Bill Templer | Shumen University (original) (raw)

Papers by Bill Templer

The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, Aug 1, 2019

BETA E-Newsletter, 2023

The BETA E-Newsletter, ezine of the Bulgarian English Teachers Association (BETA), Issue April-Ma... more The BETA E-Newsletter, ezine of the Bulgarian English Teachers Association (BETA), Issue April-May 2023, #44 was initially mistakenly numbered Issue #43 and sent out to the BETA membership in late May 2023. It contained various errata. This CORRECTED VERSION should replace that version. You can share with colleagues and friends.
It has two articles co-authored by Bill and Silviya Templer, to which Silviya and I wish to call special attention: Reinventing BETA: A Hatful of Transformative Suggestions, Ново Начало (Bill Templer and Silviya Templer) … 7-31 and Moving toward self-determined, learner-controlled democratic alternative education in Bulgaria (Bill Templer and Silviya Templer) ... 32-47 ●●●●● There are also four other interesting articles and some news items, explore as you wish and share, by Tsvetelena Taralova .. 48; Reneta Stoimenova … 52; Sonya Arnaudova … 57; Silviya Apostolova.. 61.The new BETA President’s Address by Albena Stefanova (pp. 4-5) and a poem ‘In Pursuit of Excellence’ by E-Newsletter editor Georgi Dimitrov (p. 6) inroduce the issue.
Some hyperlinks in issue #44 may no longer function. Zlibrary is best accessed at https://zlibrary-asia.se/
●●●● The now projected Nov. 2023 issue should be #45.
●●●● To supplement the paper by Bill & Sylvia on democratic student-centered, self-directed education, watch this new lecture: Peter Gray: 'The Education Revolution is Occurring Now and Here Are Ways to Speed It Up' https://youtu.be/B7fATF0d85s 25 June 2023 AERO conference US, 104 min. See Democratic Education in Nature https://youtu.be/k-LVQelZEdo [excellent!] See also EUDEC in Sofia, 1-7 Aug. 2023: https://eudec2023.com/
See also THE TEACHER TRAINER (Summer 2023), excellent book reviews, some articles: https://tinyurl.com/5ymkc23h NATECLA has launched a DISCUSSION BOARD: https://nateclascotland.proboards.com/ BETA needs one! Attend the BETA annual 'Jubilee' conference (also hybrid online) 9/10 Sept. 2023, see: https://elta.org.rs/2023/08/08/beta-2023/ See the program there, register.

FUTURITY #06, 2023

One counter-vision for radical socioeconomic and existential change now gaining ground in discuss... more One counter-vision for radical socioeconomic and existential change now gaining ground in discussion, debate and research on climate breakdown is degrowth. This brief essay offers ideas, resources for discussion, for what can be called a 'pedagogy of positive degrowth'. Its core educational hypothesis: Degrowth belongs as a component and urgent focus in EFL/ESOL, geography, biology, civics, history, the arts, and many other school subjects, in teacher trade unions, social jus ce NGOs and municipalities, social media, embedded in public discourse, public pedagogy and poli cal debate. And Read Caitlin Johnstone regularly!

FUTURITY #06, 2023

I suggest here the need to foster Mindgrowth by engaging more hands-on inside our own teaching ec... more I suggest here the need to foster Mindgrowth by engaging more hands-on inside our own teaching ecologies with experiments in democratic schooling, self-determined learning, important for changing schools into centers of student self-discovery, driven by student voice and student passions & interests. This needs to be foregrounded far more inside IATEFL. Sparking learning that is self-willed, "where the learner gets to decide what to learn, when, where, how, and why to learn" (Ricci & Riley 2023, 7). In the spirit and hands-on implementation of vistas of grassroots educational revolution sketched in Ken Robinson's Creative Schools (2016), see my article on Robinson in Futurity #2.

Pedagogies for Creative & Critical Thinking in ELT, 2013

The paper sketches an approach that seeks to put students ‘inside’ the life worlds of others, exp... more The paper sketches an approach that seeks to put students ‘inside’ the life worlds of others, exploring avenues to schooling ‘critical social imagination’ in the EFL classroom. Its core is writing or speaking what are called ‘interior monologues’. In such a monologue – structured as a poem, reflection, a letter, a journal or blog entry, a kind of autobiographical narrative or other form -- a student tries to imagine the thought of a character in literature, a movie, or a person in history or life at a specific point in time, assuming their persona. Often, the focus is just on an ordinary person. Interior monologuing asks the student: How would you feel in that person’s place? Try to visualize and articulate that. A detailed lesson plan on child workers in Thailand and Columbia is developed, and an Appendix with narratives from two child labourers is included.

