English Raven

It's time to break the old paradigm of Korean education

Helen Lee, a student with Jason's RISE (Renshaw Internet School of English) program, makes the case that Korean moms and dads need to teach their children how to fish - rather than just giving them the fish...

According to the National Statistical Office, one out of three Koreans aged over 15 were jobless for the whole of last year. People who stayed employed for the whole year totaled 69.1% of 26.15 million, or 18.25 million. The rest held jobs for less than one year.

 

As the number shows, the problem of unemployment at young ages seems to be one of the severe headaches for Korean society.

   

In my opinion, there is a major reason why such high rate of unemployment among the young is inevitable. Although it is true that general employment number is reduced by the advent of machine manufacturing, the most crucial cause is in fact based on the general characteristic of young people’s attitudes these days. The generation has changed and the teenagers of today have grown up in the relatively prosperous environment compare to that of their parents’ adolescence.

   

In the past, many teenagers had to work to earn money and support their families but these days, the financial task is the responsibility of parents in a big way. Thus, teenagers naturally become accustomed to the easy way of life and this tendency makes them seek the easy route when they choose their future careers. As many Korean rich kids prefer to wear clothes with famous brand name, many Korean young people pursue their jobs based on company or profession ‘name value’ and generally avoid any physically demanding occupations. In addition, their pride that they have in being high educated with college diplomas does not allow them to feel satisfaction with the idea of work related to blue-collar jobs.

   

I think that we, as a country and as a society, must quickly take action to change this perception. For this, systemic alternative in the education options for the young is necessary. Korean students are pushed to focus on only their studies by the system of Korean education. It causes a shortage of working experience for the young and such shortage greatly narrow the range of possible future careers. Thus, the purpose of Korean education should not be stay locked in only academic pathway but try to expose students to the real world life and work as well. For this to happen, assigning certain time for part time jobs or career experiences in addition to the academic curriculum would be helpful to relieve the problem and to encourage the Korean teenagers to recognize the importance of perspiration.

   

Also, in order to improve this situation, parents’ attitudes toward their kids need to change in some ways. Most parents usually want their children to not go through the hardships that they themselves had to encounter during their adolescence. Thus, they have tried their best to raise kids in the best environment possible for as long as they could provide it. However, this way of education is to give the kids fishes. Korean parents need to change their way of education in order to teach their children how to fish. Although it can be hard for the parents to see their kids working or fighting unsupported against hardships, it is obvious that this way of teaching would greatly help their children to be strong and to open their eyes, breaking the set notion about demanding careers and setbacks.

   

The great number of unemployed young people is challenging problem for Korean society. It might even cause problems in the longer term. However, as long as the Korean education system and parents allow a little change and broader vision, I believe that the rate of jobless young people could be decreased. A balanced rate of participation in variety of career fields would in turn encourage Korean society at various levels and facilitate a stronger, more diverse economy overall.

 

 

Helen Lee (이가현) recently graduated from Kyoungbuk Foreign Language High School in South Korea. She comes from a small city called Haman in Gyeongnam province, and is currently preparing for business management studies at universities in the United States.

 

Helen's essay is a follow up to online interactive discussion about current national and global issues in English language news media.

 

 

 

 

Carolyn Graham event: songs, chants and more for young learners

Every now and then on the ELT calendar here in Korea, something genuinely special rolls along. I was lucky enough to be in Seoul last Wednesday to see Carolyn Graham present about songs, chants (and more) in relation to her picture dictionary series published with Pearson Longman. I count it as one of those "genuinely special" experiences.

Carolyn is 78 years old (I believe). Based on that I (respectfully) expected to be treated to some fascinating knowledge and experience from a figure who was already a veteran teacher in this industry before I was even born.

Well, I did get that, but a whole lot more. Here was a lady who could make a simple picture dictionary page truly come alive for younger learners.

With her examples of short jazz chant sequences and rhymes, she made the words turn into something really special. At times she would just break out into chants and songs as she was presenting, and it was infectious. I have to admit that Koreans are generally speaking a very musical bunch, but they're also often quite conservative and shy.

Not with Carolyn in the house! She had 300+ of these teachers spontaneously joining in chants and songs, and the effect left you wondering whether you were in a commercial ELT presentation or some sort of choir. But then again, you won't see a choir grooving away on stage like Carolyn does. And when she got a dozen or so Korean teachers up there to join her, the effect was - well - amazing.

