Posted in Education, English, Language, Work on September 1, 2007 | 10 Comments »
You’ve just finished writing an essay all about the qualities of a good teacher and the kind of teacher you’d like to be so you thought you’d round it all off by listing some of the greatest moments you’ve endured while attempting to teacher others how to teach English as a foreign language.
You probably ought [...]
Posted in BBC Breakfast, Blogging, Communication, Dr Bernard Lamb, Education, English, Etiquette, Language, Masha Bell, Punctuation, Reading, Spelling, Work, Writing on August 19, 2007 | 4 Comments »
When you were about nine years old you were extracted from the classes that everyone else was attending in order to do extra nature study.
It was one of those half arsed efforts schools make sometimes towards catering for ‘gifted’ children, the quotation marks there being entirely justified as the lesson you were lifted out of on the grounds [...]
Posted in Education, Work on July 4, 2007 | 6 Comments »
Another post about work. This isn’t supposed to be a blog about work. On the other hand:
You are actually teaching for the first time in over a year now. But only in the mornings. Which in fact means more work as you start earlier and have to squeeze lesson planning (and marking) into approximately half [...]
Posted in Education, Work on May 26, 2007 | 15 Comments »
You’ve been working in the teaching English as a foreign language business now for over ten years.
A lot of things about it you love. Rootling around in the mechanics of grammar and such is very satisfying. You get to meet a lot of foreigners too, which is always a source of excitement to someone who started [...]
Posted in Britain, Culture, Music, Work on April 27, 2007 | No Comments »
So there you are hanging off a handrail in the despised underground on your way to Covent Garden Opera House on a works night out to the ballet discussing why one of your number hasn’t managed to persuade her other half to come with you all.
“Perhaps he thinks it’s always sentimental and pretty pretty?” says [...]
Posted in Art, Books, Culture Shock, Language, Morality, Schemata, The Rest of the World, Work, Writing on April 20, 2007 | No Comments »
You can be very boring on the topic of grammar. And punctuation. Particularly commas. The rules are comforting, even if you do treat them as something of an abstract concept when it actually becomes time to apply them.
You are considerably more interested in how we actually use language, though. And the routines we follow and [...]
Posted in Britain, Language, Music, Religion, The Rest of the World, Work on February 11, 2007 | 1 Comment »
It’s the Easter concert term at your choir, and you are having a Mary fest. The lynch-pin of this is Dvorak’s Stabat Mater.
The blurb to your copy of the score says that during the period he was writing it no less than three of his children died. I think this is supposed to lend poignancy to what is, after [...]
Posted in Britain, Clothes, Culture Shock, Education, Feminism, Footwear, Morality, Religion, The Rest of the World, Work on February 4, 2007 | 11 Comments »
There are a number of things which colour your attitude towards the whole debate about whether or not Muslim women should be allowed to follow their religious duties and impose their dress codes on the rest of the work force, not least of which is that your stubborn puritan streak puts you much more in [...]
Posted in Britain, Culture Shock, Education, Feminism, Footwear, Morality, Patriotism, Religion, TV, The Rest of the World, Work on February 1, 2007 | 3 Comments »
You are no longer convinced about the value of the concept of equality.
This is mainly because there’s a common misconception that in order to be equal, things have to be the same.
You can claim until you are blue in the face and ready to stick a fork in someone’s eye that, say, feminism - to take a concept entirely at [...]
Posted in Britain, Education, Russia, Weather, Work on January 20, 2007 | 3 Comments »
It’s been disconcerting not to have the British weather to talk about over the last few months. ‘Bit grey again’ isn’t much of a conversation starter after the first few thousand times. So the extremely strong winds came as a pleasant surprise really, particularly as they enlivened teaching practice on Thursday by sending the aerials and [...]
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