FUTURITY , 2020

The present article seeks to gather together a broad palette of links, suggestions, mental nudges... more The present article seeks to gather together a broad palette of links, suggestions, mental nudges, ideascape extracts, numerous video’d talks and interviews (a plethora of hyperlinks)n of the thinking and educator work of Ken Robinson and Dave Graeber, who both passed away in Sept. 2020. The article was written initially for social justice educators teaching English across the planet. But these are resources for building your own pathways into greater familiarity with their thought and activism. And to be stimulated toward more Exploratory Action Research in your teaching, direct and remote, and Exploratory Practice. EAR and EP are very much in the spirit of both men’s thinking about education. Despite differences, linkages also reverberate between what the espoused and sought to change. You’ll be surprised by parallels. You can explore, find what you like, and puzzle why. Each book mentioned is a work onto itself. Graeber’s books are all online as open-access pdf, Ken’s books are in part, but all are available low-cost. You can decide what you what to listen to, ponder, read, implement – alone or in small communities of practice, perhaps creating a project.

Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 2004

This programmatic paper argues for a 'paradigm shift' in rethinking our approaches to tea... more This programmatic paper argues for a 'paradigm shift' in rethinking our approaches to teaching ELF (English as a lingua franca) as a more effective international means of communication, especially in and for the Global South. It suggests looking at and experimenting with two modes of EFL-Basic English 850, developed by Charles Ogden and Ivor Richards, and VOA Special English, a venture maintained by the U.S. government-for a kind of 'plateau proficiency' in skills both of reception and production, particularly for average learners. The paper also explores alternative ideas on what authentic mass literacy in plainer, less complex English as L1 could be. In this, it looks to the field of research and extensive practical application known as Plain Language (http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/ [accessed 20 July 2008]), or more specifically Plain English. The two terms will be used synonymously here. My broader orientation in language pedagogy is to a world of greater ed...

The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 2017

The article seeks to contribute to working-class and social justice pedagogy by developing concre... more The article seeks to contribute to working-class and social justice pedagogy by developing concrete angles on teaching/exploring some of the (a) short fiction, (b) journalistic-photographic work and (c) sociography of poverty by the Danish-born US immigrant, muckraker (http://goo.gl/6WeGtM) and social reformer Jacob A. Riis (1849-1914, http://goo.gl/xmNDTD), a writer and activist still too little known outside the U.S. The article suggests approaches for teaching material by Riis as a focus in a critical EFL classroom, centered on real historical and contemporary social issues such as poverty in capitalist relations of production, immigration and its myriad aporias. Through the prism of Riis, it suggests looking at concrete social deprivation in the ‘Gilded Age’ from the context of a critical pedagogy in the ‘New Gilded Age’ (McAlevey, 2016) today, also with classroom materials for today, including David Rovics’ political folksong. On one level, the article is largely aimed at pract...

P. Petkov, & S. Boycheva, (eds.), Sprache der Kultur und Kultur der Sprache. Festschrift für Prof. Dr. sc. Ana Dimova. (pp. 332-340). Veliko Tarnovo: Faber, 2012

Educators across the world are asking “What does teaching and learning for an equitable and democ... more Educators across the world are asking “What does teaching and learning for an equitable and democratic society look like? What are the obstacles that must be overcome to achieve democratic education?” The present paper is in that spirit, and that of Jim Cummins (2001:2): “… when students’ language, culture and experiences are ignored or excluded in classroom interactions, students are immediately starting from a disadvantage. Everything they have learned about life and the world up to this point is being dismissed as irrelevant to school learning.” I look at aspects of a key question in Bulgarian public education: rethinking and restructuring multicultural education through new experiments with bilingual education for pupils whose home language is not Bulgarian. This means attention in the main to the literacy needs (and language rights) of ethnic speakers of Turkish and Romani, seeing them as “emergent bilinguals” (Menken 2011: 121). I argue that the time is ripe for a paradigm shift in language policy in the Bulgarian schools, also rethinking multicultural education for identity-building and mutual tolerance

BETA E-Newsletter, 2013

It is important to 'indigenize' the English syllabus in Bulgarian schools where possible, using m... more It is important to 'indigenize' the English syllabus in Bulgarian schools where possible, using more materials specifically related to Bulgaria, and also including fiction for children and young adults. Dobry (New York:Viking, 1934, 176 pp.) is the first novel in American young people's fiction set in Bulgaria-in a village on the Yantra near Veliko Turnovo (https://tinyurl.com/42bevxxf). It was co-written by Monica Shannon (ca. 1890-1965), a well-known children's writer in California, and the Lyaskovets-born émigré artist Atanas Kachamakov (1898-1982), perhaps the most renowned Bulgarian sculptor in the U.S. from 1924 until his death in Лясковец after his return to Bulgaria in 1979. A special exhibition of his work, 'Bread', was organized in Nov. 2021 in Vienna (https://tinyurl.com/4at2uzz).. Richly illustrated by Kachamakov, Dobry was awarded the prestigious Newbery Medal for the "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" in 1935 (https://tinyurl.com/3rp4ne7s), a unique distinction. The novel deals with the life, dreams and aspirations of Dobry, growing up in a farming village ca. 1910 on the Yantra. Dobry is a typical village boy with an extraordinary love for nature, and early on discovers his budding talent in drawing and sculpting. Against his mother Roda's wishes, he dreams of becoming an artist, and is encouraged in this by his very wise mentor, his grandfather.

