Issue 57 Editorial & Contents

Editorial With many educational institutions taking a summer break, it seems that for many of the contributors to this issue it is a time to look back. In our main feature, Robert O’Neill reviews a number of his past beliefs about teaching and learning English and finds that he now classifies some of them as delusions. María Rosa Batlle Pou looks back at an activity she outlined in an earlier issue of ETp and explains how she has now refined and improved it to help her young learners achieve better results. Chris Rühlemann looks back at the old idea that we should aim to teach Standard English and suggests that a new forward-looking approach is needed to keep up with the times. Susan Doran remembers with affection a very first lesson that continues to work successfully for her still. When it comes to looking forward, Paul Bress advocates the teaching of words that will help us see what is coming up next in a piece of discourse. This is a skill that Ian Johnson’s students will need to acquire for the future. Many of them are looking forward to attending university in the UK, despite the fact that they are linguistically totally unprepared to do this. He looks at ways to give them the extra help they need to get their language up to the level which will be required. And looking at the present, John Hughes starts a new series on observation in the classroom. Examining closely what we do now will help us to look to the future of our continued professional development. Helena Gomm Editor MAIN FEATURE DELUSIONS AND REALITY Robert O’Neill reveals a change of heart regarding some early assumptions FEATURES EYE ON THE CLASSROOM John Hughes starts a new series on observing teachers at work THE PERFECT WAY TO UNPACK YOUR BAGGAGE Susan Doran delves into her rucksack to teach the present perfect LEARNING FOR LIFE Miguel Witte Stucht finds that neuroscience has a lot to offer the language teacher WORDS AS SIGNPOSTS Paul Bress looks further than the sentence SCAFFOLDING Vesna Nikolic structures her teaching to help build listening skills TEACHING WORD STRESS Augustin Simo Bobda proposes some short activities to improve pronunciation LANGUAGE BROKER Karen Geiger uses culture studies to mediate between students from different backgrounds IMAGES 9 Jamie Keddie goes online and exploits an unusual source of language SPECIAL STUDENTS, SPECIAL NEEDS Ian Johnson advocates extra aid for Arabic-speaking learners AUTHENTIC VERSUS STANDARD Chris Rühlemann examines the type of English we teach TEACHING YOUNG LEARNERS CLIL WITH CHILDREN Nina Lauder promotes project work with young pupils FOSTERING THINKING SKILLS María Rosa Batlle Pou revisits and improves an activity BUSINESS ENGLISH PROFESSIONAL TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED Jonathan Sweeney reveals his secret for dealing with classroom surprises TEACHER DEVELOPMENT ORGANISED COOPERATION Chunmei Yan demonstrates the usefulness of seminars for teacher development in China TECHNOLOGY TEN SERVICEABLE SITES Peter Travis offers a list of sites for materials creation WRITE RIGHT WITH WIKIS Chris Baldwin shows how to set up and use a writing wiki WEBWATCHER Russell Stannard recommends a cartoon site REGULAR FEATURES PREPARING TO TEACH ... Confusable pairs John Potts ACTIVITY CORNER: TWO ACTIVITIES FOR BUSINESS STUDENTS Jon Marks THE QUESTION OF AUTHORITY Rose Senior IT WORKS IN PRACTICE REVIEWS