I have to be who I am

Photo credit: mconnors from morguefile.com

I had bronchitis last week. It was annoying, of course - the illness, going to the doctor's, having to stay at home... But once I realised there was nothing I could do except take my medications and wait until I was better, I settled down. I got myself a couple of books (I always read two or three books at the same time, maybe that's why I am such a slow reader) and a nice cup of herbal tea ( my secret recipe: equal quantities of peppermint, chamomile and thyme with just a pinch of licorice). I sat there, read my books and then I remembered something I had read in a magazine. Apparently, in the future everyone will be healthy because people will learn how to heal themselves through the power of positive thought and visualisation.

I imagined this world of perfectly healthy people and shuddered. Count me out. Of course I don't like being ill, but illness, like sleep, serves its purpose - it makes you pause and reflect. We live too fast these days. We constantly expose our minds to lots of new stimuli, but we rarely stop to process them. Staying in bed for a day or two, reading, watching TV, listening to music... It is not something I would willingly choose, but once we are forced to do it, why not make the best possible use of the time.

There is another reason why I shudder at the image of the brave new world where people who get ill from time to time should be ashamed of themselves for being such negative thinkers and such lousy visualisers. It's just that the whole thing sounds really cruel and there seems to be no room for people like me. I was often ill as a child, my throat caused me a lot of trouble. Later in life I started suffering from kidney problems and hypertention. It sounds as if I am complaining, but I am not. I have been happy every day of my life. Perfect health is never on my New Year's wishlist because there is no such thing as perfect health.

I have recently subscribed to the Photojojo newsletter. Last week they sent me a tutorial about how to create a Facebook profile picture using Pic Scatter. The result looks like this. Amazing, isn't it. Don't ask me why, but I was fascinated by the idea of creating something similar. The result was interesting, though strangely unsettling. I decided not to post this onto my Facebook profile. I wasn't sure that people visiting my profile would like me looming over them like that. Two more hours of tinkering with the photos (I downloaded them, then used BigHugeLabs to connect them to each other, finally uploaded them to Flickr) and the result is here:

Strangely unsettling. Scary even.

During my sick leave I finished Orhan Pamuk's The Black Book. Not an easy read, but worth every minute. The title I chose for this post comes from the book. Pamuk's characters keep repeating "I have to be who I am" and they keep trying to find out who they are. At one point Galip, the main character, stares at the mirror trying to read his face the way we read books... and he is horrified by what he sees. We never find out what he managed to read from his face, but that's how I feel staring at my own eyes. Seeing myself the way other people see me.

When I walk into class, the first thing I do is scatter books and papers all over my desk. When I monitor my students during pairwork, I tend to scatter my books and papers over their desks as well. I leave things all over the classroom. I simply cannot work if things are too tidy.

Recently there has been this problem with my frowning. A student asked why I frowned every time she spoke to me. Was her English that awful? I concentrated on my facial expressions for the next few classes and found out that I frown when I am concentrating. One of my Christmas resolutions is to stop doing that. It confuses people and I will end up with frown lines on my face.

And I am clumsy. I drop things all the time. And I always mislay my whiteboard marker, which is great because the students get to practise their prepositions ("It is under the book.", "It is on the floor", etc.).

There is this poem by Desanka Maksimovic which I feel is about me. It is called For Those who Stumble over the Threshold. I tried to find a good translation of the poem for last year's BaW graduation party, but failed.

Oh, in case you have read this post so far and are beginning to wonder what it is all about, I have to disappoint you. This post lacks focus, it lacks usefulness, I am just rambling. Well, I did define my blog as "TEFL, Technology and The Meaning of Life", didn't I? Well, this is The Meaning of Life. The New Year's Eve is in two days, I haven't written my resolutions yet, so, with your permission (or without it) I am going to keep on rambling.

Where was I? Oh, yes, I couldn't find the translation of that poem last year. But I have it now. The way I got it is a little strange.

Every time I have a temperature I read Wuthering Heights. I guess that's because the first time I read Wuthering Heights I had a really high temperature. I think the fever and the book go nicely together. I usually go for the English original, but this time (I don't know why), I went for the Serbian translation. I found a wad of papers inside, written in a schoolgirl's handwriting that I had a difficult time recognising as my own. It read:

Socrates dicebat : "Scio me nihil scire."

Socrates dicebat se nihil scire.

Underneath was a translation of a poem bu Desanka Maksimovic. Then another one. And finally "my" poem. I don't know who translated it and I am really sorry that I can't give credits to this person. Anyway, here it is:

FOR THOSE WHO STUMBLE OVER THE THRESHOLD

I seek mercy

for the simple and guileless

for their endless wondering,

for the people who never mature,

for the utopians,

for those who were led thirsty across water,

for those who were led clean across mud,

for the perpetual daydreamers,

for the quiet, for the cheerless,

for those quite unlike myself

and for those quite the same as me.

