Key Findings

The ESOL Teaching Skills (ETS) TaskBook:

• The ESOL Teaching Skills (ETS) TaskBook is a professional development resource comprising 40 stand-alone tasks that focus on different aspects of teaching English to speakers of other languages. The ETS TaskBook is a flexible resource that allows schools to provide their teachers with practical professional development opportunities.
• Each lesson contains: an introduction that outlines the focus of the lesson; a series of tasks with answer key; a reflection task; a practical, classroom-focused transfer task; and suggestions for further reading and ways to develop.

Key Recommendations

The key recommendations regarding the use of the resource include:

Who is it suitable for? The ETS TaskBook is suitable for English language teachers in a variety of contexts. For pre-service or less experienced teachers, it may be a way of gaining a deeper understanding of ESOL teaching methodology. For more experienced teachers, it may act as a useful refresher and springboard for further study.

Using the lessons | A lesson or a series of lessons from the ETS TaskBook can be used in the following ways: a teacher working alone; a group of teachers working as a professional development discussion group; a senior teacher or academic manager wanting to lead a professional development seminar; an academic manager wanting to provide an individual teacher with some kind of targeted professional development support; a tutor working with pre-service teachers on a training or development course.

Material can be adapted | Teachers and tutors who use the material should feel free to adapt the material so it is suitable for their context.