Geoff Barton
Welcome to the Barton website, designed by one of my former students, Tom Cahalan. This is a sign of either (a) his high esteem for me as a teacher or (b) the fact that I originally promised him £50 if he did a good job. You be the judge.
With around 10,000 hits a month, the site contains a mixture of free English resources for students and teachers, based on materials I've developed in my own teaching, or for conferences and presentations, or through my publishing work and freelance writing.
My separate "Pick 'n' Mix" site contains occasional links to articles and audio that strike me as interesting. You can also follow me on Twitter (search for "@RealGeoffBarton") - though this may well be a sign that you really do have too much time on your hands.
This site is intended as a non-flashy, easy-to-navigate resource for teachers, students and even the occasional bewildered collector of those 6-second songs called radio jingles. Welcome to you all.
Here's what you'll find:
Teacher resources:
Free resources for English teachers. These are materials I've developed for courses and conferences over the years. They are the most popular pages and include PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and useful links. Some of these things may not make sense if you weren't at the original course. They are generally about literacy, school leadership, evaluation, school improvement and behaviour management.
Student resources:
These are the handouts I've been using in my own English teaching at GCSE, in A-level English Language and Communication Studies. The aim here is to give you copies of notes and handouts, and further guidance on how to complete assignments successfully. I've also recently added resources to help students to gain grade C or higher at GCSE. Good luck!
Writing:
These are collected articles from various sources, including The TES, Independent and Guardian. The pages have recently been updated to include archive pieces on such diverse subjects as whole-school literacy, Delia Smith, radio djs and "the 12 things that great English teachers do". There is also a new "Writing Samples" page to show the variety of topics I have written about.
Audio:
You can listen here to the radio reports, based on live interviews, that I recorded in Kurdistan in November 2011 for BBC Radio Suffolk. Here's my live report on the funeral of Jimmy Savile. And here I'm talking on Radio 4's Home Truths about my interest in radio jingles.
News:
This highlights current projects and interests, including my most recent publications.
Nostalgia:
My real hope, in putting together this website (or, rather, getting Tom to put it together), is that I might come into contact with students I taught in Leicester, Leeds, York or Suffolk over the past 26 years. Many of you have already made contact. If I did teach you, forgive me for any moments of sarcasm, irrelevance, self-indulgence or arrogance. I've changed since then, as my current students will testify: I'm less sarcastic.
Thanks for visiting.