On the second day of Christmas...

Shooting into the sun on the Causse Comtal
December 23 2012

On the second day of Christmas (vacation), I have actually started feeling, to paraphrase Elvis Costello, just like a human being.

One thing I'm really hoping for in these 12 rejuvenating days (well, now less than 11, but who's counting?) is to reconnect with things I love to do but haven't been doing.

Fog lingering in the foothills
December 23, 2012

Photography is one of them. I'm not the world's best-equipped photographer -- I'm very happy with my little Sony CyberShot -- but I have lost the camera habit lately. Or at least since I discovered Instagram and the fun of sharing photos with my phone.

Some snow is visible on the Massif Cantalien

So this morning, on the way to buying Christmas food goodies, I took the time to drive onto a side road, get out of the car, and take a close look at the stunning Causse Comtal area around me. Stopping to take pictures is something I don't want to get out of the habit of.

On the first day of Christmas...

(The new shopping mall around the Géant supermarket in Onet-le-Château)

I have a glorious 12 days of Christmas holiday ahead of me, and I plan to make a lot out of every single one of them.

I also thought I might try to blog about every one, even though this will not be the most exciting of holidays for me to recount.

The past 3 years, we have taken family trips between Christmas and New Year's Eve. 

In 2009, it was Amsterdam.

In 2010, it was Brussels.

In 2011, it was Strasbourg.

You can see the quantity of blog posts per trip going down with the years. 

I blogged about Amsterdam in a series of 5 photo-packed posts. Brussels got coverage only because of our crazy luggage problems. Strasbourg...well, the lack of a link speaks for itself. 

This year we are staying right here in Aveyron, and I have very modest goals. Cooking, reading watching movies, geeking around, and doing some organizing in the house. I'll be happy if I do a little of each every day; 2012 was a stressful whirlwind, and I'm ready for some simple things.

Today's biggest accomplishment was confronting a superstore, or hypermarché as the French call them. I try to do as much shopping as possible at smaller local shops, but when it has to be a hypermarket, my favorite one in the Rodez area is Géant.

I actually enjoyed going there today -- a sure sign I'm on vacation.

. 

If I were a "responsible gun owner" in the USA...

(This is a slight adaptation of my longest Facebook status update ever. It got a lot of comments and fuelled a lot of discussion, so I thought I would share it here too.) 

Since Friday's unspeakable shooting incident, I’ve been reading a lot of posts and comments on Facebook  written by people who call themselves “responsible gun owners.”

Their responsible gun ownership doesn’t necessarily bother me half as much as they seem to think it does. But they have been making a lot of remarks that I find cynical, fatalistic, and just plain sad.

As most of you know or imagine, I am not a gun owner. But if I were a "responsible gun owner" in the US today, these are some things I would NOT be saying:

I would not be pointing, almost gleefully, or with a weird sense of relief, to mass shootings in other parts of the world, as in “Hey, look at Norway, they have super strict gun control and they had a mass shooting that was WAY bigger than this one!” Why would I feel the need to distract attention from what’s happening in my own country?

I would not be suggesting that Americans who think the US just might need better gun control and who say so should just “pack up and move to another country,” if only because I would be just as high on the 1st amendment as the 2nd amendment.

I would not calmly and coolly be saying “Why, of course we have lots more mass shootings than other countries – we have lots more people!” It’s not like there can possibly be some sort of “quota per capita” for mass shootings that somehow makes them okay. Isn’t this one issue where we can all agree “the fewer, the better?”

I would not be spewing out “[insert names of objects] kill too, so why don’t we just ban [insert names of objects]” arguments, as in “Power tools kill people too, so why don’t we just ban power tools?” As a responsible gun owner, I would certainly understand the fundamental difference between a power tool and a gun. In fact, that is why I would proudly call myself a “responsible gun owner” but likely not refer to myself as a “responsible power tool owner.”

Finally, what I WOULD be doing is pondering what the US as a nation could do in order to avert as many of these mass shootings as possible.

Because as Americans, responsible gun owners or non-gun owners, shouldn’t we all want to be held up as an example and an inspiration to the world?

Or did I miss something in all those years of hearing about what it meant to be an American?

Out of the comfort zone 1: having students draw charts and graphs

(An apparently royalty free image from a very old blog)

Over the past few years, since I have started reading more ELT tweets, blogs and books, I have become quite conscious of the pleasures and successes associated with going out of my personal teaching comfort zone.

All right, it's not always a pleasure, nor always a success. It can't be; but than neither can be sticking to my established "teaching style," right? 

Today I tried a new activity -- for me, that is -- that now seems like a no-brainer.

If you teach business English, you have probably been led at some point to teach "how to present charts and graphs." There are plenty of ELT materials out there on it, many quite thorough and well done, and I have used them without difficulty. The little pair work activities provided usually go smoothly enough, too.

But last year, in my first-year business school class,  I wanted to expand on this point with more interesting charts and graphs, which are easy enough to come by. 

