Teacher Training Books

Anyone seeking to teach in a cross-cultural setting, even here in North America, would benefit from reading this book. The author's writing style is clear, readable, and packed full of great real-world examples. This book is a must read for anyone involved in teaching in a cross-cultural setting.

Judith and Sherwood Lingenfelter's work Teaching Cross-Culturally seeks to accomplish four goals. The first is to help teachers understand their own culture of teaching and learning. The second is to help teachers become effective teachers in another culture by becoming good learners. The third goal is to help teachers reflect on cultural differences and conflicts with others by considering perspectives taught in Scripture and faith in Christ. The final goal reflects the others in that the Lingenfelter's want teachers to have fun and enjoy teaching in other cultures and feel like they are taking part in fulfilling the Great Commission.

One of the more helpful aspects of this book is it helps teachers to consider their own cultural biases and how those biases affect their teaching style in cultural settings different from their own. These cultural biases reflect not only one's family background but also one's own educational background. Cultural differences can be seen in a variety of settings ranging from the difference between an inner city school and a rural school to the difference between an American International School and a native school setting. This issue is important because many teachers don't fully realize how much their teaching styles are influenced by their own cultural backgrounds.

This book also helps the potential cross-cultural teacher to consider different learning styles and settings in non-western settings. One is reminded that in many non-western settings learning is often more of a community event than an individual pursuit. So, one needs to understand the role of a teacher in these kinds of setting will differ based on where they are. The Lingenfelter's also help teachers re-evaluate their expectations and consider which may be valid and which are false. Too many false expectations lead to negative teaching experiences.

To teach effectively in a cross-cultural situation then is to learn about the culture one is in and then adapt one's teaching style to that culture. This is reflected in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ who set the ultimate example of adapting to different cultural situations to most effectively reach those around him. The potential cross-cultural teacher needs to follow the example Christ set before them.

There's lots of books out there on teaching, and lots of books on multiculturalism, but FINALLY a book that addresses each area from the other's perspective! This book deals with the nuts and bolts of different cultures, but it also comes from an academic perspective, including the research and citations to back it up. Written by two PhDs with the practical knowledge to back up the scholarship, this gave me the answers I needed for working with my inner city/multicultural church groups. It's very readable, and reasonably priced. I'm delighted with it and recommend it highly.

This book is like a cook book on what to do first and last in conducting qualitative research, especially for English teachers in English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL or EFL). Talking about cook book in qualitative research, one would very willing to recommend couple of books available in the market, for example, Miles and Huberman¡¯s (1994). Although the contents are similar, this book is quite unique in that it exclusively focuses on ESL or EFL. The step by step data collection procedures and exemplar articles have made it easy and interesting for me and my graduate students in conducting qualitative research as well as providing guidelines as to how to evaluate a specific piece of research. Data collection strategies labeled by personal review in the given boxes might be extremely helpful for novice researchers in this field in understanding, conceptualizing, and practicing qualitative research. If I were to pick up one book for the future research methodology course in TESOL, this book will be the first one appeared on the lists for my students¡¯ reading materials.

This book is a real masterpiece, it is comprehensive, elegant and clear. Whether you use it for an MBA or any other discipline, it will be a great help, as it focuses on curiosity, judgment and wisdom (qualities of mind), character, sensitivity, integrity and responsibility (qualities of the person) and the ability to apply them.

This book explains the components of a full teacher induction program, not just mentoring (which they see as just one part and insufficient to really retain new teachers on its own). The format of the pages is very busy, and while there is useful information here, you'll need to weed through a lot of repetition to get to it all. Wong's other book, "The First Days of School" is pitched repetitively too.