Monday, October 20, 2008

Sorry for not Blogging

This semester, I have "relief from teaching", which means I do not have to teach, although I do go to campus to attend meetings and to administer the MA program of which I am in charge. I have been granted the "relief" to finish a book which I have been working on since 2002.



The book is a sequel to two books I have edited since 1999 (see photo). The subject of both books is English teachers who are nonnative speakers of English. The first, Non-native Educators in English Language Teaching (1999), was the forerunner of the nonnative speaker movement. See http://nnest.asu.edu/ for more of that. The book contained chapters written mainly by teacher-scholars in the USA. All are nonnative speakers of English. The second book, Teaching English to the World (2005), contains chapters written by English teachers from 15 countries. These teachers are also nonnative speakers of English.

The next book, the one I am working on, will be authored by me. I hope to recall the achievements of the nonnative speaker movement and summarize the research that has been conducted on this yopic up to now. I don't have a title yet, but work on about 4 chapters is complete. Although I work at home, I do have distractions such as e-mail and the Internet. On some days, I write 5 pages. On other days, it could only be one paragraph.

I have also been editing my father's autobiography, and updating them on a blog titled "Teddy Braine's Memories." I have to edit the entries carefully as my father's writing is not well organized. In fact, I edit two versions of the entries, one for the blog and the second for a Sunday newspaper in Sri Lanka, which has already published two excerpts. The latest can be read at

Life goes on.

3 comments:

  1. Looking forward to reading your third book and hope to be able to meet you on campus! :)

    Meedy

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  2. I wonder if your books can be our textbooks for some courses related to English language teaching...
    It sounds so great to study a course with the textbook written by the professor.
    Looking forward to your return.

    Daniel

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  3. Hello Meedy,

    You may have to wait a while to read the book in print. Publishing, especially of academic books, is a slow process. But I'll let you have a look at the manuscript before it goes to press. Of course, I have to find a publisher first, and the publisher of my previous books has already shown an interest in this one.

    Daniel,

    The previous books I mentioned are used as reference books in some graduate courses taught in the USA and other countries. That means, they are emntiond in the course syllabus and students are encouraged to read them. They were not meant as textbooks.

    I have co-authored two textbooks for undergraduate writing courses. One was published in the USA and the other in China.

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