Wednesday 25 June 2014

Woo watch

I've noted before that ETp ('the leading practical magazine for English language teachers worldwide') is quite the purveyor of woo. As two of its four person editorial panel, Janet Olearski and Susan Norman are 'master' practitioners of NLP, this is perhaps not surprising.

In the July 2014 edition we can read an article by Duncan Foord on how to cater for left brained and right brained teachers including a helpful lesson plan and mind map! In the article Foord tells us that 'right brained dominant teachers and visual teachers will immediately identify with' information presented as a mind map (4:2014). He also notes that half of the teachers he tries this approach on are 'sceptical' but that we ought to try to persuade them to give it a go. Next, he references a book called 'teach for success' by someone called Mark Fletcher. I wasn't surprised to find the following quote on Mark's website 'Brain Friendly Books:

The book gives practical examples that will have a dramatic effect on teaching methods and learning expectations. It includes ways of using Mind Mapping, N.L.P., Suggestopedia, music, colour, learning styles and much more in your classroom.
All of this is somewhat ironic since ETP recently held their 'ETP live' conference in Brighton and who did they invite to speak? None other than Philip Kerr, debunker of 'left-brained/rightbrained' myths!


 *This post originally said that susan Norman was the founder of ETp. She is not. 

1 comment: