Supporting Independence:Teaching English to young learners within a three-stage learning journey
Part 1

This article will consider three stages which young language learners travel through, from being highly dependent on the teacher, then becoming supportive and actively contributing input into the activities they are involved in in the classroom, until finally learners become independent users of the target language.The final stage of independence is usually a long way down the language learning road for most of our learners and, it would seem, with young language learners the majority of teaching and learning takes place within the second or middle stage of this three-stage journey – the supported independence stage.

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Have you ever wondered about ...
... the aims of teaching? In simple terms the aim of a lesson details the teacher’s intention for that particular lesson. It is often the first and foremost statement of a lesson plan against which the success of the lesson will be judged. An aim usually specifies one or more of the following: •a language point to be learnt or practised e.g. “to present and practise the present perfect” •a language function to be mastered e.g. “to introduce and give practice in the use of “should” for giving advice •a feature of pronunciation to be highlighted e.g. “to emphasise the use of rising intonation in question tags” •a skill to be developed e.g. “to practise reading gist”

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Erwin Rommel – in the ELT Classroom
No, that’s not me in the black-and-white pictures… I rarely wear a uniform in class and I have yet to receive my Field Marshall’s baton! This is Erwin Rommel (ER). He is my hero* – which only goes to show that some men never outgrow certain stages! ER – aka ‘the Desert Fox’ – was the most brilliant tactician of WW II. His exploits were simply unbelievable! Yet I can sense you are already wondering ‘What could all this possibly have to do with teaching??’ Much more than would appear at first sight. Read on.

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The Campaign for “Disable-Access Friendly” Schools
I first of all would like to thank the ELTnews for reprinting the article “A day in the life of a disabled person” first published in Athens news. Issue No. 13,368. As we sit and read such articles, it is all too easy to acknowledge the systemic failures within our country’s domestic infrastructure and platitudes rather than action regarding its treatment of disabled persons. However, before any moral high ground is taken, and I promise that from my position it would be difficult to take any higher ground, just look around yourself now. Are you sitting in the school, the teacher’s room, the owner’s office, or an empty classroom?

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