Carolyn did show how easy it was to work with sets of words based on syllable counts, rhyme and lexical sets (including the role of apposition). But I think the most powerful impressions I was left with were (1) just how much can be done with simple picture dictionaries and younger learners, (2) how natural - even intrinsic - the role of music is with teaching children, and (3) how easy it is to incorporate chants and songs into your teaching - even if you don't consider yourself a "musical" teacher.

With a 31-month old child and a very "musical" wife, I found myself really wishing they could be there to see Carolyn in action. She was absolutely amazing. The day after the event I went straight to my local Kidari and purchased Carolyn's Young Children's Picture Dictionary for us to use and enjoy in my own family. Okay, it's not like seeing or hearing Carolyn in person, but it's the next best thing and I think we now have an essential resource for Jamie's English development. It's a great package, with the lovely layout of the pages, the very high-interest vocabulary selection sorted into themes little kids love, and the audio CD that comes with it.

And, just in case you're like me and think that your ability to sing and chant is rather similar to the effect of watching birds drop from the sky in despair and surrounding insects trying to cover non-existant ears, Carolyn's final message at the event was probably the most important.

A Korean teacher asked her "what if you can't sing well? how can we do this?" and Carolyn answered with utter conviction "the first thing is that you should never, NEVER think that... Never let anyone lead you to believe you can't sing. Singing basically comes from the heart. If you have a heart, you can sing." Well, words pretty much to that effect, anyway.

Personally, I think I cannot sing to save myself. But when I sing to or along with my child, he loves it. I'm inclined to think Carolyn could be absolutely right.

   

   

      

[+] interTalk - Trialing online conferencing for English discussion skills with TokBox

I am currently in the process of developing a fully Internet-based school of English - something that has been challenging but loads of fun as well (more details on that to be unveiled in the not-too-distant future...). This evening I got a chance to trial group-based video conferencing (something I'm calling [+] interTalk for the moment) with some of my online students, using the great browser-based conferencing service provided by TokBox.

Wow!!! It went down an absolute treat!

To the left you can see a screenshot of the conferencing session, featuring myself with my great students Soorim, Helen and Jeanie (all of them advanced level students in their late teens developing their English skills for Academic Purposes).

Once we got over a few very minor technical hitches (more to do with individual computers, mic settings - that sort of thing), we got down to the business of having an extended discussion focusing on news and topical issues.

Soorim and I presented and summarized articles we had read online representing issues we thought would be interesting for the group. We then took turns with a Q&A process to elicit more details and opinions about the articles, somebody summarizing the interactions, then follow-up discussion based around hypotheses and opinion-sharing.

The group handled the discussion process and technology involved really well, and I was so impressed to see/hear so much free-flowing discussion. These students also gave me a lot to think about through the questions and opinions they presented, and that is always a very stimulating experience for a language teacher. All up, the trial worked brilliantly and after an hour of in-depth talking face-to-face online, I think we all left the experience motivated and satisfied.

TokBox's video conferencing set up has marvelous potential. We did experience some hiccups in the form of time drag and sometimes some confusing echoes, but I'm really not sure how much that had to do with our individual computers and Internet connections. I did notice, for example, that when I took a couple of seconds to take a screenshot of us chatting in the conference room (to post here, as you can see!), my connection in the conference room slowed down tremendously as I quickly grappled with some copying and pasting into some image editing software. Once I'd shut that down, my connection to the other participants picked up noticeably.

The great thing about TokBox is that it is fully browser-based, something I've mentioned as a major plus elsewhere (see for example my post about Eyejot Video Mail). Having trialed what seems like hundreds of other audio and video applications for online teaching purposes, I now basically only ever really pay attention to services that allow me to link up with other users directly through an Internet browser-based service. I (and my computer dashboard) got sick to death of time and space consuming downloads and installations for other services (things like Sightspeed and Skype included), and my users appreciate access to services that don't require complicated (or for that matter compulsory) sign-ups, installations, and finnickly little free services that in effect force you to pay expensive fees for anything close to a useful and practical application.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not against paying for good applications and services. I'm perfectly willing to pay for them, if they are practical and easy to use. As a teacher with fee-paying students, I also don't mind making an investment in the necessary technology. But for the students themselves, they shouldn't be forced to go through brain-busting installation and sign-up procedures, or for that matter fork out money in expensive fees. I've already tried that with one service provider, and when it came time to forward on the costs as part of the students' fees, I realized the process had made online learning somewhat prohibitively expensive for my students.

