Abstract
Rethinking and reinventing practices
The pandemic and its aftermath have seen many of us pausing to take stock: reconsidering and reflecting on our teaching methods, whether online or face to face. In this talk I’ll discuss one focus of my own reflections: a reconsideration of the value of some conventional classroom procedures (grammar drills, for example) that have been rejected by many teachers and methodologists, perhaps mainly because they are associated with ‘old-fashioned’ methods. I’ll take a look at a number of these practices and suggest that maybe we need to ‘reinvent’ rather than discard them. Some more examples: the presentation-practice-
The pandemic and its aftermath have seen many of us pausing to take stock: reconsidering and reflecting on our teaching methods, whether online or face to face. In this talk I’ll discuss one focus of my own reflections: a reconsideration of the value of some conventional classroom procedures (grammar drills, for example) that have been rejected by many teachers and methodologists, perhaps mainly because they are associated with ‘old-fashioned’ methods. I’ll take a look at a number of these practices and suggest that maybe we need to ‘reinvent’ rather than discard them. Some more examples: the presentation-practice-
Biodata
Penny Ur is an experienced English teacher at primary and secondary level in Israel, and has lectured and published extensively on English-teaching methodology. Her main interest is the design and use of practical classroom language-teaching procedures and materials, on which she has written a number of books, including Five minute activities (with Andrew Wright) (1991), Grammar practice activities (2nd Edition)(2009), Vocabulary activities (2012), A course in English language teaching (2nd Edition) (2012), Discussions and more (2014), Penny Ur’s 100 tips (2016), Penny Ur’s 77 tips for vocabulary teaching (2022), all published by Cambridge University Press.
Penny Ur is an experienced English teacher at primary and secondary level in Israel, and has lectured and published extensively on English-teaching methodology. Her main interest is the design and use of practical classroom language-teaching procedures and materials, on which she has written a number of books, including Five minute activities (with Andrew Wright) (1991), Grammar practice activities (2nd Edition)(2009), Vocabulary activities (2012), A course in English language teaching (2nd Edition) (2012), Discussions and more (2014), Penny Ur’s 100 tips (2016), Penny Ur’s 77 tips for vocabulary teaching (2022), all published by Cambridge University Press.