, 1934­-2009, by means of:

·        systematic review of both secondary and primary sources in our collection

This process has begun, with an initial focus on British Council support for the establishment of applied linguistics and other postgraduate ELT teacher training in the UK; also, support for the South India MELT campaign and Bangalore project.

·        recording, transcription and analysis of interviews with selected informants

Transcripts have been made of reminiscences by Council officers which are already in the Archive collection (specifically, Bernard Lott and L.A. Hill).

·        continued updating of the UK-funded ELT Projects database

There has been some updating as a result of information received following publicity within the British Council network.

Richard Smith : 12 Jul 2010 02:36 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Lionel Billows (1909–2004) in Hall of Fame

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/halloffame/billows/

This is not 'new' news, but I've been away from this blog for a while. Back in May I created pages for Lionel Billows (1909-2004) within the Archive website 'Hall of Fame', incorporating biographical details, along with a good photograph courtesy of Hans-Joachim Lechler. There are also links to further information on pages maintained by Professor Burkhard Leuschner, to a blog entry by Mark Andrews and associated personal reminiscence by Rod Bolitho, and to an unpublished account of 'A crash education programme - the Madras snowball' (uploaded on Prof. Leuschner's site).

Another candidate for induction into the Hall of Fame might be L.G. Alexander, author of New Concept English among many other books (I've just come across an interesting article in English Today (no. 78, 20/2, April 2004) describing a statue erected in his memory in Beijing.

Any other suggestions for candidates gratefully received!

Richard Smith : 12 Jul 2010 02:29 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

TESOL Quarterly back issues donated

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

Thanks to Ros Mitchell for donating some copies of TESOL Quarterly not yet in our collection.

See http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collect/elt_archive/cataloguefor details of other journal issues we're interested in acquiring

Richard Smith : 29 Mar 2010 16:36 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

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