An interview with Russell Stannard

Russell Stannard is a well-known promoter of the use of technology in language teaching. He trains teachers in the use of ICT all over the world and is coming to Uherské Hradiště to teach us how to use some of his favourite tools.

Russell is the founder of www.teachertrainingvideos.com, which won the British Council ‘ELTons’ award and the Times Higher ‘Outstanding Technology Award’. The site is there to help teacher incorporate technology into their teaching and learning through. It includes videos that deal with the flipped classroom, blogging, blended learning, giving feedback using screencast tools, using YouTube video and much more. Be sure to check the site.

Credit goes to Russell and his Teacher Training Video website

Let´s start with our favourite 3 things quiz.

3 things you love about teaching

It is always challenging, you can empower people, it means dealing and working with people.

3 thing you find difficult about teaching

Learning a language is very complex and therefore hard to teach, students are not always motivated, the industry can be quite conservative.

3 things you can´t do without as a teacher

This is a hard question. Not long ago I was teaching out in India and I realised I could do without most things. I think a blackboard is one of key tools that I find it really hard to be without. I think I can’t do without my imagination that helps me a lot to think of ideas and ways to teach. I think another really useful tool is a notebook.

We are absolutely sure you´d like to know more about Russell, right? So here are the questions.

What personal strengths do you find especially helpful in your teaching?

I spend a lot of time thinking about language learning and I have learnt to speak a couple of languages myself. It is not really a personal strength but it is something that I do that constantly reminds me of just how hard it is to learn a language.

What do you think is the greatest challenge our students face today?

Knowing what skills are going to be useful to their future. The world is changing so much that it is hard to know what skills are going to be relevant. I think for that reason what students really need to learn is how to be good learners. That is something that we as teachers can help them with.

What is the most difficult aspect of teaching today?

I think it is the lack of support from the government and the decision makers. Teaching is generally a poorly paid industry and there is a lack of political will to improve it. Class sizes tend to get bigger, teachers load tends to get heavier and generally there is more interference of the wrong kind from politicians. So for example we see that many countries are introducing more and more testing of students. These tests often have nothing to do with the skills the students are developing and often go contrary to what we know about teaching and learning.

And the last, crucial one – Are you looking forward to coming to Hradiště, Russell? What are you going to talk about?