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‘In reality it’s almost impossible’: CLT-oriented curriculum change / Simon Humphries and Anne Burns. // ELT journal. 2015, Vol. 69, No. 3.
2015.
p. 239-248.

Curriculum innovation is challenging and, as several commentators have reported, moves to introduce communicative language teaching in many contexts internationally have resulted in mixed outcomes, or even failure. In an effort to shed some light on this complex problem, this article focuses on curriculum change through the introduction of new communicative textbooks in an engineering college (kosen) in Japan. First, three key factors that inhibit change are considered and then other factors that specifically hindered change in the kosen environment are identified. A study investigating the attitudes and classroom practices of four Japanese teachers of English highlighted a culture of pedagogical uncertainty and lack of professional support. Suggestions for supporting teachers to implement curriculum change more effectively, both in Japan and elsewhere, are drawn out.
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Affordance, learning opportunities, and the lesson plan pro forma / Jason Anderson. // ELT journal. 2015, Vol. 69, No. 3.
2015.
p. 228-238.

This article argues that the most commonly used lesson plan pro formas in language teacher education are inappropriately premised on an outcomes-based approach to teaching, one that is in conflict with what we know about how languages are learnt and how experienced teachers teach. It proposes an alternative, affordance-based approach to lesson planning and makes a number of practical suggestions to modify the pro forma and its role in lesson observation. It is argued that the suggested changes encourage teachers to plan for and respond to the learning opportunities of the lesson, thereby reflecting more closely the practice of experienced language teachers and the reality of differentiated language learning. It also makes recommendations on how such a pro forma could be used in both initial certification and in-service teacher development in a wide range of learning contexts, potentially compatible with product, process, and procedural approaches to syllabus design.
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Blogging a journal: changing students’ writing skills and perceptions./ Ming Huei Lin, Ji-Jhen Li, Po Yi Hung... // ELT journal. 2014, Vol. 68, No. 4.
2014.
p. 422-431.

This article investigates the effects of blogging as an approach to journal writing in the EFL writing classroom by means of a 16-week comparative experiment involving two groups of EFL college students. The experimental group (EG) was required to blog daily while the control group (CG) was asked to do so using traditional pen-and-paper methods. The writing performance and general attitudes to and perceptions of journal writing in both groups were evaluated through a writing test and a semi-structured survey. The research results show that blogging a journal helped the students to achieve a greater improvement in their writing than did the regular pen-and-paper treatment. Additionally, although both groups developed similar learning attitudes in general, the EG experienced significantly less anxiety in writing than did the CG. This suggests that the blogging approach is an effective approach for students in developing both writing skills and learning attitudes.
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Editorial. // ELT journal. 2016, Vol. 70, No. 1.
2016.
p.1-5.

From 1946, let us fast-forward 35 years, to 1981. A key event in ELT Journal’s development was its reconfiguration that year, to reflect the growth of our field and the increasing range of insights from relatively new academic disciplines such as applied linguistics, sociology, and psychology. In his editorial (issue 36/1), incoming editor Richard Rossner (1981) reflected upon the increasing diversity of the profession and the range of contexts in which English was taught, and emphasized that it is not ‘good for the profession if individuals see themselves as mainly concerned with “theory” or only involved in “practice”’.
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Marriages of convenience? Teachers and coursebooks in the digital age / Christopher Allen. // ELT journal. 2015, Vol. 69, No. 3.
2015.
p. 249-263.

This article reports on a survey of Swedish EFL teachers’ attitudes towards, and dependence on, ELT coursebook packages in the light of recent research into digital literacy. The results showed that while ICT is making massive inroads into language classrooms in technologically advantaged countries like Sweden, the coursebook package still has its place assured among trainee teachers, at least for the immediate future. The current generation of ‘digital native’ pre-service teachers still looks to coursebook packages to structure lessons during teaching practice and as a means of providing extended reading practice in the L2. Their more experienced in-service colleagues are, however, increasingly abandoning the coursebook in favour of freestanding digital resources. Practising teachers in the survey increasingly saw coursebooks in contingency terms and as a ‘fall-back’ position. Finally, the article considers the desirability of a more fundamental abandonment of the coursebook in favour of digital tools and resources in the EFL classroom.