TESOL Matters, Vol. 11, No. 2, March/April/May , 2001

Today more than ever there is urgent need to create and deepen channels for effective communicati... more Today more than ever there is urgent need to create and deepen channels for effective communication between Arabs and Jews ("Effective communication among communities and their individual members is essential for peaceful coexistence"; "The TESOL Forward Plan," 1998, p. 4). Universities in the Arab world are one natural matrix for such dialogue and interaction, and TESOL is now in a phase of truly phenomenal expansion on the Arabian Gulf. In the spirit of the aims of TESOLers for Social Responsibility (see Cates, 2000), classrooms (and staff rooms) in Arabia would seem to offer a prime potential site for encounter between Arab students and colleagues and Jewish TESOLers-as we link language learning and the values of teaching for tolerance, social awareness, and solidarity. Yet as anyone who has worked in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, or elsewhere on the Gulf knows, blinkered ministry and university officials have long practiced what is in effect a pervasive anti-Jewish bar in TESOL recruitment and staffing: Jews need not apply.

This collection began with Marx’s observation that the logic of capitalism, in its rapacious hung... more This collection began with Marx’s observation that the logic of capitalism, in its rapacious hunger to accumulate, leads inexorably to the immiseration of the direct producers of the system’s wealth. By and large, the beneficiaries of this logic are the unproductive elite that, vampire-like, suck the life out of the producing class. Marx’s observation is no fanciful conjuring of a dewy-eyed dreamer. Rather, as we see in the pages of Capital, it is the outcome of hard-edged critique cut from the steel-gaze of dialectical science. And what is Marx’s point? What are we to take from his critique of political economy? Well, simply, it is that history is no accident. Nor is history the preordained prize of the ‘deserving’: be it the ‘meek’, capitalists or even workers. We learn from Marx that history is to be won. History is struggle and, more concretely, class struggle. It is to such struggle and its intersections with education that his book has been directed. In Marx’s days, he and his...

The Journal of Asia TEFL, 2004

In a number of East Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, and across much of the Ara... more In a number of East Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, and across much of the Arab world, there is a discriminatory impediment to improving the quality of English teaching that should be addressed: ageism in work permit laws. Ageism, best defined as “systematic stereotyping and discrimination against people because they are old” (Templer, 2002, 2003) is common in many countries. Ageism in employment involves setting arbitrary mandatory age limits for employees, such as teachers or civil servants, or practicing discrimination, often hidden, in hiring or retaining employees even in their 40s and 50s. It may be especially insidious directed against older women. A survey by the author of EFL job openings posted in Thailand in March 2004 indicates that some ads specify that candidates over a set age (often 45, sometimes 30, in one case 58) need not apply. Clearly, some of this is overt ageism.

The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, Aug 1, 2019

BETA E-Newsletter, 2023

FUTURITY #06, 2023

Pedagogies for Creative & Critical Thinking in ELT, 2013

FUTURITY , 2020

Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 2004

The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 2017

P. Petkov, & S. Boycheva, (eds.), Sprache der Kultur und Kultur der Sprache. Festschrift für Prof. Dr. sc. Ana Dimova. (pp. 332-340). Veliko Tarnovo: Faber, 2012

BETA E-Newsletter, 2013

TESOL Matters, Vol. 11, No. 2, March/April/May , 2001

The Journal of Asia TEFL, 2004

Poetry in motion presents activities and ideas for using visualized poems, with animation, film c... more Poetry in motion presents activities and ideas for using visualized poems, with animation, film clips, or even just readings of a poem, to energize the teaching of lyric poetry in the EFL classroom. Visual literacy ranges from better comprehending gesture, facial expression, photographs to aspects of performance, use of space, clothing, visual angles and much more. Music may also play a prime role in a multimodal mix. Visualized poems incorporate many of these dimensions, and the present article argues that they can ignite imagination in special ways, tapping students’ multiple intelligences (Puchta & Rinvolucri, 2005; Gardner, 1999), and energizing and sharpening their “emotional literacy” (Goleman, 1995; Upadhyaya, 2008), empathy and emotional competencies. Experience indicates they can motivate reluctant learners, learning to better read reality through the prism of fantasy (Wagner, 1999). This is the link now to the paper in HLT: http://old.hltmag.co.uk/oct09/sart06.htm

