ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Peter Viney

Chuck Sandy

Panelists: Peter | Chuck | Marc
Date: December 2002
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Topic: "Were there any crucial events or people in the development of you as a teacher? Any heroes or bums?"

Peter Viney

This would end up as a novel if I answered it in full. The list of heroes is long. The list of bums equally as long, and what I'd have to say might be libellous. And in British English, bums means buttocks, so I have assumed that we're using the American meaning.

“Lieutenant-Colonel W. ... was a fount of highly suspect, out-of-date prejudice about the language.”

I started teaching during my summer vacations from university. Here on the South coast of England you sell ice-creams on the beach from age 15 to 18, and teach English at backdoor summer schools from age 19 to 22. For three years, I taught groups of German students from 9 a.m. to 12.30, mainly from Beatles and Paul Simon records. Then I spent the afternoon plowing through my long American Studies reading list on the beach. Then I did lights at the summer season variety shows in the evening.

So, it was from The Beatles in the morning, to Emerson and Thoreau in the afternoon, to seaside comedians in the evening. The major influence on my teaching was not Henry David, nor John and Paul, but studying the timing and delivery at the shows. You try watching a major star telling the same jokes, twice a night for twelve weeks. There is a skill and craft to it that is invaluable to the teacher. You became aware that there were skills of delivery that were not bound to the material to be delivered.

When I started teaching full-time at Anglo-Continental, my initial training consisted of watching two great teachers (and subsequently writers) ­ Colin Granger and Guy Wellman. Both are wonderful actors. Colin taught me that involving contextualization is vital, and that what you draw out of a class is directly proportional to the energy you put in. Guy taught me how to listen. He could listen with such attention that students found themselves speaking non-stop in his lessons.

Then my first Director of Studies at Anglo-Continental was a major influence. Alan McInnes taught me how to prepare step-by-step teacher's notes that were actually useful in the classroom, and gave me my first chance working in the research and development department. He also taught me the basic theories of English grammar over morning coffee and lunch!

I'd better have one bum. In the early 70s, retired military gentlemen abounded in British ELT schools. Lieutenant-Colonel W. patrolled the school as a self-appointed arbiter of the language, and was a fount of highly suspect, out-of-date prejudice about the language. He once tore up my carefully typed master sheet of exercises because some questions ended with prepositions. I used to quote Sir Winston Churchill, who when confronted with the same supposed "rule" said, 'This is a rule up with which I shall not put.'

Colonel W., who would not tolerate the title 'Mr' nor Sir Winston's name being taken in vain, had an eagle-eye for split infinitives and flew into a rage when I pointed out the long list of great writers who had used them (including Coleridge, Donne, Goldsmith, George Eliot, Burns, Browning and Shaw). In other words, he knew absolutely nothing about the contemporary English language, which didn't stop him from interfering. He was also prone to frequently mention his starring role in World War II, which he did in all the wrong places and at the wrong times to the wrong students. He was a thoroughly nasty piece of work. *

Back to the heroes. As a coursebook writer, I'd name several influences. Colin Granger again on humorous contexts. Louis Alexander's "First Things First" taught me how to break up a syllabus into manageable points in a logical order from simple to complex. Robert O'Neill's "English in Situations" and "Kernel Lessons" were hugely influential in how to explain, situationalize, draw out the important issues. I got to know Robert and have seen him speak many times in joint travels for OUP, and he is one of the few in our profession who fully deserves the title of an "ELT guru".

Last, but by no means least, is my co-author on "Streamline", Bernie Hartley who died recently in October 2002. Bernie had spent years defining the micro-skills of teaching, things like eye contact, stance in the classroom, question techniques and so on. This echoed my own interest which had started watching those professional comedians. Bernie was deeply fascinated by formulas and fixed expressions and the place of collocation in teaching. In many ways, he foresaw much of the current interest in 'lexical chunks.' And in thirty years of watching great teachers and presenters, I never saw anyone better than Bernie.

* Spot the split infinitive!

Panelists: Peter | Chuck | Marc

Peter Viney, Freelance ELT Author

Co-author of New American Streamline & Grapevine. Peter's Web site

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