Ted Power, former Teaching Resources Manager at the English Language Centre, Brighton & Hove UK

Ted Power

English Language Learning and Teaching

I was Teaching Resources Manager at the English Language Centre, Hove, from January 1991 to November 1996, when a fast-moving car jumped a STOP sign, knocking me off my moped and finishing my career.

The post involved general English Language teaching, maintaining the materials on the main intensive course, building up the self-access centre and supervising daily self-study sessions open to all our students.

The English Language Centre in Brighton & Hove first opened its doors in 1962 and I first taught at the school in summer 1978. From January 1991, in addition to general class teaching, I managed the ELC's first self-access centre open to all the school's students after their formal classes.

Rapid developments in educational technology meant that I had to procure new equipment for both the students and for resources management. Within a few years, schools exchanged machines such as the 64 K BBC Microcomputer for IBM-compatible PCs offering audio capabilities extending beyond the production of short bleeps.

My first English language teaching appointment was in 1973 in a boys' secondary school located in Tiaret, Algeria - a gateway to the Sahara Desert. I was recruited by Voluntary Service Overseas under the auspices of the British Council to work for the Algerian Ministry of Education, which had an ambitious plan to promote English to take the place of French as the principal European language for educational development.

The post in Tiaret was an interesting one, because many of my Algerian pupils were barely literate in any language and depended on spoken Arabic (Berber) dialect for their communication needs. There was little scope for writing on the blackboard or use of translation, since basic literacy teaching would have been impossible with so many pupils and we did not share a common language in which to translate. These limitations necessitated "a direct method approach" i.e. teaching oral English through oral English alone.

The 1970s saw significant developments in language teaching methodology. The training of teachers and curriculum developers gave added emphasis to the role of applied linguistics in language learning and teaching. Required reading now extended beyond phonetics, transformational grammar and grading and sequencing items for structurally-based language syllabuses to areas such as stylistic analysis, discourse function and semantics.

Speech Act theory was about to be popularized and applied to language teaching and course books adopting what came to be termed the Notional Functional approach were about to appear [see The Teacher's Book for Building Strategies, Brian Abbs and Ingrid Freebairn, Longman 1979].

The real advance in the 1980s and 1990s, was neither in the shambles that has come to be known as CLT [Communicative Language Teaching] nor in the fashion to dress up every piece of learning as a behavioural objective or task to be analysed ad infinitum.

By the time my teaching career came to an end in 1996, learner independence had really taken off and the advent of the Internet meant that a growing population of learners with home computers, based all around the world, could access reading and listening comprehension materials (e.g. newspapers and BBC radio broadcasts) from their homes. I was interested to discover that many teachers were producing special web sites to provide English language learners with new distance learning opportunities. Some sites (e.g. The Internel TESL Journal) maintain lists of resources, linking learners to web sites covering more aspects of English language learning than most teachers know!

I started my own site while recuperating in my parents' home from the collision which nearly cost me my life. During this four-year attempt to gain sufficient independence to return to my own home, it was important for my own self-respect that all the training and experience of previous years did not go to waste. Following a 4-week residential pain management course in 1998 at Unsted Park Hospital Godalming Surrey, where participants were encouraged to set themselves targets, I managed to teach myself sufficient HTML to design basic web pages. I received encouragement from the editor of the Internet TESL Journal, who invited me to submit quizzes and suggested ways I could improve the design of my web pages.

I already had fairly recent material to upload to my site since I had written First Time In England [ my graded reader for beginners ] and Prepare for Discussion [ a suite of materials for higher-level learners including themed crosswords ] during 1997. The need to reduce the clutter I had hoarded since the early 1970s gave new urgency to the task of reviewing all the materials I had collected as both learner and teacher. This offered scope for web pages on Teacher Training & TEFL methodology.

Education and employment

Sep.69-Jul.72	London University External	B.A. Eng, Econ & Fr.
Sep.72-Jul.73	Berkshire College of Education	PGCE Junior/Middle Distinction
Sep.73-Jul.74	Lycée Polyvalent, Tiaret, ALGERIA (14-19 age range)	EFL Teacher recruited by Voluntary Service Overseas
Sep.74-Jul.75	Oxford College of Further Education	Lecturer in English & Mathematics to Pre-nurses
Sep.75-Jul.77	Mayfield Middle School, Walton-on-T.	Head of French
Jun.78-Sep.80	The English Language Centre, Hove	TEFL for varying periods
Sep.80-Jul.82	Fagersta AB Steelworks, Fagersta, SWEDEN	TEFL/ESP and Cambridge courses Dip RSA TEFL
Sep.83-Sep.86	ELC, Hove	TEFL
	Swedish Folk High School	Varying periods on Pensioners' Courses.
Sep.84-Jul.86	London University Birkbeck College	M.A. in Second Lang. Learning and Teaching
Jan.87-Jun.87	INISEL Group (Electronics Company) Madrid, SPAIN	TEFL/ESP
Jun.87-Dec.91	ELC, Hove	TEFL
Jan.91-Nov.96	ELC, Hove	Teaching Resources Manager (Main Intensive Course)

Contact details and other interests

Picture: my garden in Brighton (Round Hill)

I also contribute content to my local residents' association website at
http://www.roundhill.org.uk (The Round Hill Society)

Move to new webspace

British Telecom has decided to remove the free webspace which came with the account I have held with them since the late 1990s.

This is why I have now moved my content to the webspace you are now on at http://www.tedpower.co.uk/ which is now the root of all the .html page names instead of http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/

I regret any inconvenience caused to users of my website and to people & organisations with links to my website which will need to be amended if they are to remain active. My site is a hobby so I do not participate in link exchanges - which might increase visitors but dilute content.

Genuine feedback welcomed, but no links requests please!

I have received numerous requests for reciprocal links. I have to turn them down politely, or else my site would be spoilt by having too many links to commercial enterprises which I could not possibly vet. I welcome genuine feedback from people interested in English language learning &/or teaching.

Ted Power 2012