Jonathan Marks’s Followers (4)

Jonathan Marks

Born

Leeds, The United Kingdom

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I was born and brought up in Leeds, which is about 60 miles from the sea, but I’ve lived for most of my grown-up life in coastal places – Hastings in England, Nynäshamn in Sweden, and first Gdańsk and now Łeba in Poland. I’ve also lived in the north and the south of Germany.

I always wanted to be a teacher, but my ambitions to be a primary teacher in Britain failed the reality test. Fortunately I found out that there was something called teaching English as a foreign language to adults, and during a summer spent teaching in England, I met some other teachers who told me about a four-week teacher-training course that you could do and where you learned, for example, to hold up an empty coffee jar to illustrate the meaning of ‘There isn’t any c I was born and brought up in Leeds, which is about 60 miles from the sea, but I’ve lived for most of my grown-up life in coastal places – Hastings in England, Nynäshamn in Sweden, and first Gdańsk and now Łeba in Poland. I’ve also lived in the north and the south of Germany.

I always wanted to be a teacher, but my ambitions to be a primary teacher in Britain failed the reality test. Fortunately I found out that there was something called teaching English as a foreign language to adults, and during a summer spent teaching in England, I met some other teachers who told me about a four-week teacher-training course that you could do and where you learned, for example, to hold up an empty coffee jar to illustrate the meaning of ‘There isn’t any coffee left’. Well, needless to say, I signed up for it as soon as I could. It was the distant ancestor of what’s now known as the Celta course, and the month when I did it was the last month before the course fee went up from £90 to £110. That was certainly the best investment I’ve ever made, and I’ve never looked back since.

During the 1980s, International House Hastings provided me with exceptional opportunities for development as a teacher and teacher-trainer. That period also marked the beginning of my association with IATEFL, which has always been, and still is, important to me as an environment for keeping in touch with the wider world of ELT.

In Hastings, too, I spent innumerable evenings in pubs with Tim Bowen, having conversations like this:

J or T: “We should really write a book.”
J or T: “Yeah, we should.”
(pause)
J or T: “Whose round is it?”

Eventually, though, we were galvanised into action by two specific publishing projects, which led to two books for teachers, ‘The Pronunciation Book’ and ‘Inside Teaching’, the former being the ancestor of our pronunciation book for Delta Publishing.

A bit later, in Germany, I was part of a team of people who wrote a coursebook for German-speaking learners, called ‘Bridges’. More recently, I wrote ‘English Pronunciation in Use – Elementary’ (CUP 2007), which I suppose is a product of two long-standing interests: teaching pronunciation and teaching low levels. I’ve also been involved in various capacities in three Polish-English dictionary projects and written various supplementary materials, stuff for the onestopenglish website and so on.
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Jonathan Marks’s books

Average rating: 4.37 · 68 ratings · 7 reviews · 4 distinct works • Similar authors

	English Pronunciation in Use Elementary 4.35 avg rating — 63 ratings — published 2008 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Book of Pronunciation: Proposals for a Practical Pedagogy (Delta Teacher Development Series) by Jonathan Marks, Tim Bowen 4.60 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2012 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	English Pronunciation in Use. Elementary. 4 Audio-CDs 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	English Pronunciation in Use. Elementary. CD-ROM, Book and 4 Audio-CDs 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Jonathan Marks’s Followers (4)

Jonathan Marks

Combine EditionsJonathan Marks’s books

Combine Editions
Jonathan Marks’s books