In any case, for the moment TokBox appears to be offering online video calling, video mail and multiple person (up to 6 at a time) video conferencing free of charge. It looks really impressive, remembering of course that they are in Beta mode and still developing their services. At the moment, I find their video mail a little unwieldy compared to the polished service provided by Eyejot, but the live video calls and conferencing service direct out of an Internet browser (with only myself required to have an active membership) - that's some sweet stuff they've got going there. It certainly helped facilitate a great online group-based class with my learners tonight!

TokBox also has some cool "embed" features that make it great for integration into websites. You can, for example, embed your own personal Video Mail / Video Call service into a page on your site, where users can contact you live through a video call or leave you a video message.

The question now will be, when will TokBox move out of Beta mode and start requiring payment for their services? I sincerely hope they don't go the way of companies like Sightspeed, Webex or for that matter the Adobe-based conferencing set-up. There is some undisputed quality in those set-ups, but the prices they charge are so steep I doubt any users outside a major company set up will want to use them. These companies also need to recognize that smallish set ups like myself are willing to pay and sign up for certain services, but forcing our clients/students to do the same becomes prohibitive and frustrating.

And there's always another outfit on the rise out there ready to do the same basic things for a whole lot less...

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for TokBox - they so far have all the functions that could help make online education really rock. By all means slap me with a feasible charge for your services, but please, please, please! keep things open and accessible for the people I need to deal with online. In my case, they don't realistically have the budget, and in terms of English language learning - sometimes don't have quite the language or computer skills to handle complicated sign-up procedures.

      

 

"Korea's endless grapple with English"

South Korea, where I have been living and working for the past 8 years as an English Language Educator, is currently in the throes of new changes regarding its approaches to learning English.

The picture to the left shows Koreans lining up to get a place for the iBT test provided by ETS. It's a pretty good example of both the fervor and the problems associated with "making it" in English in this country.

Amongst other things, the newly elected President has created a transition committee whose sole focus is addressing the issue of English education here. Some pretty huge proposals have been put forward, including the hiring of thousands more teachers, regulating classrooms and teachers so that lessons are conducted completely in English, and introducing new testing procedures that move the emphasis away from grammar and reading to more productive skills like speaking and writing.

The lengthy article here from JoongAng Daily, gives an excellent overview of all that is happening and how people from all over the spectrum are reacting to it. It paints a picture that is to some degree shocking, but at the same time hints strongly that the necessary wheels are starting to go into motion to potentially create a brighter future for better, more realistic, and more accessible English in Korea.

It also quotes some pretty daunting statistics - which I've attempted to summaize and list here:

 

• A survey in 2003 showed that 74% of respondents in Seoul could not comfortably communicate in English (this is meaningful in the context that the whole of Korea sees Seoul as the 'pinnacle' of English ability)

• There are more than 33,000 Korean English teachers in the wider public school system in Korea, including elementary, middle and high schools, and they will all be required to conduct their classes completely in English by the year 2012

• The new plan calls for the hiring of more than 23,000 new teachers (interesting considering the visa application requirements for expat teachers have just been tightened considerably, most probably resulting in less teachers being willing to come here)

• More than 4 trillion won is being set aside for special training programs for teachers

• A survey by one major national teacher association shows that more than 60% of Korean English teachers are opposed to the idea of teaching their classes in English (citing problems with large class sizes and pressure to focus on test preparation), but a member of the transition team suggests this could be more to do with Korean teachers fearing to show their lack of ability in English in front of students and possibly even being fearful of losing their jobs to native English speaking teachers

• A report from a Samsung research team claims that altogether individuals spend more than 14.3 billion won on English education per year

• The Political and Economic Risk Consultancy in Hong Kong published a report in 2005 in which business executives and expats in the region placed South Korea as the most difficult country to communicate in English among 12 countries in Asia

• South Korea’s average score for the Internet-based Toefl test from September 2005 to December 2006 was 72 points, ranking it 21st out of 28 countries in Asia (another article here claims South Korea ranked 93rd out of 147 countries on the TOEFL in 2004 and 2005; since the test went online and speaking and writing sections were added, the ranking has fallen to 111th; South Korea comes 134th in the speaking section)