I seek mercy

for the clumsy and the unlearned,

for those who stumble over the threshold,

who drop the glass from their hands

for those who always stand aside

who are delighted by any trifle,

and whom everybody meets gladly,

for those who walk absorbed in thought,

as if carrying a droplet in their palms,

for those quite unlike myself,

and for those quite the same as me.

Desanka Maksimovic

To my PLN: Thank you for all your kind support during 2010. Thank you for your comments and suggestions. Thank you for inspiring me and teaching me.

It was a good year. Next one will be even better.

Happy New Year!

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Raised by NNESTs

The original photo found at Beverly@Pack's photostream

Dogme Blog Challenge #6:


Luke Meddings & Scott Thornbury, Teaching Unplugged, Delta Teacher Development Series, 2009.

Can non-native teachers 'do Dogme'? And, if they can't, why not?

NNESTs are judged both by how effective they are as teachers and by how good their English is. I have to say right at the beginning that I find it quite unacceptable for anyone to teach a subject they are not proficient at. And, though we can never become as good as native speakers are, we can, and should, keep learning.

Photo on Flickr by Corey Seeman

Guess I should explain the title now. You see, most of my teachers were NNESTs. Though I had a few NESTs at University, I feel that I owe everything I know to my non-native English teachers. Some of them were good, others were great. There were one or two not so great ones, but that's life. They used a variety of methods. You will probably find most of their methods terribly outdated, but a few were way ahead of their time. Whatever they did, whichever method they used, they have obviously been successful, for here I am. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

(You can recognise a NNEST by their use of hideous outdated idioms such as: "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" and "It's raining cats and dogs.")

The original photo by Jill Saperstein

Most of my primary and secondary school teachers used a combination of grammar-translation and class discussions. Speaking has always been considered an important part of learning languages in my country. Serbs are talkative and extroverted and they rarely have a problem when they need to speak, even when their "grammar" is "all wrong". Plus they have an opinion on every topic in the world. Add to that inadequate books prescribed by someone who has never been inside a classroom. Picture a secondary school teacher walking through the door armed with this inadequate book. She does every exercise in the book and she still has half an hour of nothing to fill the class with. What will she do? She will get the students talking and, as I have said, it is usually not difficult to do that over here.

Karenne also asks:

I work with adults. Some of my students are professional people who have really 'made it' in life, but they have somehow failed to learn English (and to really 'make it' in life you have to be able to speak English). Others are in my classroom because they want to change something in their lives and learning English seems to be the right way to start (I wrote about this topic in The Teacher as the Light at the End of the Tunnel). Whether they are successful businessmen or unemployed and trying to make ends meet, all my adult students share one thing - they feel inadequate for not being able to speak English. As a NNEST, I know exactly how they feel. I have been there. I catch them making the same mistakes I once made, I see them hitting a plateau and getting stuck, I see them confused and irritated at the complexity of English language and I remember the days when I felt like that. As a NNEST, the best gift I can give them is to reassure them that, if I could do it, they can do it too. The people I teach share my mother tongue with me, so I can predict where they are going to have problems and what mistakes they are going to make. And I can explain to them that those mistakes are good, they are a part of the learning process and they are going to disappear with time, because that's what happened to me. Sometimes when the students say something incomprehensible in English, I know what they wanted to say because I can translate it word for word into Serbian.

Karenne goes on to ask:

I will never be able to speak English like a native speaker. However, I would say that I have one advantage as a NNEST - I am able to understand how both languages work and to jump from one "model of expression" to the other with relative ease.

You need to understand that I am not 'doing Dogme' at the moment, though, as I have already said, I kind of like it. I am doing the challenge because I would like to learn more about Dogme and then maybe one day... Who knows...

Now let me go back to where I have started this post.

Can NNESTs teach unplugged? I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to do that if that's what they decided to do.

There's something else I keep wondering about: If, as the result of what we do in the classroom, our students learn English , doesn't that mean that we are doing the right thing?

Is the proof of the pudding in the eating? Or is it in the recipe we used?

Photo on Flickr by Simon Pearson

We hear a lot about learning styles. What about teaching styles?

Just a thought...

Photo on Flickr by Alpha

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Where I Stand on Dogme

Photo on Flickr by Garrettc

Luke Meddings & Scott Thornbury, Teaching Unplugged, Delta Teacher Development Series, 2009.

Dogme Blog Challenge #1

I just know this post is going to take ages to write. It took me ages to start writing it in the first place. I saw this challenge on Karenne Sylvester's blog several weeks ago and I immediately thought: "Oh, a blogging challenge! I love those. I should join." I kept postponing it and I even wrote a blog post that had nothing to do with the Dogme challenge just to get it out of my mind.

