Tag: books

Scott Thornbury: Beyond the Sentence

If you are an English teacher involved in professional development, you have most likely come across Scott Thornbury’s work. I remember that when I was chatting with other teachers right after finishing my Delta Module One exam, one of them found something relevant on his phone and exclaimed, ‘Bloody Thornbury again!’ He has written so many books, articles and blog posts that when you search for ELT-related information on Google, Thornbury’s name will probably appear

What I really like about Scott Thornbury is that he isn’t afraid to challenge the status quo. His ideas inspired me to start experimenting with the Dogme approach in my classes, which seems to work surprisingly well even when teaching online. I also recommend that you read his article Window-dressing vs cross-dressing in the EFL sub-culture. It’s common to encounter texts dealing with those topics now, but Thornbury wrote it in 1999, and I think that he deserves a lot of respect for that. All in all, he comes across as a genuinely good guy. He has written plenty of good books, but if I had to choose one that I enjoyed the most, it would be Beyond the Sentence.

Scott Thornbury: Beyond the Sentence

When I was at university, I took one semester of CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis). Since I studied journalism, we focused mainly on the media and analysed how one event is reported differently depending on the newspaper’s political leaning. Even though I found it quite interesting, I still didn’t fully understand what discourse was. It started to make sense to me only after becoming an English teacher. When I decided to study for Delta Module One, I knew that it was necessary to explore the subject of discourse much more, and Beyond the Sentence was recommended to me as a must-read.

As its name implies, this book invites you to go further than individual lexical and grammatical items. We use language to achieve something, and focusing only on single sentences isn’t enough. This has clear implications for language teaching because we have to think of the context in which communication takes place. Asking students to fill out exercises full of random sentences without any connection to each other probably isn’t the most motivating way to teach English.

I think that discourse is one of those ideas that aren’t that easy to grasp because it involves so many concepts. Fortunately, Thornbury is very thorough when it comes to terminology and providing practical examples. Words like cohesion, coherence, theme and rheme don’t sound very exciting, but Beyond the Sentence makes their importance perfectly clear. I guess that all Delta candidates are familiar with the phrase ‘activating schemata’, which is something we use in our teaching practice all the time.

What I really like about this book is that there are some genuinely funny moments in it. Scott Thornbury is a frequent speaker at conferences, and as you can see in this talk about methods, he is a very witty man. He can’t resist including humorous comments in his books, and that’s always nice to see. In Beyond the Sentence, he points out how contrived and unnatural some coursebook texts are, so there is no need to take them too seriously. Even if you are expected to use a coursebook in your classes, you don’t have to use the texts exactly as they were intended. When I see a stilted dialogue in a coursebook, I sometimes ask my students to create a backstory for the characters or come up with an alternative ending, which is always good fun.

Thornbury seems to enjoy referring to news articles, particularly from tabloids, which is another way of making English learning a more interesting experience for your students. Authentic texts, if utilised correctly, can definitely serve as a helpful resource. Even when you are supposed to teach something like the passive voice, showing real-life examples of how and why it is used is better than just doing gap-fill exercises. Beyond the Sentence also deals with ideology in texts, which is another area worth exploring.

I really like the fact that the book includes useful text-adaptation strategies and other ideas that can be used in your teaching practice. Beyond the Sentence has provided me with plenty of inspiration for my own lessons, particularly when it comes to teaching writing. I was a little worried that a book about discourse might be a bit too academic for me, but Thornbury managed to write it in a way that helps you understand the subject and its practical implications. Beyond the Sentence is a great book for developing teachers and you certainly won’t regret reading it.

► If you enjoyed this blog post, I recommend that you read More Than a Gap Year Adventure, a collaborative book aimed at those who wish to have a long-term career in our profession.

Michael Lewis: The English Verb

We are used to having access to all kinds of information on the internet, so it’s quite surprising to see that finding something about one of the most fascinating people in ELT isn’t an easy task. Michael Lewis doesn’t have a Wikipedia page and you can’t watch his talks on YouTube. All we have online are a few snippets from blog posts and comments made by people who knew him.

