Dear HLT Readers

I trust you are doing fine and that you and your nearest and dearest are doing well.

Welcome to the December issue. First let me share some Pilgrims news.

We are buzzing with ideas and doing our best to adapt to the new conditions. We do hope we will be able to resume f2f training soon, but in the meantime we want to stay in touch and keep sharing. We are going to launch the Pilgrims Café, hope to launch our short sessions (at last!) … and our summer programme is available online at www.pilgrims.co.uk .

For more go to Pilgrims News by Chaz Pugliese, Director of Education, Head of Teacher Training, Pilgrims.

This issue of HLT offers a wealth of articles. The main strands in this issue are: online teaching (Three Ideas  For Making A Success of Online Teaching by Christopher Walker, Humanising Distance Teaching and Teacher Training by Marina Marinova, Blogging to Enhance ESL Teaching/Learning by Rasha Osman  Abdel Haliem Osman), teacher training (Twelve Important Traits of an Ideal EFL Teacher by Brooks Slaybaugh and Authenticity of Language Teacher: A Cinderella Concept in ELT by Amir Sarkeshikian) and coaching (Not Listening – an Apology: Listening Authentically in the Context of Ontological Coaching for Adult ESOL Users and Ontological Coaching for ESOL Speakers in Professional Life, both by Robert Feather).

In this issue the 21^st Century Skills section is devoted to ecology and sustainability: Fish is Fish – Making the Most of a Story with a Twist by Uwe Pohl, Forests and Climate Change in Canada by Bill Bhaneja, On Activating Students’ Background Knowledge: Marine Debris by Radhwan Munir Ahmed, and Working Towards Peace through Peace Education and Transnational Writing Education byJimalee Sowell, US and Danning Liang.  

There are great lesson ideas in: ‘Speaking’ in Isolation: 20 Topics to Get Your Students to Speak in Class or Online by Sezgi Yalın, Improvised Story Telling by Peter Dyer, Plurilingual Storytelling, Rosmarie de Monte Frick, and some ideas with the seasonal/ Christmas flavour: Ten Tips and Ideas for Your Christmas Lessons From ETpedia  and Christmas Cracker Drill.

In Short Book Reviews byHanna Kryszewska you can find out about strictly EFL titles as well as titles by teachers and educators from other fields who have much to offeer to and share with ELT teachers. Don’t let me have to encourage you twice to dip into the reviews. The titles are truly very inspiring.

Enjoy the December issue with all its wonderful texts from all over the world.

To finish I would like to say this:

May the New Year bring the much desired change for the better, health, stability, social contacts, closeness and sense of safety; things we used to take so much for granted. Remember a lot of it is in our hands, in the  way we think about the global and local situation, and how we deal with the challenge. In less than a month 2020 will be over at last!

All the best in 2021. These simple words have more meaning than ever before.

Until the next issue...

 

Hania Kryszewska

HLT Editor

hania.kryszewska@pilgrims.co.uk