* Publications

Special Edition

This is a special monograph jointly edited by APAC and the British Council. The contributions are organised into three parts. In Part I you will find a very informative introductory chapter on Britlit by Fitch O’Connell, followed by methodological texts for primary and secondary by Sandie Mourao and Claudia Ferradas respectively. With The voices from Britlit section in Part II, the Britlit spirit comes alive through the accounts of two Catalan teachers who have already used Britlit in their classrooms and of two Britlit authors on their visits to schools. Part III is aimed at those who are willing to give Britlit a try and contains sample materials for the classroom.These Britlit kits have been been created, used and exploited by teachers from APAC’s sister association in Portugal (APPI). For those of us teachers who started to love the English Language through literature, getting involved in the BritLit project can helps us to pass on our love of words to our students!

 

Monograph nº 7

It looks as though teachers have had a lot to choose from in terms of training, if we consider the huge amount of resources that for over twenty years now the Programa d'informàtica educativa (PIE) at the Department of Education has devoted  to mediating between technology and teachers. These resources are now offerd by the Servei de Tecnologies de la Informació  at http://www.xtec.cat/formaciotic.                                                                                             

Because so much is already on offer in terms of training and hands on materials, and since rapid change makes updates a must, this Monograph has been created to look forward and visualise how technology could impact ELT in the years to come. We are sure that you will find the articles thought-provoking and we hope they will contribute to a better understanding of the role of technology in our future professional lives.

 

Monograph nº 6

The sixth Monograph is a universe of its own, and provides a multi-faceted product. It contains a very substantial introduction with the theoretical underpinnings for CLIL by professor Do Coyle, from the University of Nottingham and a regular visitor to many Catalan primary and secondary centres. It follows with a historical view on the work done so far and the future that lies ahead kindly written by the Centre de Recursos de Llengües Estrangeres at the Department of Education, which also includes very useful information on administrative matters for teachers in the public sector in Catalonia. Most importantly, the Monograph contains the voices of the grassroots teachers who have willingly embarked on what in many ways has been pioneer work. Through these accounts we can also hear vividly the students' voices and imagine how the landscape of English learning in Catalonia can change thanks to CLIL.

Monograph nº 5

This article reports on the research carried out to describe the learners' dictionary consultation using a web-based program called ImPRESSions (c), designed to foster second language learners' reading and listening skills and language learning strategies. The study presented here is part of a wider research study (Pujolà 2000) which investigated the strategies learners deployed when using the help facilities provided by the program. This paper explains the conceptualisation of the design and implementation of the dictionary facility and on how learners used it.

Monograph nº 4

The general feeling is that both users -students of foreign languages - and specialists - teachers or applied linguists - are unhappy with the present situation in the teaching and learning of speaking. But there is very little research that pins down why learning to speak a foreign language is so difficult or why all those concerned are unhappy with the present situation.

These two articles - one by Cristina Escobar and the other by Angela Hasselgren - try to provide us with some answers on the topic.

Monograph nº 3

Evaluation and assessment are terms which are becoming very common in education today. More and more, accountability and results seem only to be available through the use of exams, but exams need not be automatically equatable to evaluation and assessment. 'Four perspectives in classroom assessment' proposes possible courses of action.

Professor Andy Hargreaves is a world authority on this field and has first-hand information about the current state of reform implementation in our schools.

Monograph nº 2

This monograph is intended to bridge the gap between SLA (second language acquisition) research and the reality of language teaching. The articles it includes are based on research with children in the early stages of learning. They all insist on the crucial influence that age, the L1 and the exposure to a L2 have upon the acquisition of a foreign language.

The authors have wide experience as teachers of EFL and have been doing research at university for some years now.

Monograph nº1

APAC Monographs nº 1 is about experiential teaching. It is a reflection about the kind of teaching that is practiced all over the world every day. It includes the transcript of the Plenary Session of the APAC ELT Convention 1996, devoted to this topic.

Ramon Ribé inspired the foundation of APAC some years ago and has been its President until 1995. He started the Jornades d'Anglès de Catalunya and, with the help of different teams, has coordinated their organization so far.