VERSATILE
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Versatile is internet-based self-publishing lab focused
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Versatile.pub is the address of a small, independent publishing venture which got off the ground in spring 2015. It is just starting to publish a variety of works, mainly written, co-authored, edited or commissioned by James Thomas. These are mostly resources for teachers and students of English as a second or foreign language, but the literature, poetry, music and software of other creative minds are currently in our sights.
It was felt that there was room for language teaching resources that venture into areas that other publishers avoid. One of these areas is contemporary linguistics. Recent insights into discourse, phonology, corpus linguistics, text analysis and semantics can contribute greatly to the teaching of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Another area whose presence is not felt in widely-distributed teaching material is so-called controversial, taboo, risqué topics for reading, writing, speaking and listening. The acronym for these topics is PARSNIP: politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms, pork. |
A peek into our creative nest in Brno, Czechia.Versatile respects the intelligence and maturity of teachers and students.
Versatile would not be possible without the innovations in internet technology in the areas of self-publishing, print-on-demand, content-management systems, social media and language corpora. After some investigation and experimentation, Lulu.com was chosen as the printer and distributor. See the Lulu page in this website. For more information about Versatile's approach and raison d'être, and the reason for this ELTons badge, see the About page. |
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James Thomas is a freelance teacher trainer and author. He taught at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic from 1997 to 2016. In the last eight years he headed the KAA teacher training section which, in addition to standard teacher training courses, is active in e-learning, corpus work and ICT for ELT. The main focus of his work is the L in ELT, i.e. language.
He regularly conducts intensive teacher training courses in the UK, China and Austria. In 2010, he hosted the biennial Teaching and Language Corpora (TALC) conference, of which he is committee member. He is chair of the Corpus SIG at EuroCALL. His research investigates the application of language acquisition and linguistic findings to a new generation of language teaching and learning approaches. He has given lectures, presentations, workshops and courses in Austria, China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, the UK and the US. He is published in a variety of journals, primarily those concerned with language education and technology. |
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James Thomas won the 2010 ELTon for Innovation in ELT Publishing for his co-authored book, Global Issues in the ELT Classroom, published by Brno Fair Trade Society. We were very happy to be recognised as innovators and to accept this leading industry award.
His music textbooks, Discovering Musicianship Grades 1 and 2, published by Pascal Press, have been selling for over 15 years. See the Books page in this site. Versatile publications aim to be innovative, sophisticated, exciting, adaptable and imaginative. This does not necessitate being provocative, nefarious, subversive, titillating or outrageous. But by not identifying with the PARSNIP credo, Versatile accepts that its publications will not satisfy all of the people all of the time. |
