In episode 25, Mike and Leo chat with the great Jane Willis. Jane started her career teaching French in Ghana and has since worked extensively overseas (Cyprus, Iran, and Singapore) as an English teacher and trainer. She began writing in Iran with Teaching English Through English, for local teachers who found it difficult speaking English in their classes.
She has run teacher development courses and taken part in ELT consultancies in many countries, including China, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Middle East, South America, and Europe. She especially enjoys working with teachers of Foreign Languages who want to adopt a task-based approach
Jane recently completed and published "Winning the Grammar Wars – what grammar really is and how we use it" - a book her late husband Dave Willis started - which describes English in a holistic way and provides a broad overview for teachers, parents, and educators.
In this episode, Jane delves into all things teaching, including:
- Her early beginnings in teaching (4:00)
- One of her first books "Teaching English through English" (10:00)
- The COBUILD syllabus
- The restrictions course books put on training the next generation of teachers (26:00)
- Why Task-based Language Teaching (38:30)
- Why TBLT isn't PPP upside down (53:30)
- TBLT with beginners (56:30)
- If TBLT is appropriate for all teachers (1:01:30)
- The latest Willis book "Winning the Grammar Wars" (1:07:30)
- What an input-rich course would look like (1:33:00)
- Raising Bilingual Children (1:39:00)
Contact Jane Willis:
Via her website
Her list of works from her personal website
Read "Winning the Grammar Wars," which Jane finished after Dave's passing.
See many more resources referenced in this episode on our website.
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