Making Every English Lesson Count E-Book

Andy Tharby

• Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Making Every English Lesson Count: Six Principles to Support Great Reading and Writing goes in search of answers to the fundamental question that all English teachers must ask: 'What can I do to help my students to become confident and competent readers and writers?' Writing in the practical, engaging style of the award-winning Making Every Lesson Count, Andy Tharby returns with an offering of gimmick-free advice that combines the time-honoured wisdom of excellent English teachers with the most useful evidence from cognitive science. The book is underpinned by six pedagogical principles challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning and provides simple, realistic classroom strategies to bring the teaching of conceptual knowledge, vocabulary and challenging literature to the foreground. It also points a sceptical finger at the fashions and myths that have pervaded English teaching over the past decade or so such as the idea that English is a skills-based subject and the belief that students can make huge progress in a single lesson. Instead, Andy advocates an approach of artful repetition and consolidation and shows you how to help your students develop their reading and writing proficiency over time. Making Every English Lesson Count is for new and experienced English teachers alike. It does not pretend to be a magic bullet. It does not claim to have all the answers. Rather the aim of the book is to provide effective strategies designed to help you to bring the six principles to life, with each chapter concluding in a series of questions to inspire reflective thought and help you relate the content to your classroom practice. In an age of educational quick fixes, GCSE reform and ever-moving goalposts, this precise and timely addition to the Making Every Lesson Count series provides practical solutions to perennial problems and inspires a rich, challenging and evidence-informed approach to English teaching. Suitable for English teachers of students aged 11 to 16 years

Leseprobe

Praise for Making Every English Lesson Count

One of the central challenges facing English teachers today is the huge chasm between research and practice. For many, the field of education research is an impenetrable forest that is simply not worth the effort of exploring at a time when workload is already at unmanageable levels. Making Every English Lesson Count is an indispensable guide for English teachers that combines important research from a range of fields with practical advice on how to implement it in the classroom. As a researcher, but more importantly as an English teacher, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Simply put, this is the book I wish I had read in my first year of teaching.

Carl Hendrick, Head of Learning and Research, Wellington College

Andy Tharby has written the best book on English teaching that I have read. Not only is it full of practical wisdom, arresting anecdote and a thorough understanding of the implications of cognitive science for English teachers, it’s also couched in elegantly composed prose and is a joy to spend time with. It will bestride the educational world like a colossus.

David Didau, author of What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong?

As with his blog, and previous collaboration with Shaun Allison in Making Every Lesson Count, Andy Tharby continues to demonstrate his knack of decluttering and demystifying teaching. This time he effectively, effortlessly and succinctly sets his eyes on the English lesson.

Making Every English Lesson Count cuts right down to the quick of English teaching. Tharby painlessly gets straight to the important issues in the classroom and moves us away from the superficial aspects that distract from quality teaching. Using his friendly and approachable style of writing, he guides us through the principles of what a lesson should have and what a teacher can do to ensure that every lesson counts.

Great teaching is about making the unfamiliar familiar and making the complex simple. This book does just that and it is a welcome addition – I really wish I had had it as an NQT.

A perfect gift for an NQT or established teacher of English.

Chris Curtis, Head of English, Saint John Houghton Catholic Voluntary Academy

This is a fantastic follow-up to Making Every Lesson Count, a book that has proved a solid resource for professional learning at all levels of experience.

Andy offers us a manifesto for great teaching of English, informed by research evidence, experience and pragmatism. His style is thought-provoking and insightful, and altogether a pleasure to read.

Making Every English Lesson Count will no doubt be a staple of all English departments, offering a wealth of advice to support the planning of an ambitious curriculum for our students and allowing colleagues to deliberately practice specific strategies in the classroom, with a focus on explicit teaching based on strong subject knowledge.

An advocate for reading and for expanding our students’ vocabulary, Andy’s enthusiasm is contagious. He has it right when he quotes Ludwig Wittgenstein: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” What a fantastic challenge for all English teachers!

I couldn’t recommend this book more.

Hélène Galdin-O’Shea, English and media teacher, research advocate

Andy Tharby is clear from the outset that there are no silver bullets, and no strategies that will work for all English teachers in all classrooms. He stresses the importance of individuality and context, but also recognises that we can learn much from reading and research, from collaborative dialogue with other professionals and from careful reflection on all we learn as a consequence. How can we adapt what others have found to be successful in order to continue to build and strengthen our own practice?

Making Every English Lesson Count is firmly grounded in the principles of challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, questioning and feedback, and considers these elements of effective practice from a subject-specific perspective: offering practical strategies, specific examples and questions to prompt reflection. Tharby encourages the reader to consider how these ideas could be usefully adapted for best effect in their own teaching practice. The book explores, for example, the central place of the text in English teaching; the importance of background knowledge, both in terms of textual content and context and with respect to mastering literary skills; the crucial place of developing our understanding of vocabulary; and the effective use of supporting visual images. Meanwhile, throughout the book, suggestions based on sound underpinning theory about what learning is, and how it happens, are fleshed out with helpful close analysis and annotation of specific literary passages.

Tharby claims, “Great English teachers must live and breathe their subject.” Making Every English Lesson Count is testament to the fact that Tharby himself is definitely among their number.

Jill Berry, leadership consultant and author of Making the Leap

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the support, guidance and encouragement of my friends, colleagues and family.

I am also grateful to the many wonderful English teachers I have worked with over the years, whose thoughtfulness and expertise have meant that, for over a decade, I have been able to learn something new every day. The ideas in this book belong to you, not me.

Recent years have seen a surge in teachers using social media and blogging platforms to share resources, strategies and education worldviews. Once again, the ideas and insights you have introduced me to shine through this book.

I thank John and Sue Wolstenholme for their generosity in sharing with me their many years of wisdom. I thank Alex Quigley and Caroline Mortlock for their advice and comments on early drafts of this book. And, of course, I thank Shaun Allison for his unwavering belief in me.

Finally, my heartfelt gratitude goes to Donna and George for their patience, love and good humour. Your support has meant the world to me.

Contents

Title PageAcknowledgementsIntroduction1.Challenging Reading2.Explaining and Questioning Reading3.Modelling Reading4.Practising Reading5.Challenging Writing6.Explaining Writing7.Modelling Writing8.Practising Writing9.FeedbackFinal ThoughtsBibliographyCopyright

Introduction

Husband and wife John and Sue Wolstenholme were exemplary English teachers whose knowledge and skill transformed the lives of many young people. On retirement, they had clocked up over seventy years of classroom practice between them. Thankfully, their expertise and wisdom have inspired many new teachers to follow in their footsteps. I am fortunate enough to be one of them.

John and Sue had incredibly high expectations of student conduct and behaviour. They were masters of the craft of reading out loud. They were enthusiastic endorsers of reading for pleasure. And they taught with great sensitivity, empathy and attention to detail.

They had their differences too. Sue was very theatrical. You never quite knew what you would find when you walked into her room! She might be roaring from a desktop, transformed into a fervourous and vitriolic Lady Macbeth. Equally, she might be quietly encouraging her students to tease the meaning from an intricate metaphor. On the other hand, John’s room was always a sea of calm. Young people would be working hard and working noiselessly. You would often find John stationed behind his beloved overhead projector, conducting a discussion with wonderful deftness and ease.