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The author should get around to finishing it soon, and once it is ready, I think this will be a highly relevant and useful resource for English language teachers.
If they get around to actually going out and buying it.
And if they actually get around to reading it.
And if, once they get around to identifying the issues and challenges most relevant to them, they actually try to do something about them.
:-)
Generally speaking, I don't go near poetry for English as a foreign language classes. What would Seamus make of that? Image credits: Burns Library, Boston College
Songs? Love using them in my English language classes.
Drama? Can't get enough of it.
Poetry? Hand me that barge pole, please.
I love poetry. As a graduate in English Literature, I certainly got enough of it as a university student. I even write it from time to time - mainly to amuse myself and remind myself just how much better most of the poetry out there is compared to my own feeble efforts.
But in my English as a foreign language classes? I have to admit, I generally don't go anywhere near it.
One clear exception to this rule would be with younger learners. Poetry for those ages is simple and direct. What rhyme does for pronunciation and internalisation of language patterns is wonderful. Likewise, the rhythm of poetry is fantastic for giving students an ear for the way the language sounds and the way it flows across stress and intonation patterns. Poetry plays with language for the joy of it, and YLs usually take to it like ducks to water.
But for older learners, including teenagers, poetry rarely if ever comes into my classroom.
Given that I personally love and appreciate poetry, I've often wondered why this is so. I guess it comes down to two sets of experiences.
First of all, as a teenager myself at school, I really enjoyed poetry in my English classes, but almost all of my classmates loathed it. Reminded of that, I've generally figured that the teenagers I bring English language instruction to will mostly feel pretty much the same.
Then, as a second language learner at The University of Melbourne (where I studied Swedish as my second major), I was exposed to a lot of (often "high brow") verse from Sweden's most renowned poets. Again, I loved it and generally couldn't get enough of it. The opening lines of Lagerkvist's raw lament in Ångest ("Anguish") still haunt and yet delight me decades after studying Swedish at university.
But, again, the reaction from most of my fellow classmates in those Swedish classes was pretty much along the lines of "Oh look, we're going to do another bloody poem in class today. It's Ångest! When are we going to learn how to ask for Stefan Edberg's autograph?"
So both as a school student with my own language, and then as an adult learner of a second language, the reaction I saw from classmates generally gave me the impression that poetry probably wasn't the most motivating material to consider putting in front of my learners - unless they were also English Literature students.
There is also that pendulum like reaction many teachers experience when contemplating their own interests and passions. Just because I really like it, doesn't mean my learners should or will like it. And it's not like poetry is going to help my learners ask for a caffe late with any more practicality or enhance their prospects of pulling off a good business presentation.
Right?
Hence the barge pole.
Now, I'm beginning to get the feeling that I may very well have committed some poetic injustice.
What's your take? Do you like to use poetry in your English classes for teens and adults? Do your learners respond well to it? Have I been depriving my students of the very thing that inspires and fascinates me with my own language?
:-)
Image credits: Stefan Baudy
Answers can be great. But questions are seriously cool.
I don't know about you (though I suspect if you're reading this you're likely to relate!), but I have a lot of questions. Questions that keep me awake at night. Questions that make for pleasant company on longish drives from one destination to another.
Some questions feel like they have roots that go far beneath anything that can be possibly dug up without somehow altering or damaging them in some fundamental way. Others are more casual - darting about like sunbeams, and more fanciful in some ways as well.
Although they only make up a small portion of the myriad queries floating into and out of my daily life, here are some casual questions particular to ELT (and, in many ways, my PLN) that I've enjoyed pondering of late...
How cool will it be in the not-too-distant future to be able to say to colleagues "Oh, Shelly Terrell? Yes, I know her - sort of - and I was corresponding with her when she only had about 2,000 Twitter followers, can you believe it? And now she's doing TED talks in front of millions..."? Because, Shelly will be famous (or even more famous) in education circles one day, trust me.
How great would it be to see an ENTIRE coursebook series (or series of series) built ENTIRELY around drama, and who else but Ken Wilson could possibly do such a project justice?
How could something like Dogme ELT possibly come more into the mainstream, into large classes that are subject to stupid (verging in some cases on criminal) examination systems, being taught by teachers who aren't veterans, experts or private freelancers?
