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Book review

From Experience to Knowledge in ELT, Julian Edge and Sue Garton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, (OxfordHandbooks for Teachers series) 2009. xv þ 204 pp.

This is an excellent handbook that undersells itself by virtue of its gentle approach. The authors make every effortto avoid being dogmatic as they are clear that there is no ‘one-size fits all method’ and because they want to push theirreaders to develop a personal teaching style. The problem with this is that on first encountering the book, with its notimmediately transparent title, it is not clear who the book is for.

The Introduction does start with exactly this question and consonant with the authors’ view of learning andteaching, the bullet points which follow build up a picture of someone who is ‘keen to teach and eager to learn’ andwho wants ‘to turn their experience. into knowledge, so as to improve the quality of their future teaching.’ (p. xiii).They also unpick the title by emphasising that their book proposes

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that it can be personally and professionally liberating to theorize one’s practice in the sense of understandingand questioning the whys and wherefores of experience. (p. xiv).

It is not certain whether teachers new to teaching or those with no formal training who might be planning to take theCambridge ESOL Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT) will recognise that this is the book for them. On the other hand, itis the perfect vehicle for getting people to reflect on what they do as teachers, what they have experienced as learnersand how materials can be used in a wide variety of ways, and it would work well on CELTA/TKT type courses where itwould be shorter and more user friendly than Harmer (2007) or Scrivener (2005).

Julian Edge is the author of a seminal 1992 article on co-operative development and so it is not surprising to findcomments right from the start such as ‘(the activities at the end of each chapter).will be of most use if you havea friend or colleague to discuss them with. In that way, you can develop you own ideas as you talk and listen’ (p. 1). HisEssentials of English Language Teaching (1995) was the starting point for the book under review. Sue Garton hasrecently co-edited a book on Discourses of Teachers in Teaching (2008). Their research interests coincide on teacherdevelopment and inform the way the book works. For From Knowledge to Experience in ELT manages successfully toapproach the well-worn pathways to basic knowledge about ELT in a new way. The reader is addressed directly, insimple and clear language, as both teacher and learner, and the rationale is always emphasised:

Our purpose here is to encourage our readers to ask themselves the same questions that recur throughout this book

� How much of what you read here do you recognise from your own experience?� What do you know now that you did not know before?� Can you express what you know any differently?� How does any of this affect what you might do in the future? (p. 108)

The extracts, from a range of course books used as illustration and for analysis, are in one sense surprisingly few ebut they are returned to and exploited differently in different chapters, thus neatly demonstrating how the same textscan be re-used in different contexts and for different purposes.

The glossary (where the overlaps with the TKT glossary are highlighted) and the references to useful websites andfurther reading are short and practical. There are some questions and activities at the end of each chapter, which inseveral cases have no key ‘because all the questions. are reflective/practical and depend either on experience or thematerials found by each teacher.’ (p. 81)

The book is divided into two sections. The first five chapters on ‘Familiarization’ set the context e from the peopleand the processes involved, to the English language itself and then the materials and equipment which all add up to the

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learning environment. In the first chapter, which looks at the learners and the teachers, readers are invited to discussand reflect on their answers to a questionnaire on beliefs about language learning and teaching taken from Lightbownand Spada (2006, pp. xviiexviii) e another very readable book in the Oxford Handbook for Language Teachers series.The second chapter, on learning and teaching processes, has to cover a great deal of ground, and would certainly workbest being used as a basis for discussion with a group rather than studied alone. Chapter 3, The English language, is notjust about the position of English in the world and the relevance of that position to ELT. It moves on to looking ataspects of English, such as lexis, grammar, functions, discourse, pronunciation and how to teach them. To some extent,Chapter 4 on materials, and Chapter 5 on environment and equipment, are by the nature of what they cover, very downto earth and practical.

The second section, ‘Action’, has six chapters which concentrate more directly on methodology and teachingprocedures. From the beginning of this section, there are constant reminders to relate principles exemplified toprocedures and materials appropriate to the reader’s own situation, and a developmental attitude is stressed:

.this book can offer ways of doing things, but not the way of doing them. Every idea can be improved on andadapted. (p. 84)

The overall purpose of this book is to help more teacher-learners decide for themselves what their next stepswill be. (p. 85)

Chapter 6 has the title ‘Classroom Management’, and enlarges the concept to cover planning and interactions.Chapters 7 and 8 establish and illustrate the differences between a Communication to Language Approach, as opposedto a Language to Communication Approach (much more helpful than the confusingly named deductive and inductiveapproaches). These chapters pull the learning/teaching process apart to look at the main components, but the inter-connectedness between plans, materials and methods is reinforced by the re-use of the same extract in the differentchapters. Chapter 9, ‘Improving language skills’, emphasizes the importance of using language from relevant sourcesand producing language towards relevant ends. Chapter 10 on Testing looks at types of test and how to use them.Characteristically, there are sections on ‘adapting to powers beyond your control’ and ‘coming to terms with failure’.The final chapter, appropriately enough, is on Professional Development and it allows the authors who write so welland so clearly in this book, which no new teacher should be without, to have the last word:

For some people, ELT is an occupation that may just last a few years. We hope that this book will be useful to them.But for a great many teachers, ELT is what they do throughout their working lives. We hope that, for them, this bookhas begun a process of reflection on experience that will afford them the satisfaction of knowing:

� Why they do what they do� How to express that knowledge to themselves and to others� How to use their increasing awareness to take their careers forward (p. 173).

References

Edge, J., 1992. Cooperative Development. ELT Journal 46 (1), 62e70.

Edge, J., 1995. The Essentials of English Teaching. Longman, Harlow, UK.

Garton, S., Richards, K. (Eds.), 2008. Professional Encounters in TESOL: Discourses of Teachers in Teaching. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke,

UK.

Harmer, J., 2007. The Practice of English Language Teaching, 4th ed.). Pearson Education, Harlow, UK.

Lightbown, P., Spada, N., 2006. How Languages are Learned. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Scrivener, J., 2005. Learning Teaching. Macmillan, Oxford.

Katie GrayDepartment for Continuing Education, Rewley House,

1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA, UKE-mail address: katie.gray@conted.ox.ac.uk