In October 2013, more than 100 scholars gathered at an international conference in Uppsala to dis... more In October 2013, more than 100 scholars gathered at an international conference in Uppsala to discuss ways to identify and analyse a theme which in recent years has attracted growing attention: the discrimination, marginalisation and persecution of Romanies. The approaches adopted in this volume range from critical theory, semiotics, discourse and cultural analysis to intersectional perspectives. Many contributors here argue for a conceptual understanding of this phenomenon that goes beyond the notions of anti-Romani racism or Romaphobia, suggesting a shift in focus towards the prevailing prejudice in majority societies. The controversial core theme discussed in this book is the appropriateness and the theoretical understanding of the term “antiziganism” and its analogue “antigypsyism.” The essays explore empirical findings from the news media, film, literature and theatre, as well as contemporary and historical realities in Germany, Kosovo, Norway, the former Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union, Romania, Sweden, and the US. The striking historical and geographic continuity of stereotypes and the different modes of antiziganist practice comprise a central theme here, along with a focus on the counter-discourse of Romanies. Since comprehensive literature on this topic in Romani studies has, to date, been rare, this volume provides necessary readings for the debate among scholars, policy-makers and activists.

In guiding students on their lifelong academic and self-discovery journey, encouraging them (and ... more In guiding students on their lifelong academic and self-discovery journey, encouraging them (and their teachers as well) to become changemakers hands-on, we need to help create new structures and opportunities for learners from an early age for new modes of volunteerism, unpaid voluntary community service (VCS) and caregiving, in their neighborhoods, towns and villages. Such caregiving is also a powerful means of new learning, outside the classroom.
Article overview
● For starters, explore these
● A potpourri of introductory VCS links
● Service learning in the community
● Pupils assisting the elderly
● Cinema extraordinaire: Blaga’s Lessons / Уроците на Блага
● Students aiding orphans, children with disabilities or suffering abuse
● Fellow students helping pupils with difficulties at school
● Local outdoor/indoor service tasks galore

Unpublished draft, 2024

Younger learners (and older ones too) enjoy folktales, fairy tales of all kinds, and most EFL t... more Younger learners (and older ones too) enjoy folktales, fairy tales of all kinds, and most EFL teachers know that. Textbook writers too, including versions of familiar ‘children’s stories’ from the international or English repertoire. But how many teachers here in Bulgaria use English versions of Bulgarian traditional tales in their teaching—stories that all the teachers and a portion of the younger (and older) learners probably know in original Bulgarian versions through the numerous books of Ran Bossilek and Angel Karalyichev? It can become a revealing window onto your own culture through its translation into English. Using indigenous traditional tales: toward a ‘Bulgarian Applied ELT’. In ‘indigenizing the EFL syllabus,’ making it closer in feeling, content and imagination to the life worlds of Bulgarian learners, Bulgarian folktales in English translation have a key role to play. I would argue that indigenizing materials in Bulgaria, integral to a ‘Bulgarian TEFL,’ needs to take this parameter into clear account, within a framework of a ‘Bulgarian Applied ELT’ sensitive to local realities.
The article also foregrounds secondarily the online upsurge in ‘storytelling in education’ over the past decade digitally and in the classroom, including learners as storytellers, story authors (see section 13. below) − work by David Heathfield, Simona Stambazzi, Nick Bilbrough at the Hands Up Project and many others. This in HLT on Heathfield's project: https://www.hltmag.co.uk/feb24/tell-a-child-in-gazas-tale The article also introduces the new IATEFL PATRON, storyteller Jan Blake. Zlibrary has a broad array of folktale volumes from around the world, downloadable: https://z-library.rs/ The article concludes with a critical political epilogue reflecting on the genocide in Gaza, 2023-2024.
In the broader current context, Aljazeera 'journalistic storytelling' is about what is happening to the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli military and its government . On 22 Sept. 2024 the Israeli military shut down the main Ramallah journalistic hub of Aljazeera for an extended period. No reason given. Watch this brief video by one of AJ's reporters: https://youtu.be/3GxmN5k2sdg Stories about the suffering of Palestinians, Aljazeera telling stories about people fighting for their freedom. Sections 1 and 16 focus on these stories / realities of ongoing Occupation, massacre, destruction of culture and schooling, destroying 12 universities, intentional genocide, scholasticide, repression of Palestinian voice in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank. Here a video reportage by AJ on this shutdown of critical AJ journalism in Ramallah: https://youtu.be/bbkINgcK5-8 Listen to Israeli Knesset member Ofer Cassif (Hadash party) speaking there in powerful incisive conclusion. Also watch this incisive interview with Rami Khouri, of the American Univ. of Beirut. https://youtu.be/eGdnJMKzm8c >Journalism is not a crime, attacking journalism is< This AJ panel (22 Sept 2024) explores what Israel may be planning in Gaza going forward, incisive commentary and analysis: https://youtu.be/99TnX7bfeKw Watch, discuss this docu-fim, Not in My Name (https://youtu.be/ymekIiR-EfQ ) with and about Jewish-Australian critical journalist Antony Loewenstein, who is based in Melbourne and writes about Gaza and the Palestinians.
An earlier significantly shorter version of this article appeared in BETA E-Newsletter, No. 8, Nov.-Dec. 2013, pp. 5-21, and has been retitled and substantially revised here draft Sept. 2024, its links updated. Many links in the 2013 version no longer function and are updated here.

