A special dedication to Akhésa and Cécilia from my L classes at school this year, who introduced me to the “Cup Song”. Congratulations to the pupils from the Collège Racinay and to my colleague and Twitter friend, Elisa for putting this together. I would so have loved to be part of it. I promised my girls to post on this topic and so here we are, with a little extra, a special tap dancing version too as a bonus.
As I am writing, the number of hits on this blog is 18,374. With three and a half weeks until the Easter holidays, my goal is to reach 20,000 hits before Easter. Can we do it ? Yes, we can !! I know we can. How do I know this ? Because I am confident in the knowledge that my pupils are working hard and using this blog to do so. I can see it on the stats as I follow who is doing what. I see it in their work in the classroom as they re-invest what they have been doing at home.
I know we can do it because I see also the countries that are following my blog too. I check my stats page every day to see which countries are there and I smile to myself as I realize that people around the world are checking out what I have to offer. It is very exciting being part of the blogosphere and to know I am being read around the world.
So, we’re on the road to 20,000 before April 19th. Let’s see how quickly we can get there, everyone.
What do you think of this music ?
My eldest son is studying music in the UK and he was part of this mix. I am, of course, his Number One fan !! Click on LIKE if you like his music. If I get a decent amount of likes, I will link in to his Sound Cloud.
I just came across this photo that really made me smile. Anyone who knows me will know I have a bit of a Royal Family thing going on, but I also love spoofs of any kind. I particularly liked the mock-up film of the wedding a few years ago :
I actually managed to convice a class of 1ère (well, some gullible students at least) that I had received an invite to the Royal Wedding. A mother crossed me in the supermarket and asked me about it, so I knew some had believed my story.
And now, several years on, this photo which I dedicate to my students who love tatoos and to one student in particular, with her red/purple hair and tatoos – who knows where she will go in life ???
This is a question that has long troubled me. I disliked Maths intensely at school. I just didn’t get the point of it. Why did I have to imagine what x or y values were ? Problem-solving always just gave me a head-ache – and to be totally honest, it still does today. Thank heavens for computers to take the hassle out of calculating average marks !
So, I don’t like Maths, and I could probably live with this quite happily, except for the fact that I live in a society that seems to revere Maths and one who is useless at the M game, (i.e. me) is considered a bit useless overall !
I read this on a Facebook post this evening :
“Mathematicians are discovering that to help children fully understand and truly enjoy math, drastic changes to the way standard schooling approaches the subject must be made. This is not because math is the most important part of the curriculum, but because it is one that can cause large amounts of anxiety and stress, even into adulthood.”
– and I felt I could really relate to that. I can’t say that maths causes me much stress or anxiety on a day to day basis – far from it. Do not worry – I am generally speaking a happy and well-grounded person, I think. My stress comes from the pressure put on our youngsters to be good at maths, as if your life will be a complete failure if you don’t get to grips with the M game.
When I was a young teacher in France, over fifteen years ago, this was made crystal-clear to me by a Physics teacher during a “Conseil de Classe” for a Scientific class. One of the students in particular, Guilluame, was really good at English, motivated and talented. He really came to life in class and produced some great work. Sadly, he was far from the same in Maths and Physics. During the Conseil, we had to give each student a grade (A-E) based on, well, I’m not too what it was based on, actually. Judging on my views of Guillaume, I wanted to opt for a B at least, if not an A. I was shot down in verbal flames by the snotty Maths teacher who said to me and I quote “Nous n’allons pas tenir compte de l’avis d’un professeur d’anglais en section scientifique” … translation “We’re not going to listen to the English teacher’s opinion in a Science-based class.”
At the time, I was too shy, inexperienced, naive and maybe too polite to hit back. Never fear, I have regretted it ever since and I would certainly react now, if it were to arise again. I am glad to say, however, that I think things have evolved and people are now starting to appreciate the impact of English in all areas of study, and especially perhaps, science. Maybe today, I would have been able to get that A for Guillaume ? In any case, the grading system has gone too, thank goodness.
But none of this helped to reconcile me with Maths. I am certain that if things had been presented to me in a more playful way, I might have “got it” more. One of my dear maths colleagues and friends (this is sincere and not sarcastic) has a really fun way to approach things and I followed completely his lesson based on the price of a baguette last year. If I had had the chance of lessons like that , I would perhaps not be the maths dummy that I feel I am today, but I strongly believe this, also found on facebook tonight :
“We want to have hands-on, grounded, metaphoric play. At the free play level, you are learning in a very fundamental way—you really own your concept, mentally, physically, emotionally, culturally.” This approach “gives you deep roots, so the canopy of the high abstraction does not wither. What is learned without play is qualitatively different. It helps with test taking and mundane exercises, but it does nothing for logical thinking and problem solving. These things are separate, and you can’t get here from there.”
The source is actually a page for the Montessori method – maybe I would have liked that method of learning for myself ? I certainly try to apply it in my own classroom. Seeing my 16 and 17 year olds getting out the dice and counters to play a board game to practice the past tense is pure pleasure. I will be trying that game out with adults next week and I am certain they will get as much fun out of it.