It was no use. The challenges came popping back into my mind. Every time I read the next challenge on Karenne's blog, I would spend days thinking about it. But I was still reluctant to join. Why?

Because I am not sure where I stand on Dogme.

See, I kind of like it. I know how to teach Dogme-style because that's how we did things back in 1989.

There was the blackboard. There were the chalks and the sponge. There was the book. The book was... Well, let's say it was very old. It told the story of Madge and Arthur and their adventures. What did Madge and Arthur do? Well, they travelled. They moved around a lot. They drank bucketfuls of coffee every day. You see, I know, because every now and then someone (usually Madge) would exclaim:

"I say, how about a cup of coffee."

Arthur would usually accept. He liked coffee.

So, we did Dogme. We didn't call it Dogme back then, but that's what we did. If Arhtur happened to watch a football game, we would talk about football, sports, hooliganism... If Madge bought herself a new dress, we talked about shopping. I would always start the class with: "What's new?" The students soon learnt that I wasn't going to be satisfied with: "Oh, nothing special." They would come with stories of their own.

I still start my classes with: "What's new?" and I am still not happy with "Oh, nothing special."

To tell you the truth, I care much more about what's going on in the outside world and in my students' lives than about doing every exercise in the book. So, if they start talking about something really interesting or if they start debating, I encourage them to go on.

However, I love the book we are using now. I will not tell you its name, as I haven't been paid by the publisher to do so, but it is a good book.

I believe in textbooks. I really do. One of the reasons why I believe in textbooks is that the students believe in them. They pay a lot of money to get the textbooks and, if something costs a lot of money, it has got to work, right? It is the placebo effect that can be explored to the full.

During the past 21 years I have used some really good textbooks and some not so great ones and I have found out I could almost always make the book work if I personalised the learning process. And I will continue to personalise the learning process even if one day someone sits down and writes a perfect textbook. You see, there is no such thing as a perfect textbook precisely because what happens to us and to our students both in the classroom and outside the classroom is always more relevant than what's in the book.

Photo on Flickr by Michael Stout


Luke Meddings & Scott Thornbury, Teaching Unplugged, Delta Teacher Development Series, 2009.

Dogme Blog Challenge #4

OK, I have a confession to make: I am addicted to photocopying. Really addicted. And I would like to do something about my problem because I am tired of copying, printing and, above all, cutting up paper into little strips. I am tired of throwing away large quantities of unused photocopies and of being unable to find the exact paper I am looking for. I am tired of carrying a large pair of scissors in my handbag. Back in 1989, in the glorious Madge and Arthur days, we didn't copy much. Copying was expensive and, in fact, it still is. But now I have a large photocopier at work and a laser printer at home. And I use them. Oh yes, I use them a lot.

And yet, I don't need all those copies. I am perfectly capable of making my students communicate without lugging around several kilos of paper. You see, the paper makes me feel safe. If my mind should suddenly go blank so that there is no thought left in it, if the same happens to my students, if our books burn in an unexpected fire, then surely my secret stash of handouts will save the class.

It is not just me. Somehow, during the course of years, photocopying has become something that "good teachers do". Add to that cutting, sorting, stapling...

And yet, most activities can be done without all that paper. Role plays can be improvised, and, instead of giving them ready-made role cards, you can ask the students to invent their new identity and write it down. Pairwork questions can be written onto the board. The students can think up one or more questions to ask everyone in class and this can be followed by a mingle activity. And so on.

So, I have decided. Next week I'll leave my secret stash in the staffroom and I'll walk into the classroom unarmed. Let's see what happens. I'll take the textbook with me. I am not ready to let go of my textbook yet.

Luke Meddings & Scott Thornbury, Teaching Unplugged, Delta Teacher Development Series, 2009.

Dogme Blog Challenge #5

Let me tell you a story.

When I was in secondary school, I had this philosophy teacher. He was probably the greatest teacher I have ever had. He was slightly eccentric, but you expect no less from a philosophy teacher. One day a student drew his attention to something that was written on her desk. It read:

Why live when no one ever walked alive out of life?

Our philosophy teacher closed his philosophy book. There was a strange sparkle in his eyes. He turned on his heel. He went to the board. He wrote the question onto the board. He divided us into two groups. Group A were the optimists. Group B were the pessimists. The optimists were supposed to find arguments why life was worth living, the pessimists were refuting those arguments. We screamed at each other. He went from group to group playing devil's advocate. Once the discussion started dying out, he made us change sides. I walked out of that class with one clear idea:

Life is worth living. It is a gift. Every minute counts.

I also believe that particular class has made me become the kind of teacher I am. I teach because that gives me the chance to learn from my students. I listen to them because they have something to say. They have something to say because I listen to them. Along the way they learn a bit of English as well.

