Small Changes in Teaching Big Results in Learning: Videos, Activities and Essays to Stimulate Fresh Thinking About Language Learning

Dr. John F. Fanselow is the classroom mentor/co-explorer you always wanted, whether you are teaching English as a second or foreign language or simply wanting to make your classroom instruction more engaging. The author of the groundbreaking book Breaking Rules challenges you to really notice what you are doing in your classroom, offers alternative activities to make your teaching more engaging, and then shows you how the activities work in videos with actual students. "One could well teach English for a lifetime with no other ESOL book than this." Robert Oprandy, Professor Emeritus, University of the Pacific Small Changes in Teaching Big Results in Learning is simple enough to use as a textbook for beginning teachers in a teacher preparation course, challenging enough for experienced teachers to use for personal professional development, and the perfect companion for teachers who want to more deeply understand their reflective practice. What we and our students want to do, what we actually do, and what we think we do are different. The activities, essays and videos in Small Changes will enable you to decrease the gap between wanting, doing and thinking. The approach in Small Changes is at once simple and challenging: You watch videos introducing new activities and types of feedback. You read more about the activities you saw in action. You try them out in your own classes. As you master the activities and types of feedback introduced in this book, you will be able to move from teaching as a ritual to teaching as discovery. You will decrease the time you spend making lesson plans, quizzes and tests, looking for the ideal syllabus, and preparing worksheets and handouts and, as a result, you will have more time to analyze transcriptions and video clips of what you and your students are doing. "I have had 'many jobs, but only one career: a love affair with an attempt to understand what the hell we are doing as teachers 'in minutely organized particulars' and from multiple perspectives." (Remarks by John F. Fanselow when the President of Teachers College presented him with the Teachers College, Columbia University Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005.)