The practice of English language teaching - Jeremy Harmer

The Practice of English Language Teaching is an essential guide for teachers of English. It explains current pedagogy to teachers who want to access the most relevant ELT practices and incorporate them into their lessons.

The Practice of English Language Teaching includes:

• English as a world language


• Theories of language and language learning


• Learner characteristics which influence teacher decisions


• Guidance on managing learning


• Teaching language systems (grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation)


• Teaching language skills (speaking, writing, listening and reading)


• Practical teaching ideas


• The role of technology (old and new) in the classroom


• Assessment for language learning in the digital age

About the accompanyingDVD which runs for 3 hours

For the fifth edition of The Practice of English Language Teaching, we decided to take a film crew out to see what English language lessons look like in different places, in different situations and, crucially, with different age groups. And so we asked a number of teachers if they would let us film them at work, doing one of their 'normal' lessons.

With that in mind, we went to Ankara in Turkey and filmed two teachers, Asli Nilfer Usluel and Emel Atasoy, working with young learners.

In the UK, we filmed at a residential summer school in the city of Oxford. Varinder Unlu and John Duthie taught teenagers from a variety of different countries and different language backgrounds.

Back in Turkey, we had the chance to record lessons (taught by Zeynep Byktuna and igdem zen) for adult Turkish students who were getting ready to study at an English-medium university.

In Mexico, at a private language school, we had the good fortune to film teachers Juan Pablo Monfn Jimnez, Ricardo Fajardo Corts and Araceli Menchaca Snchez with their adult Mexican students.

In each case, after the lesson, I was able to interview the teachers on camera so that I could ask them about their lessons and about the issues that came up as a result of their teaching choices.