This website is dedicated to all English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers.
If you are looking for that ESL PDF book and can’t find it anywhere, why don’t you give it a try with this list. I know it does not contain all ESL Teaching Books out there but it can give you the opportunity to find a similar book
PDF #76 – John Algeo – The Earliest English Grammars, 1985
We who are the heirs of four hundred years of English grammar writing and who benefit from the intense recent speculation on grammatical theory (much of it focusing upon English) can hardly appreciate the difficulty faced by the earlist English grammarians.
PDF #75 – Sinclair 1988 Lexical Syllabus
An EFL syllabus is a set of headings indicating items which have been selected, by a language planner or materials writer, to be covered in a particular part of the curriculum or in a course series. Its content is usually identified in terms of language elements and linguistic or behavioural skills. Sometimes there is a methodology built into it, although syllabus and methodology are in principle distinct.
PDF #74 – Joseph Priestley – The Rudiments of English Grammar Adapted to the Use of Schools, London 1772
Language is a method of conveying our ideas to the minds of other perfons; and the grammar of any language is a collection of observations on the structure of it, and a system of rules for the proper use of it.
This article offers an overview of historical developments in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching methodology over the last 250 years. Being based on periods rather than methods, it is intended as an alternative kind of account to the ‘method mythologies’ which have tended to dominate professional thinking for the last thirty years.
Since the publication of Howatt (1984) thirty years ago there has only been a limited amount of original research into the history of English language teaching for speakers of other languages. This contrasts strongly with work in relation to French, which has burgeoned over the last twenty-five years (see Besse, this issue). The historical research studies on The History of Teaching English as a Foreign Language which have been carried out since 1984 go some way towards fulfilling Stern’s (1983: 83) call for ‘studies of particular aspects’, although much remains to be investigated. Some important monographs have been published about English teaching in particular countries, largely in languages other than English; note especially the work published in German by Klippel (1994); Lehberger (1986; 1990); and
Macht (1986; 1987; 1990). Indeed, since 2000 there has been a marked increase in substantial doctoral work on the history of English teaching in Germany (Doff, 2002; 2008; Franz, 2005; Kolb, 2013; Ruisz, 2014), mainly under the supervision of Friederike Klippel at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. In Japan, no fewer than two academic societies have existed in recent times for the history of English studies there: Nihon eigakushi gakkai (The Historical Society of English Studies in Japan) and Nihon eigokyoikushi gakkai (The Historical Society of English Teaching in Japan).
However, in the UK, just three doctoral theses over the last thirty years — to our knowledge — have adopted a fully historical approach to aspects of English language teaching (Evans, 2003; Smith, 2005a; Hunter, 2009). There has been additional foundational work by Howatt & Smith (2000; 2002) and by Smith (1999; 2003; 2005b), and the development of the ‘ELT Archive’ at the University of Warwick (<http://www.warwick.ac.uk/elt_archive>) has begun to raise consciousness of needs for historical research within the wider profession. Finally, monographs on the history of two specialist areas — EFL learner dictionaries (Cowie, 1999) and English language testing (Spolsky, 1995; Weir et al., 2013) — deserve to be highlighted, as does a recent comprehensive history of the teaching of refugees and immigrants in Britain (Rosenberg, 2007).
I am discussing some of the topics of this site in my Youtube channel.
PDF #72 – Charles Knight – William Caxton The First English Printer, London 1877
To the celebration of the Quarcentenary o f the Introduction o f Printing into England.
PDF #71 – A collection of articles on the teaching of English as a foreign language 2006
Are teachers born or made? – Penny Ur
Language learning in the classroom – Donn Byrne
Second language acquisition research and task-based instruction – Peter Skehan
A task-based approach to oral work – Peter Moor
Some misconceptions about communicative language teaching – Geoff Thompson
Method, antimethod, postmethod – B. Kumaravadivelu
Ten basic propositions – Marion Williams and Robert L. Burden
Breaking taboos – Guy Cook
How to be a boring teacher – Luke Prodromou
one of the Articles on the teaching of English:
Are teachers born or made?
Penny Ur
Plenary Talk, IATEFL Conference Brighton 1997.
IATEFL Newsletter 1998.
The phrase ‘a born teacher’ is not usually meant to be taken literally. People who use it do not seriously mean that someone is born with a certain teaching DNA configuration in their genes. They are, rather, referring to stable personality characteristics, resulting from a combination of innate and environmental influences, that the teacher brings to their professional practice and that produce something that looks like a natural bent for teaching.
Is there such a thing?
What evidence do we have for the existence of ‘born teachers’?
The existence of the phrase
First there is the actual existence of the phrase as an immediately recognisable collocation in English. Compare born engineer or born scientist. The mere fact that the expression is a recognisable cliché that slides easily off the tongue implies that the concept is popularly accepted and based on folk wisdom.
What the professionals say
But beyond folk wisdom, what do professionals think? I asked two groups of teachers, a group of 20 novices and a group of 25 experienced, competent professionals whether they thought there was such a thing, and if so, whether they were themselves ‘born teachers’. The inexperienced teachers were almost unanimously positive in their answers to both questions. The experienced teachers were more cautious, though still a majority (80%) thought there was indeed such a thing; but only 32% thought they were definitely born teachers themselves, 28% said they weren’t and 40% were uncertain. So in general: yes, teachers think there is such a thing.
And many more, just like this one. I am also discussing some of the topics of this site in my Youtube channel.
Vocabulary is the basis of language, but memorizing new words has always been a hard job for all English learners. This paper was written based on the theories on lexical chunk by Lewis and other scholars, and the experiment conducted on my own teaching class. The paper explored the function of lexical chunks, types of lexical chunk, high frequency lexical chunks, the differences between lexical chunks in English and Chinese, and how to implement the method of lexical chunk teaching.
PDF #69 – Mark B Ulla – English language teaching in Thailand Filipino teachers experiences and perspectives
English language teaching and learning is vital for the development of the country and its people. In Thailand, English language teaching has become one of the most popular jobs both for native and non-native English speaker-teachers. However, only a few studies have been conducted to identify and describe English language education in theThailand.
After reading “Learning an L2 in a troubled world” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.
PDF #68 – L G Kelly – 25 centuries of language teaching
In a coherent system of education the approach to any discipline is governed by four factors: the aim of the system as a whole, the relevance of the discipline under discussion, theoretical findings in the sciences on which the discipline rests, and the availability of research results to teachers in the classroom.
Language education is the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language. It is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: communicative competencies, proficiencies, cross-cultural experiences, and multiple literacies.
Increasing globalization has created a great need for people in the workforce who can communicate in multiple languages. Common languages are used in areas such as trade, tourism, international relations, technology, media, and science. Many countries such as Korea (Kim Yeong-seo, 2009), Japan (Kubota, 1998) and China (Kirkpatrick & Zhichang, 2002) frame education policies to teach at least one foreign language at the primary and secondary school levels. However, some countries such as India, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan, and the Philippines use a second official language in their governments. According to GAO (2010), China has recently been putting enormous importance on foreign language learning, especially the English language.
After reading “25 centuries of language teaching” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.
PDF #68 – Lars Sigfred Evensen – Applied Linguistics Towards a New Integration, 2013
What does it mean to be an applied linguist, or doing applied linguistics? No easy answer is currently at hand, even after two generations of intellectual work.
You can check more on Applied Linguistics in this link, and I am discussing some of the topics of this site in my Youtube channel.