One can wonder whether colleagues in TEFL or DAF in Bulgaria, or teaching Bulgarian history, Bulg... more One can wonder whether colleagues in TEFL or DAF in Bulgaria, or teaching Bulgarian history, Bulgarian civics, politics, journalism, have published lesson plans or articles on the Ohio-born American journalist and war correspondent J.A. MacGahan (1844-1878), one of the most famous reporters in the 19 th century. MacGahan wrote powerfully with passion shining a dark light on the Turkish massacres in Ottoman-controlled Bulgaria 1876-78, published mainly in the London Daily Newsto which he telegraphed many articles. He also covered the preliminary Peace Treaty in San Stefano 3 March 1878, and passed away in Constantinople in June 1878 (typhus). Earlier on, he was a key US-born journalist reporting on the Paris Commune (1871). The famous Scottish war correspondent Archibald Forbes, writing in Sept. 1891 in The Nineteenth Century, 30(175), said of MacGahan: My most prominent colleague in the Russo-Turkish war was Mr. Januarius Aloysius MacGahan, by extraction an Irishman, by birth an American. Of all the men who have earned reputation in this profession of ours, I regard MacGahan as the most brilliant. […] He it was who stirred Europe to its inmost heart by the terrible, and not less truthful than terrible, pictures of what have passed into history as the 'Bulgarian Atrocities.' It is no exaggeration indeed to aver that, for better or worse, MacGahan was the virtual author of the Russo-Turkish war.
The article provides a broad range of resources for introducing and expanding on the unique journalistic role of Januarius MacGahan, American journalist extraordinaire, in galvanizing public and official support in Britain and beyond for the Bulgarian uprising against Turkish Ottoman rule and occupation 1876-78.

Voluntary Community Service, Caregiving and Service Learning: Nurturing Young Changemakers in Bul... more Voluntary Community Service, Caregiving and Service Learning: Nurturing Young Changemakers in Bulgaria and Beyond

In guiding students on their lifelong academic and self-discovery journey, encouraging them (and their teachers as well) to become changemakers hands-on, we need to help create new structures and opportunities for learners from an early age for new modes of volunteerism, unpaid voluntary community service (VCS) and caregiving, in their neighborhoods, towns and villages. Such caregiving is also a powerful means of new learning, outside the classroom.
Article overview
● For starters, explore these
● A potpourri of introductory VCS links
● Service learning in the community
● Pupils assisting the elderly
● Cinema extraordinaire: Blaga’s Lessons / Уроците на Блага
● Students aiding orphans, children with disabilities or suffering abuse
● Fellow students helping pupils with difficulties at school
● Local outdoor/indoor service tasks galore
● Civics education
● Nurturing young changemakers
● Getting kids out into the world
● Democratic, self-determined learning
● Project-based learning PBL
● Hands Up Project: Linking the Gaza classroom with the world
● Learning through an artistic lens on Gaza
● Palestine House of Freedom (Dar Alhurriya) and Miko Peled’s campaign
● Direct Action: Putting your body on the line
● Further reading about mutual aid and The Care Manifesto
● Opening eyes, minds, hearts
● Musical ♪♪♪ epilogue

Bill Templer & Silviya Templer Back to the Future in Health Care Visioning and Pr... more Bill Templer & Silviya Templer
Back to the Future in Health Care Visioning and Praxis