So I found some images online of  bar graphs and pie charts about social media use, projected them on the board, and had students describe them to each other in pairs -- with a "traditional" group feedback and checking session afterwards.

I was underwhelmed. This means "it went fine." The students got involved in speaking about the graphs, but dealing with  a topic of more apparent interest to them than just describing a fictitious company didn't seem to give the activity that much added value. 

This year, I decided to go out of my comfort zone on this theme, and what constitutes that exit from my comfort zone may make some of you laugh: I had one student turn his/her back to the chart while the other one described it. 

The student who wasn't facing the chart had to draw it.

Nothing revolutionary!

Except that I myself am a pathetic artist/draftsperson, and so I myself have always run screaming from any pair work activity that includes the word "draw."

So I myself didn't think it would work well.

I thought the students who were asked to draw the chart would get frustrated and look at the board.

They didn't.

I thought the students speaking might not have the language skills to convey the content of the charts.

They did. 

I thought the students might take shortcuts, especially reverting to their L1, to get the activity over with.

They didn't. In fact, they went into such meticulous detail, almost 100% in English,  that some pairs had trouble "finishing" -- which didn't really matter.

Of course there were pairs who functioned better than others. For example, a few students got some ribbing from their partners when the "result" wasn't coming out right. But it was all in good fun.

I suspect those students are the artistically/graphically challenged ones.

I sympathize. 

Singin' me some post Cambridge Delta Module One Blues

Preparing Module One of the Cambridge DELTA was truly a transforming experience, and I honestly can't wait until Module Two.

But now that the stress of the exam is over, I'm feeling a little emptied out.

No more discourse to analyze, no more definitions to memorize, no more phonetic symbols to transcriptize...

So I just thought I'd a'write me a little blues song about it all. Hope y'all enjoy it.


DELTA Module One Blues

Da DA da da DA

Da DA da da DA

Paper One, Task One

Was lookin’ pretty fun

Left out a definition

Too scared I’d look dumb

Turned out to be the right one

Now I’m feelin’ glum

Da DA da da DA

Da DA da da DA

Paper One, Task Four

I just wrote more and more

Grammar and phonetics

‘Bout spillin’ onto the floor

Laid out 60 points

Feel sure of maybe 24

Da DA da da DA

Da DA da da DA

Paper One, Task Five

It just didn’t jive

Time was a'wastin’

Went into full drive

Hey, got it all finished

I guess I survived.

Da DA da da DA

Da DA da da DA

Went into Paper Two

Feelin’ kinda blue

Thought it was simpler

Just hopin’ that's true

Got it all done with

Wrote a lotta stuff too.

Da DA da da DA

Da DA da da DA

Oh sweet Delta, Delta

You really changed my life

Used to be a great mother

Used to be a good wife

Can’t wait for Module 2 now….

(Drum roll)

To cut up my teachin’ with a knife.

SERIOUS countdown to DELTA

Tomorrow will be a long travel day, and a long revision day as well.

After nearly 9 months of  preparing the Cambridge DELTA Module One, I will finally and grimly walk into an Alsatian classroom and take a 3-hour, pen and paper exam.

The exam conditions seem almost ancient. The test can in no way be done online, or monitored anywhere but in specific test centers. 

So tomorrow morning, I am flying from Rodez to Paris to Strasbourg in order to be on-site for the exam that will start the next day at 9am. 

Preparing DELTA Module One has been an eye-opening experience. When I read the program, I thought I pretty much knew  this stuff:

1. Theoretical perspectives on language acquisition and language teaching
2. Different approaches and methodologies, including current developments
3. Language systems and learners’ linguistic problems
4. Language skills and learners' problems
5. Knowledge of resources, materials and reference sources for language learning
6. Key concepts and terminology related to assessment

How wrong I was! I had my own ideas about teaching English, of course, and things I had read hither and thither, but I had never put it all together.

After hundreds of hours of reading, learning terminology, and struggling to master phonetic transcription, I hope I can do so (ellipsis) on Wednesday morning.

Wish me luck...

Inspiration in the form of a tweet

With the constant flow of information I get through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn discussions, and email, it would seem I should have never-ending sources of inspiration for this blog. 

But maybe too much information kills inspiration. At least nothing has really set the blogging fire burning again -- until today.

For a long time, I have been thinking of blogging more about teaching and especially my field, teaching English as a Foreign Language. But it seems hard to get started when so many have already gone so far with it.

Then yesterday, I ran into this tweet from fellow EFL teacher Janet Biachini, whom I have been following on Twitter for a while:

I read her post Quattro, and thought "I really should be doing something like that."

Sure, I've read plenty of educational blogs over the years. But something about how Janet simply stated her reasons for blogging, which range from "to share my teaching ideas" to writing about the region she lives in, made it sound simple. 

I can do that. And I want to, very much.

The World from my Windows may be taking a different turn: less travel, more teaching, and hopefully a lot less "I want to be blogging again but why can't I get going on it" angst.

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