2019 Chapters (Layout Features)

My quest to understand learning and teaching

Fanselow, John

In 2018, Alan Maley proposed a book about teacher education titled Developing expertise through experience to The British Council. His proposal was accepted and he immediately asked 20 teacher educators from around the world to write chapters. What was distinctive about his proposal was that he wanted the 20 he asked to do a chapter to answer the same series of questions: earliest experiences of language learning, greatest influence on our development, key ideas and publications that influenced us, etc.

Alan developed his questions around his understanding of Prabhu's (1987) concept of "the sense of plausibility." Both Prabhu and Maley, who had worked together in India, believe that certainty prevents development while plausibility nourishes it because it makes it easier to shed routine.