This is an article co-written by Bill and Silviya in 2014 and submitted to the journal Slingshot, #117, 15 Nov. 2014, https://slingshotcollective.org/back-to-the-future-socialism-2-0/, in California. They decided it was too lengthy to publish and instead included a very short version, now still online.
Our revised and expanded article 2023, grounded on many years of direct experience in provincial NE Bulgaria, suggests pondering pathways that we might term ‘back to the future,’ seen through an interdisciplinary lens. Such a wide-angle prism is multiplex, in some ways an ethnography scrutinizing many interlocked aspects of everyday life, economic, political, cultural, social, ideological. Are there past paradigmatic experiments that strove over decades to create in large part what some American socialists today envision? Is there any precedent, any set of historical experiments worth examining in concrete existential depth and possibly learning from? In what sense is Marxism a primary lens for analyzing the injustices and inadequacies of contemporary capitalism, everywhere? Listen to this superb highly understandable basic talk https://youtu.be/z6szCMhrSPM by Prof. Richard Wolff, 3 April 2023, not yet in the article now online.
In the sense of recovering what was positive and unique in ‘socialism 1.0,’ we wish to argue here a simple enough proposition: that we need to revisit the various experiments in universal health care in the socialist states of Eastern Europe, as exemplified here in Bulgaria. Those experiments now lie largely dismantled, demonized by the neoliberal corporate and political (dis)order that has descended on much of the former Eastern bloc. Our guiding thesis: in moving toward ‘socialism 2.0,’ the international left needs to look unblinkered at redeemable past real-socialist achievements in medicine, housing, guaranteed full employment, people’s education, salvaging and retrofitting what seems viable. This essay explores one such ‘experiment in people’s medicine’ that lost the Cold War, namely in the socialist People’s Republic of Bulgaria. That look back to the future is conceived here in a spirit, to paraphrase sociologist Erik Olin Wright (2010), not only of envisioning real utopias, but contributing to making utopias real.
After a brief introduction (2), section 3 sketches the Bulgarian socialist medical system as it existed in the 1970s and ‘80s, before its destruction with the disastrous advent of capitalism resurrected beginning in 1990. Section 4 provides some sense of the severe plight existing today under capitalism reborn upon the detritus of socialism dismantled—a stark contrast with what once was and is still part of the living memory of a substantial proportion of the Bulgarian population. Section 5 stresses the need for building a grounded, grass-roots people’s oral history of socialist medicine as it existed and was experienced in Bulgaria and elsewhere. Section 6 presents a 2023 postscript on health care in the GDR, based on the work of the new research center in Berlin Internationale Forschungsstelle DDR, and publishing reports in English, including on health care in the GDR, see https://thetricontinental.org/studies-2-ddr-health-care-2/ See also this new article by Vijay Prashad, ‘The True Test of a Civilisation is the Absence of Anxiety about Health: The Eighth Newsletter (2023),’ published by the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, 23 Feb. 2023. https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/ddr-health-care/ You can explore the highly interdisciplinary work of the IFDDR here: https://ifddr.org/en/home/ Read a brief overview of what the IFDDR seeks to accomplish in knowledge production and civic enlightenment here: https://ifddr.org/en/about/ https://ifddr.org/en/about/ Section 7 has ‘Final thoughts 2014’, including a sub-thesis about the need for social anarchists (and other North American progressives) to try to learn ‘dialectically’ from what some of the ‘experiments’ in real-socialist medicine really achieved. Looking at such socialist health care embedded in its non-capitalist broader system involves a range of multidisciplinary angles, necessarily so. Section 8 provides “Post-lude reflections 2023’ concluding the article.

The present draft paper seeks to stimulate future discussion and implementation of a range of cre... more The present draft paper seeks to stimulate future discussion and implementation of a range of creative ideas for a reinvigorating of BETA, restructuring/redesigning BETA activities, dynamic interaction from the bottom-up, Ново Начало. Generating beacons of hope. It's time for a total reset. We have to grasp the ELT nettle. Actions speak louder than words. Read this article, co-written by Richard Smith, 'Decentring ELT: Teacher Associations as Agents of Change,' ELT Journal 2021, open-access online. In rebooting BETA we can also learn from other ELTAs nearby, such as ELTA Serbia, HUPE in Croatia, ELTAM in NM, and Greece TESOL, NELTA in Nepal, JALT in Japan, NATECLA SC. Yes, also YALS in Serbia, an Associate in IATEFL and a cousin of OPTIMA in BG. Hyperlinks below are all xxx. Abstract here: https://tinyurl.com/233jk9se. PRELUDE ♪♪ We'd like to frame the article with this great poem/song by Bob Dylan, classically sung by Joan Baez, lyrics on screen. The lyrics esp. relevant in our situation here & now ♪♪♪.

