Comments on: ESL Industry Broken? http://teacherindevelopment.blogsome.com/2008/11/19/esl-industry-broken/ The life and times of an English teacher in Mexico City Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:59:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha by: Alex Case http://teacherindevelopment.blogsome.com/2008/11/19/esl-industry-broken/#comment-655 Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:14:07 +0000 http://teacherindevelopment.blogsome.com/2008/11/19/esl-industry-broken/#comment-655 There are some very interesting points there (and of course I don't mean only my own!) What you are suggesting is similar to an ESP approach, and hard core ESP teachers once suggested that there is "no such thing as General English". Nobody seriously makes this claim anymore, though, and even most Business English classes in the world have students who rarely use English or are least interested in learning the language that they actually use. Still, despite having as many contradictions as a General English/ textbook approach, I found training as a Business/ ESP teacher (I did an earlier version of the LCCI TEB course) definitely made me a better teacher in all my class- including kids! Another way of looking at the fact that students using English in their lives is the best way to learn is to make sure they get those opportunities with learner training etc. As I have just learnt from reading The Experience of Language Teaching, the CELTA (and even DELTA) model of learning training is full of false assumptions too, but slipping it into the other topics you do etc can't hurt. Anyhow, thought provoking as ever and great to see you blogging again- even when you weren't I visited this blog more than most! There are some very interesting points there (and of course I don’t mean only my own!) What you are suggesting is similar to an ESP approach, and hard core ESP teachers once suggested that there is “no such thing as General English”. Nobody seriously makes this claim anymore, though, and even most Business English classes in the world have students who rarely use English or are least interested in learning the language that they actually use. Still, despite having as many contradictions as a General English/ textbook approach, I found training as a Business/ ESP teacher (I did an earlier version of the LCCI TEB course) definitely made me a better teacher in all my class- including kids!

Another way of looking at the fact that students using English in their lives is the best way to learn is to make sure they get those opportunities with learner training etc. As I have just learnt from reading The Experience of Language Teaching, the CELTA (and even DELTA) model of learning training is full of false assumptions too, but slipping it into the other topics you do etc can’t hurt.

Anyhow, thought provoking as ever and great to see you blogging again- even when you weren’t I visited this blog more than most!

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