Six years later…

I haven’t posted here for quite a while and people may think this is because I have either not done anything since August or because I have done too much and haven’t got the time to blog. Neither of them is true.

The second part of the year has been really busy as I started the second year of my PhD at the Open University and keep teaching a couple of hours at the ELTU at the University of Leicester. Work on the IATEFL and the BC TeachingEnglish website is still going on as usual. Besides that I have been trying to pen a couple of articles and book chapters. Open for business as usual. The difference is that I have mainly transferred my reflections to my private research blog. It is there that I have spent most of my blogging hours.

Nonetheless, 2012 is starting and, as most people, I have made my resolutions and one of them is to be back to my ELT Blog, which this January is becoming  6 years old! It all started with the Hornby Summer School is Sao Paulo with Bee introducing us to the idea of blogging. I found it really interesting and now I keep 4 of them

So many things have changed in the last couple years and here are some pics just to celebrate people who have been important and influencial in my ELT life and the friends I have made – and lost – on the way.

Hornby Summer School - Brazil, January 2006

Winner - British Council Innovation Awards 2007

Critical Literacy Events_ Latin America, 2006-08

Hornby Scholarship 2008-09

Open University Scholarship 2009-present

With heartfelt thanks to Julian Wing, Sara Walker and Nella De La Fuente.

Creativity and education

When I was a kid, I was a very quiet and lonely girl. I never liked going around playing with other children in the neighbourhood and I never made friends at school. So when the school broke up in the summer I had three months to spend doing nothing! Worse still, I had to do nothing alone… apart from the daily fighting with my older brother, of course.  So at the beginning of the summer holidays I always asked my mum to buy me some canvas and paint and I used to spend my days ‘painting’.  Thank God none of those ‘masterpieces’ survived, so my reputation is still intact, but I wish I had had the opportunity to develop some painting skills. However, no one at school encouraged it and this is where I am trying to get here.

I have just read this article at The Guardian on Eric Schmidt’s Mac Taggard lecture where we condemns the British education system for promoting the divorce between arts and science. It maybe a quite simplistic view, but generally speaking  I think he has a point here. Most primary schools in this country tend to have a very holistic approach to education, but when children enter secondary education this certainly materialises in a quite dramatic way. Children are then encouraged to focus on language and maths, with the Arts being regarded as luxury that will not take you anywhere in life. Get your GCSEs in English, Maths and a Science and you will be alright…

Long gone are the times when people used to be polymaths – when you could be a painter, a scientist, a poet and a politician, and all of these aspects of your education contributed to form you as an educated individual. Even the other day a friend of mine was really surprised by the fact that I, as an English language teacher, also had a strong interest in Metal music, liked history, painting and golf, as if these interests were incompatible. How would he react if I had told him that my favourite subject at school was biology? Not that I saying that I’m a polymath -  far from it! I’m not that pretentious. What I am trying to say is that the broader your interests, the richer your experiences and understanding of life are likely to be. The problem is that nothing in our education system, or in our society as a whole, seems to foster this.

Sir Ken Robinson gave a marvellous talk for TED about 5 years ago on creativity and education and it does resonate with some of the issues raised by the Google chairman today. Links below

Eric Schmidt’s Mac Taggard Lecture_ Text

Eric Schmid’s MacTaggard Lecture_ YouTube

Sir Ken Robinson’s TED lecture

Summer summary

I suppose in most countries summer is the time of the year when little happens as school breaks up and people go on holidays. Summer in England, especially for an English language teacher, is another kind of animal altogether as it is the busiest period of the year with thousands of students coming for summer and pre-sessional courses.

On the LMCS front, we had a nice discussion on using films in the classroom fielded by Kieran Donaghy and we are now having an Open Forum on Fantasy in literature and other forms of media. I have also finished editing the document on the discussion on Contemporary Poetry in ELT – it can now be downloaded from the files section of the website.

On the Extensive Reading front, we have finished the judging process for the Language Learner Literature 2011 Awards and already have the winners, but you will have to wait till after the ER World Congress in Japan in September to find out who they are   Besides that we are already setting the scene for the ERF to have a more robust presence at the IATEFL Conference  and we have been discussing with the President and with the British Council ways to make it happen – exciting times ahead.

As for writing, I had to review a couple of articles for publication, a book chapter and I’m now starting to think about the speaker proposal for the IATEFL Conference in Glasgow next year. If you think people get involved with the Conference for only a week, think it again!

When it comes to my research, I have been through some software training sessions. I am also working on the first batch of data and should start designing a survey as soon as September starts.

Goodness me, where has my summer gone??