Itself an abstract The presentation seeks to stimulate future discussion and implementation of... more Itself an abstract

The presentation seeks to stimulate future discussion and implementation of a range of creative ideas for a reinvigorating of BETA, restructuring/redesigning BETA activities, dynamic interaction from the bottom-up, Ново Начало. Among these: a new architecture for the Committee, enlarged perhaps to 10 members (TESOL Greece has 12); a separate publications committee (editor-in-chief + co-editors), including launching a new e-zine to replace the E-Newsletter, also a separate annual BETA Journal online; a separate sub-committee for organizing BETA events like mini-conferences, local seminars, webinars and online workshops … ‘localization’ as a new BETA watchword; teachers and trade unionism; innovative new approaches in strengthening Continuous Professional Development hands-on, including joint projects esp. in Exploratory Action Research (EAR); creating various Communities of Practice, teacher book clubs and WhatsApp teacher/student groups; a CPD point system for attending conferences, and other events, learning from the Gmul Plan for in-service training in ETAI in Israel. Brainstorming on promoting fuller BETA membership, perhaps even mandating such membership by the EdMin esp. for novice teachers.

BETA conference paper 1 April 2012, Ruse/BG, 2012

Bill Templer & Silviya Templer (Shumen, Bulgaria) This paper is an introduction to teaching Glo... more Bill Templer & Silviya Templer (Shumen, Bulgaria)

This paper is an introduction to teaching Global Issues in the ELT classroom and getting students interested in talking about issues of all kinds, also issues inn their own lives. We'd like to say as educators, quoting Paolo Freire:: "poor are those among us who lose their capacity to dream, to create their courage to denounce and announce..."
We live in extraordinary times. Many of us think it is a singular turning point in the history of the human race and its experiment on earth. As Chris Hedges (2012) reminds us: "The demented project of endless capitalist expansion, profligate consumption, senseless exploitation and industrial growth is now imploding." Jeff Noonan (2012, p. 1) shares that view: "The struggles across the Middle East and North Africa and ongoing resistance to austerity in Europe catalysed a fightback in North America the Occupy Movement that no one saw coming. Together, all testify to the pervasive and deepening crisis of capitalism, not just as an economic system, but as a comprehensive way of living and valuing […] The growing material, social, and cultural-spiritual exhaustion of capitalist civilization is becoming more evident to ever more numbers of people." (Noonan, 2012, p. 1). Across the planet, there are powerful new struggles for social justice and economic equity crystallizing in many countries.

MOVING ON SUGGESTIONS FOR BETA AGM 5 NOV 2022 AND BEYOND, 2022

A motley of suggestions for reinventing the teacher association BETA (Bulgarian English Teachers ... more A motley of suggestions for reinventing the teacher association BETA (Bulgarian English Teachers Association) in Bulgaria, now inactive some two years. Many hyperlinks and ideas on a new model and agenda for the TA.

Teaching Gaza in the Critical EFL Classroom: Toward a Pedagogy of Social Empathy and Justice (earlier version)

This essay provides a range of ideas and links for introducing students and teachers to the chall... more This essay provides a range of ideas and links for introducing students and teachers to the challenge of including the Israel/Palestine conflict, its roots and realities, in the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom: within Israeli schools, in Palestine and among the many nodes and refugee camps of the Palestinian diaspora, as well as elsewhere in the world of international teaching of EFL. The focus here is largely on Gaza, since in the mind of many students it stands as a recent catastrophic icon of the endless and brutal struggle and carnage, a veritable trope of Israeli state terrorism and war crimes against an innocent neo-colonized population.

Written from a left Jewish-Israeli viewpoint that is the author’s own, this is not a set of articulated lesson plans, but many such mini-plans could be developed from the aspects and sources highlighted. The article seeks to fashion a bricolage (Steinberg, 2006) for a ‘critical CLIL’ (Content and Language Integrated Learning) in the Israeli EFL classroom at Jewish and Arab schools, among Palestinian learners wherever they may be, especially in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank, and in EFL “issues-oriented’ learning elsewhere. The essay is also in the spirit of Paulo Freire, whose ‘critical pedagogy was unashamedly tasked with liberating both the oppressed and their oppressors from the self-perpetuating dynamics of subjugation” (Evans & Giroux, 2015: 9).

Importantly, a longer version of this same article (same title) appears here in Academia/edu under Articles, expanded in the summer of 2015.

An earlier version of this article, in part revised upon pointed request from the top echelon of IATEFL, who held up publication of the article and entire GISIG Newsletter for several weeks, appeared in the summer issue of the IATEFL GISIG Newsletter, #32, 25-32, and has been expanded here; what some within IATEFL regarded as potentially ‘objectionable’ paragraphs have here been included.

