Teaching English Today

VISION OF THE ACADEMY

The vision of the English Academy of Southern Africa is of a democratic society in which effective English is available to all who wish to use it, where competent instruction in the language is readily accessible and in which the country’s diverse linguistic ecology is respected.

MISSION OF THE ACADEMY

The EnglishAcademy is concerned with all forms and functions of English. It interests itself in English in education, promotes research and debate, organizes lectures, makes representations about language matters, rewards excellence and fosters the creative, critical and scholarly talents of users (and would-be users) of English in Southern Africa.

For some years the English Academy of Southern Africa was considering the idea of producing a magazine for English teachers. Older teachers might recall a publication entitled CRUX, which English teachers valued greatly. Since its demise, there has been nothing to replace it. So, at last, the Academy has launched this publication to fill the gap. This was made possible through a generous donation from the Donaldson Trust.

The site provides a web–based,interactive journal. The Academy’s reasons for producing such a site were as follows:

• It is more affordable.
• It allows for an archive to be built up for future reference.
• It allows educators to download and print specific articles that they find of use.
• It makes interaction and discussion much easier, allowing for interchanges of opinions, responses to articles, queries to be posed.

The Academy is aware that there are schools in poorer areas which do not have internet access. For this reason, they will supply a print version to schools that request that.

Issue 2 of Tet has recently been published and the many topics covered include-

• Classroom observation and reflective practice
• Professional advice on Creative Writing
• The use of South African works of fiction as Class readers Grades 7 – 12
• Classroom Tactics

The journal focuses mainly on the FET phase. However, it is a vehicle for teachers and teacher educators to debate critical issues, to share approaches and valuable learning material and to help build communities of practice. Clearly, the magazine also has significant value for teachers in training. The emphasis is on what will help the teacher in the classroom to teach well and to keep in touch with best practice in a South African context. This implies a predominance of practical material with some articles which bring practice into critical review.

Issues feature a balance of theoretical and practical articles. We would like to increase the number of articles that focus on the classroom – but for this we need your input.

We look forward to your interacting with us – please respond to articles, however brief.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!

We invite teachers, teacher trainers, departmental officials, personnel at English-related organisations and other educationists to:

1. Respond to the articles in TET. You don’t need to write an essay – or even a paragraph – even a few words will do. We want to know what you think and to get people debating and chatting about English.
2. Send in suggestions of issues / topics that you would like to have featured.
3. Submit articles, teaching tips, information about teaching resources, for publication. We are prepared to pay up to R400 for selected articles.
4. Give us news about your organisations, and advertisements for courses, seminars, etc. These we will publish free of charge.

(1.) This is done online – there is place in the comments.

(2. – 4.) Send these to the editor at drv@worldonline.co.za.

Click here now to go to the website www.teachenglishtoday.org

Dr Malcolm Venter
EDITOR