Let me share my favourite discoveries: Lewis was called an ‘ELT recluse’ and ‘fashionably dressed beat poet’ (here); he was fuming at Scott Thornbury because of what the latter wrote in his book (here); he enjoyed scolding people for irrelevant questions and also managed to ‘send Italian academic gurus into rage’ (here). After his death in March 2019, The TEFLology Podcast compiled all known biographical information on Lewis on this page.

Michael Lewis: The English Verb

Not only did Michael Lewis lead an eventful life, but he was also a brilliant author. His most famous book is The Lexical Approach, which was first published in 1993. Lewis tackles various topics in it and provides valid criticism of coursebooks and the traditional grammar syllabus. English learners are expected to know the rules of reported speech and conditionals in order to pass exams, but when they travel to English-speaking countries, they are surprised to hear the locals use ‘incorrect’ expressions that don’t conform to the rules stated in coursebooks. Lewis also makes some really important observations about pre-service teacher training courses like the CELTA in The Lexical Approach.

Interestingly, the man who promoted prioritising lexis in language teaching had previously written a book on grammar. It may all sound like a contradiction, but let me tell you that The English Verb is anything but a typical grammar reference book. In fact, it’s one of the most thought-provoking ELT titles I have ever read. Its premise is simple: English grammar is taught incorrectly and there is a better way. Michael Lewis certainly didn’t shy away from making strong statements.

The English Verb isn’t just a rant about the state of English teaching. Lewis provides clear examples of what’s wrong and proposes solutions. One of his pet peeves was unhelpful terminology. For example, why do we keep talking about ‘past participles’ when they can be used to talk about the present and the future? That’s unnecessarily confusing for students, and Lewis suggests that it would be more helpful to refer to them as ‘compound forms’.

Lewis also mentions the fact that learners are sometimes taught incorrect rules. He uses ‘some’ and ‘any’ as an example. It’s common to see a coursebook claim that ‘some’ is used just in positive sentences, and that ‘any’ appears only in questions and negative sentences. Students are taught that rule even though it’s blatantly untrue. According to Lewis, teachers often provide unhelpful explanations and write off deviations from the norm as ‘exceptions’, which makes students think that learning English is an extremely difficult task.

The main portion of the book deals with verbs. Lewis wasn’t a fan of approaches that list different uses of each verb form, so he decided to create explanations that cover all the uses. Why do we use present progressive to talk about actions happening right now and also for future arrangements? Lewis came up with some mind-blowing ideas to describe why that happens. I was really impressed by his analysis, which helped me understand English grammar a little more. It’s very important to emphasise that The English Verb isn’t a book for students; it is aimed at open-minded teachers who wish to improve their language awareness.

There are also a few glimpses of ideas that would be later developed in The Lexical Approach. For example, Lewis wasn’t impressed by describing let’s as part of ‘the imperative’ and suggested dealing with it as a lexical item. By the way, when Merriam-Webster selected ‘they’ as Word of the Year 2019, I immediately remembered The English Verb because Michael Lewis promoted using the singular ‘they’ more than 30 years before that. He was an innovative thinker who didn’t like seeing language restricted by unnecessary rules.

Even though The English Verb focuses on a serious topic, it’s an entertaining read. Lewis was an outspoken person and he was more than happy to express his disdain when he didn’t like something. Nowadays, you can see Twitter spats between academics on just about any topic, but I think it’s too easy to call somebody a fool online. Lewis was at the peak of his powers before the internet, so he had to settle scores the old school way. His book is full of digs at other writers, and it’s obvious that Lewis enjoyed tearing their work apart. ELT literature doesn’t always provide a lot of excitement, so it’s always great to encounter little gems like The English Verb that are both informative and entertaining.

► If you enjoyed this blog post, I recommend that you read More Than a Gap Year Adventure, a collaborative book aimed at those who wish to have a long-term career in our profession.