English Teaching professional editorial views from Helena Gomm

This is my last issue of the magazine as editor, and in it I have taken the opportunity to look at some of the more challenging issues that are facing our profession.

In his main feature, Charles Lowe asserts that there are many lexical chunks that are simply not useful for speakers of International English, or whose meanings are not immediately transparent, and he recommends that we don’t teach them, focusing instead on language that they are more likely to understand and to use.

Enjoy this issue of ETp, be sure not to get sucked into the vortex, or – if you do – try to come out the other side refreshed and invigorated.

In our main feature, Nergiz Kern, who has long been in the vanguard when it comes to new technologies, particularly those connected to teaching in virtual environments, celebrates the advances in virtual reality technology which now give it a viable role in education.

Whilst it might be going too far to describe the prevailing attitude towards those of us who have English as our mother tongue as ‘native speaker bashing’, we do regularly come in for a fair amount of criticism from various quarters. So, how is the poor language student to cope? Some of our contributors offer helpful suggestions.

As more and more teachers are returning to the classroom, or teaching hybrid classes, with some students physically present and others still online, our contributors are, as always, looking for creative ways to make the best of things and discovering methods and approaches that they will continue to employ, once things return to ‘normal’.

What a variety of outside interests our contributors have! In our main feature, Clare Hampton explains how her experience of playing World of Warcraft, and her achievement of the status of ‘level 100 mage’, have given her insights into ways to enhance and improve her students’ experience of learning English.

One of the effects of online teaching has surely been that students (or at least the most diligent of them) have had to take more responsibility for their learning and do a lot more self-study. This is reflected in several articles in this issue, which look at ways of encouraging greater autonomy amongst our students.

By the time you receive this issue, teachers in some countries may be starting to return to the classroom, but many others will still be required to teach online. The articles chosen for this issue reflect this duality and concentrate less on how to set up your online classes, and more on what to do with the students once you are firmly established in your virtual classroom.

As you might expect, I have received a flurry of ‘virus-themed’ articles over the past month or so, and you will find a number of these in this issue of ETp. I have chosen those that I felt could offer the most helpful advice to teachers struggling with the changeover to online teaching – and those that would present a beacon of hope in difficult times.