Interview
Joan Saslow
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Joan Saslow has taught English as a Foreign Language
and English as a Second Language to adults and young
adults in both South America and the United States.
Ms. Saslow is the series director of Longman's popular
five-level adult series True Colors. She has been
an author, an editor of language teaching materials,
a teacher-trainer, and a frequent speaker at gatherings
of EFL and ESL teachers for over thirty years.
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Allen Ascher
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Allen Ascher has been a teacher and teacher-trainer
in both China and the United States, as well as an administrator
and a publisher. Mr. Ascher played a key role in the
creation of some of the most widely used materials for
adults, including: True Colors, NorthStar, Focus on
Grammar, Global Links, and Ready to Go. He is author
of the popular Think about Editing: A Grammar Editing
Guide for ESL Writers.(2003), published by Heinle &
Heinle. |
Their latest co-authorship is titled Top Notch (2005), published
by Pearson Longman. "Top Notch is a dynamic six-level course
for international communication with the flexibility to fit
any teaching situation."
Source: Longman.
Joan Saslow and Allen Ascher conducted this interview by e-mail with
former ELT News editor Mark McBennett in December 2005.
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ELT: Allen, first to you. You seem to wear many hats:
teacher, teacher-trainer, author, administrator and publisher.
You seem to be best known as the author of Think about Editing:
A Grammar Editing Guide for ESL Writers. Can you tell us
a bit about that popular book?
AA: In terms of my many hats, I believe I'm very
fortunate to have had the opportunity to view materials
writing from a number of different perspectives, as well
to have met and heard about the experiences of so many teachers
around the world. Think About Editing was written out of
my experience teaching writing to intermediate students.
I found (as most teachers do) that, although students had
had previous exposure to key basic grammar points, they
still continued to make errors with that grammar in their
writing. The book was designed to raise their "grammar
awareness" so they could self-correct more readily
- an approach I found worked successfully in my classes.
It has been very rewarding to hear from a number of teachers
using the text that they have observed significant results.
ELT: And Joan, you're no slouch either! Your resume
includes jobs such as teacher, teacher-trainer, editor,
and public speaker, with your teaching experience varying
from EFL in Chile to workplace English at a General Motors
auto assembly plant in New York. What aspect of your work
gives you the most satisfaction?
JS: It may seem strange, but I consider all aspects
of my experience part of the same whole. It's hard for me
to separate teaching, teacher-training, and authorship of
textbooks and courses for teachers. Each of my "jobs"
informs the others. In fact, I don't think I would be able
to create materials without having had the experience of
teaching and working with teachers who use my materials
and the materials of other authors. Similarly, my work as
a teacher and teacher-trainer is enhanced by my ability
to get maximum benefit from materials. And when I am asked
to speak to groups of teachers, I like to think that the
integration of my teaching experience into the authorship
of my published works is the reason I am asked to speak.
I hope this is the value that participants in my workshops
derive from them.
ELT: And how did you both come to work together on
your new series, Top Notch?
Answered by Joan for both Allen and Joan: We have
worked together as editors on a variety of projects since
1993, beginning with Longman's Focus on Grammar series.
We next collaborated in the editorial directorship of the
True Colors series. Allen was my editor on Workplace Plus
and Literacy Plus, and through the years we have developed
the shared belief that materials need to be specialized
to the needs of learners and teachers in either the "ESL"
or the "EFL settings, not both. In other words, we
are convinced the reality of the EFL setting requires materials
specifically dedicated to that reality. We have always enjoyed
working together and, over the years, developed a successful
working relationship based on a shared background, professional
and personal trust, and mutual respect. Our co-authorship
of Top Notch grew out of our common experience of years
of teaching English in settings where the classroom was
the only source of input and practice?the "EFL setting"?Allen's
in China, and mine in Chile.
ELT:The publicity for Top Notch says that it "sets a new
standard using the natural language that people really speak"
and that it "empowers and motivates like no other course."
Can you elaborate on those claims?
Answered by Joan for both Allen and Joan: That's
brochure "advertising-ese" (and a little embarrassing!)
for describing two important aspects of Top Notch: the use
of corpora and the analysis and inclusion of conversation
strategies. As you may know, Top Notch is a corpus-informed
course backed by the extensive database of the Longman Corpus
Network and it uses both the Longman Spoken Corpus as well
as the Learners' Corpus of Common Learner errors. In addition,
Top Notch is also based on use of a broader, more informal
corpus of spoken and written language including authentic
interviews, real conversations, and authentic texts to ensure
that conversation strategies are well understood and applied.
It is commonly accepted that conversation strategies must
be part of a spoken syllabus?strategies such as ways to
keep a conversation going, ways to soften conflict, etc.
The mastery of conversation strategies is one aspect of
"empowerment" (again "advertising-ese"!).
We believe building conversation strategies into practical
conversation models for productive manipulation and personalization
provides students the social confidence to communicate with
others in a new language.
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