We need to nurture among students what Donaldo Macedo, born 1950 on Brava in Cape Verde and Freir... more We need to nurture among students what Donaldo Macedo, born 1950 on Brava in Cape Verde and Freire's closest colleague over many years in the US, terms the “literacy of power” in an increasingly power-inscribed world (see Giroux 2015; Kincheloe 2008, 84-85; McLaren 2007; 2016). This is central to Critical Pedagogy inside TEFL, social justice pedagogy par excellence, a “critical reading of the word and the world.” This paper provides an introduction, especially for teachers of EFL, to Prof. Donaldo Macedo's thought in Critical Pedagogy, along with the work of Paulo Freire, with whom Macedo collaborated many years.
This paper was written specifically addressed to teachers and teacher trainers in EFL in Guinea-Bissau. A shorter version will be published in a joint IATEFL Global Issues SIG / English Teachers Association Guinea-Bissau Newsletter in September 2018, with a hyperlink to this fuller article. Here a link to that article in the Newsletter: https://tinyurl.com/y96kxb4p (pp. 35-36).
The focus here on Critical Pedagogy and ELT specifically through the prism of the work of Prof. Donaldo Macedo can also be of interest to teachers and teacher trainers in Cape Verde and elsewhere in Lusophone Africa, and to the British Council in Senegal to the immediate north of Guinea-Bissau and the RELO in Dakar (https://sn.usembassy.gov/education-culture/regional-english-language-office/ ).

This paper addresses a number of key structural and cultural constraints and obstacles in TEFL t... more This paper addresses a number of key structural and cultural constraints and obstacles in TEFL teacher development (TD) in Thailand, framed in the context of the distinctive topography of TEFL in Thailand and its special challenges, especially among ordinary non-elite learners and their teachers. Although the Thai government supports TEFL energetically, it is widely recognized in the Southeast Asian EFL teaching profession that English teaching in Thailand faces formidable challenges. The paper is exploratory, largely qualitative. More broadly, the approach here seeks to explore specific “social ecologies of learning” (Leather & van Dam, 2002) as they affect teacher development in TEFL in Thai state education. Discussion centers on three main questions in the particular teaching ecology of EFL in Thailand, and the constraints on TD associated with this:
(1) What do Thai EFL teachers perceive as some of their own main weaknesses and the principal constraints on their own development as more effective professionals?
(2) Researching the research culture: what key constraints face the development of an EFL research culture in the Thai context?
(3) Are there sociocultural factors within Thai TEFL “cultures of teaching” (Hargreaves, 1994, p. 165) that may undercut the sustainability and effectiveness of TD strategies?

Published in Hristo Kyuchukov (ed.), New Trends in the Psychology of Language. Munich: Lincom, 2016

• The paper examines aspects of a key question in Bulgarian public education: rethinking and rest... more • The paper examines aspects of a key question in Bulgarian public education: rethinking and restructuring multicultural education through new experiments with bilingual education for ethnic minority pupils whose home language is not Bulgarian. This means attention in the main to the literacy needs (and language rights) of ethnic speakers of Turkish and Romani, seeing them as “emergent bilinguals,” and as marginalized minorities, in need of “literacy with an attitude” (Finn, 1999), firmly grounded on their own home language, Mother Tongue First! I argue that the time is ripe, after 26 years of ‘transitional’ chaos within capitalist ‘democracy’ restored on the ruins of Bulgarian socialism, for a paradigm shift in language policy in the schools, also rethinking multicultural education for identity-building and mutual tolerance within the context of class conscious pedagogies for social change. In Bulgaria, such multicultural values face a formidable challenge given the powerful anti-Ottoman narrative on which Bulgarian national history and modern identity are grounded.

The present paper was written in 2008 in Kuala Lumpur as an Afterword to a projected volume, Capi... more The present paper was written in 2008 in Kuala Lumpur as an Afterword to a projected volume, Capitalist Education: Globalisation and the Politics of Inequality (in the Routledge series: Education and Marxism), eds. Dave Hill, Sheila Macrine & David Gabbard, Dec. 2008 (https://goo.gl/9SBNMu). A decision was later made by the publisher not to go ahead with that particular volume in this larger critical series. I think the ‘Afterword’ can be read without the specific chapters I occasionally comment on, given the overall focus of my thoughts.
The article deals broadly and critically with the current 'war on the workers' from above, and the impacts on bourgeois capitalist education.

In this non-published paper, written in Thailand in 2006, I address some constraints and distinct... more In this non-published paper, written in Thailand in 2006, I address some constraints and distinctive difficulties, seen from my vantage of experience teaching at a non-elite university in a very provincial peripheral corner. I focus on several structural problems that may undercut the sustainability and effectiveness of teacher training programs, especially outside the major urban areas — what might be called the ‘negative ecology’ of teacher development — coupled with a few suggestions for remedy and reflection, and further research. Many ideas expressed here are still relevant for the overall topography of EFL teaching in the country, though of course various changes over the past decade (now 2016), a number positive, have not been commented on.