Novelty 2 [antikvár]

PREFACE It is now a year since we launched this publication in which we planned to present somé of the tangible outputs of our new ELT projects and programmes as well as providing a channel for information about ELT events to our contacts and colleagues in the profession. Within our project work we have initiated reviews and evaluations; we have decided to do the same for the publication. You will find a questionnaire in the middle of this volume which we do hope you will take the time to fill in and send back to us. We would like to develop the publication so as to make it of (even!) greater value and interest and attract the submission of more materials which are emerging from within the projects that we are involved in. Development and change have been two key characteristics of the British Council's work in ELT over the past three years or so. They have alsó been characteristic of the educational environment in which we all work - think of the changes introduced by the new education laws. The British Council environment is alsó subject to change and in particular this year is seeing a number of changes in the stafFing of our ELT work. The final page of each issue of ??? or NOVELTY has always shown Who Is Who in the British Council's ELT Unit in Hungary. A comparison of this edition of NOVELTY with the first edition of ??? will show not only a change in personnel but alsó in posts. The major and very sudden increase in our resources in 1991 has presented us with the challenge of implementation and management which we have been struggling to meet. Over the past year we have developed a structure within the ELT unit which we believe will ensure appropriate management for the scale and profilé of our work as it is today. The "new unit" is seven strong - compared with a unit of two at the beginning of 1991 - and consists of the unit head, the English Language Officer, three project implementation mariagers, and three staff working on administration and information. By June this year we have lost four staff members: first Tamás Vikár left us and we were joined by Gábor Szűcs, who came from another unit of the British Council Hungary; we then lost Lilla Jéri, who worked partly in the library as Education Information Officer and partly as the Resource Centre implementation manager in English Language Unit; Zsuzsa Ágoston, who manages NOVELTY is leaving before the publication of this issue and my term of office as ELO Hungary is alsó drawing to a close at the end of May. We all hope that those who move into the English Language Unit will find the work interesting and challenging as we have done and we alsó hope that the English Language work will further strengthen and develop beyond us and our stewardship of it. Good luck to our colleagues and successors! Turning to the contents of this second issue of NOVELTY you will see that this time there are fewer project sections. This does not mean that the projects have ceased or that project activity has been unproductive. In the Service English Project a third group of Hungárián teachers has gone to Edinburgh for training. This group of 16, representing 11 different institutions, return to Hungary in May and will bring with them their project work which we hope to be able to share in NOVELTY volume 3. The contract with the Edinburgh consortium for the first phase of the project is now drawing to a close and to help us assess the impact of the project so far and shape its future we are implementing a review of the project. This review is being carried out by Edward Lyons of the Colchester English Studies Centre, who carried out the initial consultancy visit in 1991 which helped us to develop the staff development project that we have today. His review this year began with meetings in the British Council in Manchester and with a two day visit to Edinburgh where he was able to visit the institutions involved in the Edinburgh consortium and meet the Hungárián teachers studying there this year. The major part of his