• More Koreans take Toefl than in any other country, according to the Educational Testing Service (ETS) - a total of 162,000 South Koreans in 2005 and 2006 took either the online, paper or computerized Toefl (a figure I saw quoted elsewhere claims that Koreans make up almost 20% of Toefl test takers worldwide)

• Opposition parties are claiming the new changes will only benefit weathier families and result in even more people resorting to expensive private instruction

• Major private language institute chains are preparing to cash in on more demand for their services once the changes are implemented

 

Interesting stuff, and surely interesting times ahead for English language teaching in Korea. Personally, I salute most of the changes proposed, and hope they can change the dismal "return on investment" for English language learning here as it currently stands.

Now it is mostly a matter of whether the government will actually implement these changes and programs, and then how teachers, schools, students and parents will react...

 

Online Teaching with Eyejot Video Mail

I recently re-commenced teaching advanced level students 1-1 online, for things like iBT preparation and interview and essay practice for students in the process of applying to universities in the United States. It has been a little while since I did online teaching, and it has been great putting to use all the new gadgets and programs that have developed and become available since the last time I was doing this sort of teaching.

 

One of these new "toys" has been Eyejot, which basically promotes itself as being browser-based Video Mail. This has been a real boon to my battery of online teaching tools, especially in terms of asynchronous task submissions that add a video angle to the already widely available online audio programs. Basically, using the easy code provided, I am able to place a video mail recorder on my students' web pages that allows them to record and send tasks to me pretty much instantly.

   

As you can see from the screen shot here (for one of my iBT TOEFL students), I can create a private page for a student that includes an i-frame based online iBT test, and next to it goes the Eyejot video task recorder. For the student, submitting a speaking task is as simple as hitting "reply", then activating the Macromedia Flash plug in, and then recording and sending. The student does not need to download any special programs or software, and is not required to go through the process of signing up for an Eyejot membership. In fact, the web-based recorder here has a 1-minute time limit (with a counter ticking down to zero) for recordings that I find ideal for test-prep style recordings (given they always have time limits of similar duration). Paid up Eyejot members (like myself, but not my students) can record messages of up to 5 minutes duration. In my situation that is ideal for then responding to my students' task submissions, as I can reply with a longer video mail giving them in-depth feedback, and it is delivered direct to their email.

 

Eyejot recently also added an upgrade that allows video mails to be embedded directly into webpages. This allows me to create an online speaking log for my students where they can scroll through the tasks they have submitted for review purposes. By providing the Eyejot recorder again on the same page, the student has the option of reviewing their own tasks and then re-recording them right there in the one place.
   

I got my Eyejot membership when their initial offer only cost US$15 per year, and it's since been raised to US$30, but it does represent excellent value considering the ease and reliability of the service. Compared to applications like Sightspeed, this is not only much cheaper, but also more practical. Sightspeed doesn't allow you to embed recordings, costs US$15 per month for any sort of practical functionality, requires membership for anyone to record messages back to you, requires a software download, and unless the person is willing to pay, they are limited to 30 seconds of recording time - which is pretty much useful only in terms of expressing how frustrated you feel. Even with the paid membership in Sightspeed, a member can only record messages of up to 3 minutes in duration. Eyejot, by comparison, allows anyone (with or without an Eyejot membership) to record messages to you directly from your own website for free for up to one minute, is fully browser-based (thus not requiring complicated installations), has the instant versatility of embedded videos, and a paid membership (at a fraction of the cost compared to Sightspeed) allows the option of recording messages of up to 5 minutes in length. From my (and my students') perspective, Eyejot's service absolutely creams things like Sightspeed, and even makes it a better option than things like Skype (which also involves a time-consuming and potentially complicated installation and doesn't have embed functions).

All in all, Eyejot has added a very convenient and stimulating resource to my online teaching options, and my students love it. I can't wait to see what other improvements they have in store in the not too distant future!

 

If you feel like trying out Eyejot yourself, right here on the blog, check out the video recorder below. So yeah, I forgot to mention - this is also a communication tool for things like blogs as well!

 

 

Jamie and the Very Hungry Caterpillar

Tips for getting the most out of the Boost! main listening passages

If any of my blog visitors have started using the Boost! Listening strand, they may have already noticed that the listening passages are somewhat different from many other standardized listening course books – especially in terms of the pacing. Many course book approaches to listening slow down the listening input to make the delivery more salient, but in the end the input is almost completely unnatural when compared to natural spoken delivery.