I think the real reason I didn’t like Maths was because I found lessons boring and irrelevant to me. I always preferred languages because, as a terrible chatterbox, I always had lots to say and wanted to learn how to say it all. I don’t think I have done too badly, as one who has not done Maths since the age of 15. I can still manage to survive in the world. Calculators and computers are wonderful things – as are sons, husbands and Maths friends. But I am convinced that the power of play might have worked for me – and who knows, maybe one day I will set myself the challenge of trying to sit through some maths lessons ? It would be a challenge and a half, that would !!
I checked out my stats this morning, as I regularly do, just to see who is reading me and I was at 17,000 hits exactly. Back in October 2013, I was getting all excited because I was fast approaching 11,00, so 6,000 hits in 6 months is a pretty good rate, I’d say. So thanks to my wonderful students, as always and to the people around the world who click here regularly.
To celebrate, here is a Happy Bunny …
Tomorrow at 9.30 am sharp, I unleash the full power of my FUNOLOGY training course on my group of 22 unsuspecting trainees. I say “unsuspecting” but, as they are all volunteers for the experience, I guess they imagine they will be working on Pronunciation techniques in some shape or form, but I wonder what they are really expecting.
I absolutely ADORE teaching pronunciation skills to my pupils. I love when they make slight errors, turning candles into condoms, for example, and I love building on these slight slip-ups to move forwards. I consider myself privileged to have been granted an hour of “Accompagnement Personnalisé” with a class of 1èreSTI2D (not generally know for their love of languages), which I am able to spend working hard on their pronunciation skills.
I believe it to be truly the basis of language learning. We spend too little time on Listening skills, which are the key to then reproducing the sounds correctly. For a lot of phonology work, if you don’t actually understand what you are saying, it doesn’t matter as it is the sounds that count and not the meaning.
If we consider this film, found on YouTube by accident this summer, I think it is possible to see the importance of playing with sounds. This toddler is actually working on phonology but in a fun way – so, Funology. She is experimenting with the sounds, imitating her dad’s voice, trying out her own, all in the direction of becoming a speaker. For the moment, she is at the listening and imitating stage. I believe strongly that in language learning, we skip this stage and move on too quickly, burdening our learners with the written word too early.
More along these lines are part of my FUNOLOGY course and if you would like to know more, you might like to check out my FUNOLOGY blog HERE.
I began my career as a classroom teacher twenty-five years ago this year. 1989 saw me as a green, naive, young languages teacher in the UK, rigid with nerves and yet full of eager anticipation and excitement at having my own classroom and most importantly, a real teacher’s red pen and register to mark every morning !!
I am still going strong, twenty-five years down the road. No longer so green, naive or young, BUT still getting a buzz from it all and still loving the contact with the students. I am finding it hard to believe it has been twenty-five years, especially as I also find it hard to believe sometimes I am not still in my twenties !!
Learned a lot along the way; am still learning every day and whilst I continue to feel that way, I guess I must be doing something right. The day I stop feeling like this is the day to put that red pen away for good.
Happy Jubilee to me !!
I am becoming more and more interested in the role of blogging in teaching and have been enjoying reading a number of teacher blogs over this holiday period. It is actually quite addictive as everyone seems to do things quite differently and yet, at the same time, there is an echo of familiarity within the teacher blog. For me, as an English person living and teaching within the French school system, I appreciate this link with things back home and to be able to keep up to date.
The blogpost from @teachertoolkit Addiction to blogging was a true eye-opener for me this Saturday morning. Just clicking on my Twitter feed, to see what’s occurring, as they say, I got dragged into the article, thinking it looked like a good read. However, about a third of the way in, this paragraph hit me :
“If you are reading this. I am assuming the chances are, that you could be a cynosural-blogger with an addiction to social-media of sorts. Note the time you are reading this? Who are you with? Where are you you? What else could/should you be doing?”
It brought me up with a shock, making me take stock and remembering that my youngest son was waiting for me in the kitchen, with a mug of tea (in my favourite mug), some toast and the plan to make chocolate brownies together. So to answer the question “what else should you be doing ?”, well, I should be spending quality time with my youngest and not spending the time reading about blogging and blogging addiction.
I often talk about the “work-life balance thingy” and I find it one of the hardest parts of my life. Being married to a non-teacher, the time I spend preparing, marking and planning is time that I am not spending with my hubby, who is as free as a bird at weekends. I am not suggesting I am the only one who has to deal with this problem, but as the years go by, I am beginning to resent the pulls on my time more and more.
So, now the chocolate brownies are made, the Xmas tree has been taken down. the fish tank has been cleaned out and the lunch is done and dusted, here is a bit of “me time”, a window for my blogging.
This blog is having visits from all over the globe – Malaysia and Indonesia today, Greece yesterday. I feel very proud to have such varied visitors – and of course, my students from school are popping in and out.
Blogging leads to more blogging – this post will lead to another and to another. I hope you will keep reading. And I hope I will be able to keep my eye on the ball, professionally but also, the “what is truly important” ball !! Let’s not forget what that really is.
The Big English Blog 