Wouldn't it be refreshing to sort of "replay" my basic teaching qualifications and go and do a (new) CELTA? How much will it have changed since those days long ago when I got my first teaching qualification? How awesome would it be to go and do it at Marisa Constantinides' school in Greece? And if so, how could I possibly leave my adorable family at home for a month on their own - or else keep them occupied for that time on their own during the day in Athens?
I've recently been approached by a government-sponsored ELT program (for migrants and refugees) provider in Australia to put together a PD seminar for the teachers in my local area with emphasis on how to use technology to enhance language teaching and learning. What on earth would Gavin Dudeney say if he got wind of that?
He's a great coursebook writer, editor and presenter, and somehow manages to stay cutting edge while epitomising diplomacy, but what would Lindsay Clandfield come up with if he was given absolute 100% free rein (or free reign, for that matter)? I'm talking sort of Clandfield Unfettered. I get the feeling it would be frightening. As in, frighteningly good.
How amazing would it be to have a pint and do a bit of teacher talk with Diarmuid Fogarty?
I wonder how many people truly know or appreciate what David Deubelbeiss has achieved and continues to achieve...? He does teacher training in one of the most conservative and bureaucratic ELT contexts in the known universe, but somehow manages to keep both his vision and his job.
And should I ever blog about how Pearson Longman Asia ELT has finally confessed (after more than two years of misleading, sidestepping and then blatantly avoiding the issue) it has no intention of paying me even one cent for all the work I did for the Boost Teacher's Guides, despite the specific agreement made in the office that day when I agreed to write the series? Should I try to describe how the almost 400 years of a proud and reputable publishing tradition line used to entice me into writing for them now feels and looks like it was meant to be written on soon-to-be-applied toilet tissue?
Or should I, erm, let sleeping dogs lie - so to speak?
And just how many people (some of them high profile) will read that last question, wince, and mutter to themselves "Golly... Not going near that one in a hurry!"?
Anyway, as I mentioned at the start... lots of questions, not all that many answers.
But fun, if occasionally slightly perilous, to think out loud from time to time!
:-)
During a plenary talk at a major ELT conference in South Korea last year, David Nunan targeted (in nothing short of disparaging terms) "backpacker" teachers. In a bizarre attempt to make his argument entertaining and persuasive, he compared teachers to surgeons and asked the audience how they would feel about the prospect of having an "unqualified surgeon" operating on them.
Let's give Mr. Nunan the benefit of the doubt for a moment here and explore his analogy a little further...
I've known Mr. Nunan to lead major workshops and even plenaries about appropriate methods and techniques for teaching English to young learners. According to his own blog, his Go for it! series for teenagers has also passed the 1,000,000,000 (count the 0s!) mark in sales, making him (his words) "the world's leading textbook author."
The interesting thing there is that, as far as I am aware, Mr. Nunan doesn't actually have any real experience teaching English to either young learners or teenagers. Even if there is some experience in these fields, I find it hard to believe there has been much (if any) of it in the past couple of decades at least.
And I mean real experience. Not wandering into classrooms as a VIP celebrity observer, nor as a white-coated researcher with a clipboard. I mean planning out a whole term of lessons, dealing with the day-to-day challenges of teaching kids and teenagers (not to mention dealing with their parents), and managing so many different cultural and contextual issues all at once that, if they were journals, it would be like having a year's worth of subscriptions delivered on your teaching desk each day.
So here's the question then:
How would you feel knowing the detailed surgical procedures being drawn up for an operation on your children were written by a surgeon who had never really conducted the operation himself, and/or were only really based on his general opinion having observed other surgeons doing it in quick drop-by visits?
Well, I don't know about you, but I'd be somewhat more inclined to trust the guidance of that "untrained" surgeon who had gone out to the wild frontiers armed with little more than a medicine kit and learned to really save lives - hundreds of them, on a regular basis.
But then again, this all goes to show that it's probably nothing short of ridiculous to compare teachers to surgeons.
:-S
I think I now have an inkling how ESL students must sometimes feel when handed a reading task that their teacher says *should* be quite easy for them to handle - especially if the teacher is making that claim based on word lists and perceived understanding of simple vocabulary.
You see, my wife is away in Korea for a three-week holiday, leaving me alone to take care of our two children. Of course, a massive part of that reponsibility extends to cooking...
So I've been going through this new "Ultra-simple cooking book for toddlers."
Sure, I know what all the words mean.
Doesn't mean I have the foggiest clue how they are meant to consitute "simple recipes"!
:-)
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