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With Boost! Listening, from the start we wanted the listening passages to represent very close to natural English speaking delivery, to give the students exposure to more genuine-sounding input and challenge them to develop new and more effective strategies for handling it.

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It is worth approaching listening comprehension classes with four ‘levels’ or objectives in mind:

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1)      Listening for gist / general comprehension

2)      Listening to learn (content-based input and/or how natural discourse works)

3)      Listening for skill application

4)      Listening for precision and language development

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The first objective in that list represents the purest of the “top down” approach to listening, where we want students to gain a broad idea or understanding of what they are listening to. The final objective is more “bottom up”, working with finer details as a basis. The other two objectives fall somewhere in between and to a greater or lesser degree incorporate both top-down and bottom-up processes.

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It is important to keep these objectives in mind, because they will in fact be affected by the way(s) you choose to go about applying the listening passages with your learners in class. Just pressing ‘play’ on the CD player and moving directly on to the skills questions could result in your listening lessons finishing up very quickly, but also cause you and your students to conclude the listening material is beyond their level. As the writer, to me this is tragic because you and your learners have missed out on some fantastic chances to develop listening skills at multiple levels!

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Tip 1: Use multiple listening opportunities – each with its own specific focus

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I usually play the main listening passage in each unit 3-4 times to the class.

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I ask the students to not take any notes at all during the first listening, but instead try to get a general feel about what the passage is about, or (in the case of dialogues) where and why a conversation is taking place and between who. I usually find it beneficial to link the impressions gained here with the pre-listening activity the students completed before taking on the main listening passage.

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The second and third listenings are for note-taking and getting down as much relevant information about the passage as possible. I will often get the students into pairs or small groups at this stage, and let them compare and share their notes after each listening. Also, I watch the students’ note-taking strategies carefully during the second listening and may offer some practical strategies to them before listening again for a third time. For example, with the content-based passages, I may recommend concentrating on listing main ideas first, to which they can then add details during the next listening sequence. For the dialogues, I might show them how to draw a line down the middle of the notes section, and concentrate on putting each speaker’s input on either side of the line, blocked into ‘turns’. This will help them see how the conversation has developed overall, but also what each individual speaker had to say collectively, and how the various interactions flowed and worked with/from each other.

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Note also that in many cases, the listening notes section is specifically formatted to help students target and absorb the information that will then be concentrated on in the follow up skill. It is important to point this out to them in advance, as they may not need to be getting down all the information from the passage in order to concentrate on a specific skill. In a comprehensive approach to listening (and this is often the way I go about it), I do general note-taking on a separate piece of paper first (as described earlier), then move across to the text-book and ask for note-taking specifically geared to the skill. Generally speaking, this allows me to hit the first three objectives in the list I outlined above (general gist, content or discourse-based information, then specific information necessary to apply the unit’s skill).

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Last of all, the number of times I play the listening passage depends very much on an individual class and the learners’ needs. Some units benefit from up to 5 or even 6 repeats of the main listening input, while for other units it can be handled sufficiently with just 1-2 listenings. It depends on how familiar they are with the theme and direction of the information, and just generally how well they are managing with any given unit.

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Tip 2: Add a bottom-up listening activity for language noticing/ development

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I generally find that the units in the Boost! Listening strand can go a little bit faster than units in corresponding levels for the other strands (writing and speaking in particular). The trick here is to not limit your listening lessons to just what has been sequenced and suggested on the textbook pages!

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I do like for my learners to get practice with the ‘nitty gritties’ (fine details) of the language they are listening to, so towards the end of a class I often like to use the main listening passage again as a collaborative dictation activity. I will play the main passage and hit pause after each main sentence or utterance, giving the learners time to jot down exactly what they have heard. Once we have gone through the passage in this fashion, I ask the learners to share and compare their versions of the passage. We then listen to the main passage again 1-2 times at normal speed without pauses, during which time the learners can edit what they have written. After a final round of collaboration with classmates, I then distribute copies of the script and ask them to self-edit the versions they jotted down during the dictation sequence.

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This is great for helping the learners ‘notice’ the differences between what they initially thought they heard and what was actually said. It shows them the words they missed, and also the grammatical forms and endings they may not have clued on to. For a teacher it’s pretty handy as well, as the students are helping each other and in the end editing their own work!

