Email newsletters can be a valuable source of ideas, updates, and insights into the changing world of language education. In this post, we highlight some of the best newsletters on language teaching, so that you might find to cherish that moment in which you receive that notification in your mailbox.
Why subscribe to a language teaching newsletter?
A newsletter doesn’t necessarily have to be spam that clogged our mailbox. If chosen carefully, newsletters can significantly help you to improve your language teaching. Here’s why:
Newsletters are an easy way to peek into what is going on in the language teaching field. The newsletters we have selected are packed with information from language teaching professionals or worldwide recognized language teaching institutions. You can find a review about that new teaching book, a link to an interesting webinar, or how-to lists all in one place.
They are usually free and convenient. Once delivered on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, newsletters are there to stay. You can come back to them anytime, without having to pay a dime (unless you want to subscribe to some premium offer, but none will force you into it).
They are a great way to interact with your peers. Most of the newsletters’ curators out there love receiving feedback! Reach out to them and start a dialogue with other language teachers and experts from the field. Newsletters can make knowledge-sharing and networking a bit easier.
Top language teaching newsletters
A small disclaimer before we begin. Unless otherwise stated, most of the newsletters listed here are originally designed for teachers of English as a second language (ESL). However, many of them also include advice on careers, how to make grammar teaching more effective, classroom management techniques, and so on. Therefore, we believe that they share valuable content also for those teaching a foreign language other than English.
European Language Gazette
Let us begin with this product from the Council of Europe. The perfect place to get all the updates on language education policies and much more. For example, the Gazette features stories on how innovative language teaching methods have been adopted in multicultural contexts.
The Gazette is especially recommended for teachers who are interested in the international cooperation dimension of education.
EF Teacher Zone
In this newsletter, Education First’s experts pour much of their long experience in organising study trips for students and training courses for teachers.
Education news, best practices for dealing with everyday life in the classroom, career advice, tips to teach some of the toughest grammar topics: all this is neatly packaged in Teacher Zone.
TESOL Connections
In this monthly, comprehensive issue curated by the TESOL International Organization you will find a little bit of everything.
Advice on how to approach teaching according to the target audience (young people or adults), assessment techniques, professional stories shared by English language teachers, information on the organisation’s own activities etc.
The graphic design and the density of content may not make the user experience very pleasant, but the amount of resources is truly remarkable. We particularly recommend the Articles section, which collects contributions from journals specialized in language learning.
Goethe Institut Newsletter
Let’s step away from the world of ESL for a moment and move to Germany, with the newsletter of the authoritative Goethe Institut. In fact, perhaps it would be better to talk about several newsletters as the information products provided by the institute cover different areas.
Among the most interesting ones are “Germany and the World,” a window on contemporary German culture and society, as well as a source of content inspiration for your German language class; “Karriere”, the publication dedicated to upcoming job opportunities.
InnerFrench
Let us stay in continental Europe with the InnerFrench newsletter. Associated with the popular YouTube channel of the same name, the InnerFrench newsletter promises and delivers something very simple and effective: to teach French through topics that matter.
Even if this product is designed for French learners, the authors are all certified teachers. We are sure that by reading (and watching) the InnerFrench team, you will find interesting ideas to share with your students and help them progress.
EdSurge
The newsletter with which we close our list does not refer to any language in particular, but is addressed to all education professionals. EdSurge is an online magazine whose mission is to report on the transformation in the world of education and how it is affected by technological advances, social and economic changes.
The stories you will find in the EdSurge articles are many, told by teachers, researchers, and also tech and business experts. It is a resource that we highly recommend to all language teachers, to keep up to date with what it means to be a teacher today.
This list, as you can imagine, is not complete but we hope it has been enough to inspire you. If you know a newsletter we should add to this list, reach out to us via email at info@sanako.com and we are happy to take a look! Let’s give newsletters a chance!
If you’re a language teacher who’s looking for inspiration to try out new language teaching methods, then check out Sanako’s Youtube Channel for instructional videos to some of the most advanced, evidence-based approaches to language teaching and the key concepts behind them.
