Issue 21 Number 1, September 2011

In this edition, Ling and Kettle investigate the teaching of listening, arguing for the importance of teaching strategies which enable and extend comprehension. Through a synthesis of current research, the authors develop guidelines to help teachers better equip students to understand and respond to 'real world' oral texts.

In their contribution, Nicholas, Starks and MacDonald reflect on a day-long workshop for in-service ESL teachers, which in turn had a focus on participant reflection and self-positioning in relation to various forms of knowledge and practice. They show how the workshop developed a greater appreciation for, amongst other things, the place of student identity as a part of learning, and the value of mistakes. Their piece resonates with others in this edition in emphasising the importance of maximising opportunities for knowing one’s students as the starting point for practice, and for reflection.

Williams and Setijadi-Dunn draw on the accounts of adult migrants returning to visit homes overseas to provide an analysis of bilingual identity formation. The return to a homeland and to family makes the students in this study rethink how their lives and outlooks are changing, an experience that teachers can draw upon and use to prompt further reflection.

In the final paper in this edition, Wette investigates the role of commercially-produced materials in instruction, and takes up the question of how teachers select and make use of such materials. Surprisingly, instructional materials have received little recent attention relative to other aspects of ESL teaching. Wette examines the ways in which materials are integrated into overall teaching practice, highlighting the importance of time, resources and independence for teachers to develop their own materials appropriate to the students they face in their classrooms.

Pedagogies of Connection

Special Edition S2.
Edited by Kate Cadman, Jenny Barnett & Cally Guerin (2009).