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To create some extra variety, and also to cater to differing amounts of time remaining in lessons, I often apply this dictation approach with one of the other (shorter) listening passages in the unit (for example the passage used in Part B for skill noticing, the Pronunciation Focus scripts, and/or reading or listening passages from the integration pages).

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This approach is great for very detailed and focused attention during listening, and caters to the fourth objective in the list mentioned above. It also adds variety to the lesson and places specific bottom-up style listening in what I personally believe to be the correct phase of a lesson: at the end, following things like listening for gist, listening for content/discourse information, and listening for application of specific skills.

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GET English (Global English Talk) Launch

I've noticed an abundance of talk and chat sites strewn about the Internet, but I haven't really been able to find one that (a) focused specifically on catering to English language learners, AND (b) didn't involve some sort of membership sign up procedure and/or complicated download procedure. I thought I'd do something about it, and the result is: GET English!

GET stands for Global English Talk, and it's the newest addition to our OnlinEnglish Network. It's actually extremely simple and consists of two options - Live Audio Talk or Live Text Chat.

Live Audio Talk is a simple speaking applet loaded directly into the webpage. No membership requirements and no complicated downloads (though your computer will need to be Flash-enabled). The speaking applet comprises a live online space where up to 20 people can gather and speak live using a computer mic. We've even created two rooms based on level, in case people feel they are more suited to basic/beginner level live talking or something more advanced and challenging. And just in case people fear they won't have anything to talk about, we've provided a direct link on the pages to the latest Reuter's Video News homepage, where visitors can access all sorts of current news articles!

Live Text Chat, on the other hand, is for people who either don't have access to a headset/mic, and/or prefer the good old text chatting format for interaction. It can in fact be a less intimidating way of interacting with others over the Internet, and in addition to giving you time to think and edit what you say provides good practice with live writing/typing skills. As with Live Audio Talk, we've divided it into two levels and added the Reuter's Video Link there.

This is all 100% free, 100% accessible, and 100% easy and quick to use. So if you're really wanting to practice your English skills live online, there's no excuse now really, is there...?

 

 

Millions of reasons for englishraven.com to celebrate!

I recently checked the English Raven site stats and noticed that it had recently clocked up its 1,000,000th (putting all the 000s there feels more impressive than writing "million", don't you think?) individual visitor. The exact figure I had on checking (today) was 1,034,958. It would have been nice to see who the 1,000,000th visitor was... Oh well, only missed him/her by 34,958 other visitors. I must pay more attention next time!

Wow. 1,000,000 people have visited the site. That is pretty cool to contemplate, but also kind of staggering. The site might not be a "big cheese" in web circles, but for a guy like me who barely knew how to use Microsoft Word to type up a resume when I started fiddling around with site building, I must say it is a pretty satisfying feeling seeing that number of visitors. It's also a humble reminder to me of just how many English teachers there are out there in the world, and by extension, how many English language learners.  WOW!!!

Million (or rather "millions") is a magic figure for English Raven in other ways as well. 2007 saw the site get 1,148,267 hits, up from the year before when it got 1,006,202 hits. It's an interesting feeling to look back over the stats and see the first year (2001) with a grand total of 88 visitors and 1806 hits overall. Those 1800 hits were no doubt mostly from me, trying to work out how the heck to make the pages work...

All in all, English Raven has (as of today) accrued 4,405,532 hits over its 6-odd years of life on the world wide web. I think that gives the site, and the million visitors to its EFL/ESL resource cyber shores, plenty of reasons to celebrate!

If you're reading this and you were one of the 1,000,000 site visitors, my heartfelt thanks, and I hope whatever you found on the site gave you and your learners a more rewarding experience in the EFL/ESL classroom.

Rightio, then. Time to start setting our sights on 10,000,000 hits to the site...

Busy, busy, busy!

 

 

 

 

Boost! series complete...

Well, there they are: all 5 strands (reading, writing, speaking, listening and grammar) and all 4 levels of my Boost! Longman Integrated Skills Series, published with Pearson Asia ELT.

20 books in total (24 books if you include the supplementary 48-page practice books inside the back covers of each grammar book).

This snap may not be as jazzy as the official ones you'll see in Pearson Longman catalogues or promotional posters, but it's a special one for my wife and I. After almost two years constant toil, it was quite a moment when we laid out all the final samples on the desk in my study...