{"id":360,"date":"2019-06-14T15:18:01","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T14:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/?p=360"},"modified":"2019-06-14T15:21:20","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T14:21:20","slug":"teaching-english-summer-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/14\/teaching-english-summer-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching English, Summer 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The latest issue of <em>Teaching English<\/em>, N.A.T.E.&#8217;s magazine, dropped through our letterbox this morning and is a always a welcome insight into the best thinking of English teachers&#8217; professional association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a magazine I always look forward to reading. The theme of this issue is using self-research to develop classroom practice. Among the articles, I found these ones most interesting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>ICT: Opportunity Missed<\/em> by Trevor Millum<\/strong> &#8211; an article that examines what&#8217;s happening to the use of digital tech in English classrooms. Millum says the &#8220;over the last 10 years, ICT has been undergoing something of a crisis in English schools&#8221;. His analysis seems accurate to me: the axing of BECTA, the perception that digital tech isn&#8217;t needed in English classrooms and budget cuts. He argues that this is different in other parts of the UK. I agree with Millum&#8217;s concerns about the way that big corporations are influencing pedagogy. He suggests that established constants, like word processors, that can be used in all aspects of English study and composition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Confronting Gradgrind: Employability and English<\/em> by Robert Eaglestone<\/strong> &#8211; looks at why numbers of students studying English at A-level and university is in decline. Dickens&#8217; Gradgrind is used to illustrate the current perception of education simply being about employability. Eaglestone goes on to use examples to show how English is advantageous in furthering a career, citing Google&#8217;s Project Oxygen and the company&#8217;s desire to recruit employees with skills in &#8220;communication, collaboration, critical thinking, independence and adaptability&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>39 Steps&#8230; To Engaging With Poetry<\/em> by Trevor Millum and Chris Warren<\/strong> &#8211; here are steps 13-15 of what has been an incredibly useful series so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>The Case for Language<\/em> by Dan Clayton<\/strong> &#8211; reminds us how important teaching Knowledge About Language is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Rethinking KS3: A Novel Approach<\/em> by Barbara Bleiman<\/strong> &#8211; a fantastic report on teaching a novel with Year 9 classes. I liked the way in which the department developed a shared (planned) approach to the novel, group work, no explicit planning &#8211; or teaching &#8211; to a test, encouragement of broader written responses rather than tightly structured ones. There were positive outcomes, most notably that boys were more engaged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest issue of Teaching English, N.A.T.E.&#8217;s magazine, dropped through our letterbox this morning and is a always a welcome insight into the best thinking of English teachers&#8217; professional association. It&#8217;s a magazine I always look forward to reading. The theme of this issue is using self-research to develop classroom practice. Among the articles, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363,"href":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions\/363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyhollingsbee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}