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Jukeboxing the EFL Classroom

Photo on Flickr by C. P. Storm

Well, I have to say that I had doubts about whether or not to publish my last post. I mean, I try, in my humble way, to be useful to my fellow teachers. Picture yourself searching for ideas about that perfect warmer or role play, somehow ending up here only to read about how I had a great holiday this summer.

And then I go and write about different things you can do when you want to waste time online.

As if you had any time to waste.

I did say at the very end that your best ideas might come while you are just idly surfing the Net. And I talked about why I got addicted to Blip.

One of the most common topics of discussion in the EFL classroom is music. And almost every time you ask your students what sort of music they like they say something like: "Oh, I don't know... Different stuff... I listen to everything... It depends..."

Why is it so difficult for our students to define the kind of music they like? Well, can you answer that question easily?

Most of us are not into one kind of music all the time. Even if you are an obsessive Leonard Cohen fan like me, you might want to listen to other singers from time to time. Then, there is the music you listen to at weddings, the music you listened to when you were 12, that song that you don't really like, but it reminds you of your first time in Britain when you were 15...

Music speaks to us on so many levels. When you use Blip (which is a social network, after all) you will soon find the people who listen to your kind of music. They will blip that song you listened to on the bus while you were on your honeymoon. Then they'll throw a bit of Mozart in. They will post something with great lyrics only to follow that with the song you have never heard of but which you love instantly. That's the way music is meant to be shared.

Photo on Flickr by Wlodi

Now, how can we use this in TEFL?

The most direct way would be to get the students to sign up for Blip itself. Get them to add each other (and you) to their "Favorite DJs" list and start sharing. Ask them to follow each song with a short message Twitter-style. They could, for example, explain why they like the song, where they first heard it, how it makes them feel... And you could have a different theme each week - sad songs, songs that wake you up, songs that make you think.

The same thing can be done in a wiki. The students can search YouTube and embed videos into the wiki. They can Google the lyrics of the song and copy-paste them under the video. You could have a new set of videos every week and they would learn a lot of new vocabulary this way. Another place where this can be done is Facebook. Or they could do that in the class blog, if you have one. This has one additional benefit, since you can ask them to write a short blog post about the song and how it makes them feel.

In one of my old posts I wrote about creating a "time capsule wiki" where you and your students could share images and videos that remind you of your past. You can read more about that here.

Finally, you could use the lyrics as a follow up activity in class. Just a short part of the song will do.

You could, for example, walk into the classroom one day and write these lyrics from Gotta Have You by The Weepies onto the board:

Then you could put the students into pairs or groups and ask them to discuss the lyrics (what they mean, how they make them feel...) and just sit back, observe and see what they come up with.

P. S. Make sure you read The Ultimate Guide to YouTube for Educators . Lots of useful information on how to embed, download, edit, capture and record YouTube videos.

Back to the Future

Photo on Flickr by Herr Bob

In my previous post I wrote about how difficult it was for me to juggle my online and offline obligations. I named it Swimming or Drowning.

That was almost three months ago.

So, what happened to the writer of that post? Did she drown?

No, well, you see, she decided to take a holiday. A real holiday, away from it all.

Photo on Flickr by Nattu

Normally, when I am on holiday, I use it to spend more time online, trying to catch up with everything I have missed. Not this year, folks. You see, I was really tired. I needed time to think and relax and be selfish. I still went online quite a lot, but the things I did while online were significantly different from what I normally do.

I wasted time. I had fun.

I went to YouTube to listen to music. And I started Bliping. Then I decided I really like Blip.

Blip is like Twitter, except it is not about words. It is about music. You find a song you like and then you share it with others. You can write a message to follow your Blip, but you don't have to. I mostly keep silent. If you are interested in the kind of music I like, here is my Blip channel.

We spent a lot of time in our country house this year and that meant prolonged periods away from my computer. There is no internet connection in our country house. Even the TV doesn't work. It broke down a year ago and we forgot to fix it. We had to spend our time in a very old-fashioned way - talking to each other, reading, taking long walks... I have to say, and it isn't easy for me to admit this, but I didn't really miss my computer at all. I filled my ipod with audio books before we started. There is something comforting about someone reading to you, especially if your eyes have been failing you lately. I got addicted to Jonathan Kellerman because, as some of you might know, I really love crime stories.

When I came back, I checked my email for important stuff and then (get this) I deleted the rest.

In August we went to Alanya for a week. It was our fourth time in Alanya and I'll never get tired of the place. I didn't even bother to take my ipod with me, though I did pick a crime story from the shelf in the hotel lobby.

How selfish is that? Obviously very selfish because, as soon as we came back, my computer decided to go on strike. It would just look at me defiantly for hours and refuse to obey my orders. We had to have it repaired and it was gone for two weeks.

So, here I am now. I am back. No more fooling around. But there are some things I learnt on my holiday that I believe will make me more efficient online.

One evening in Alanya we went to a place called The Chocolate House. The name says it all. I ordered an assortment of dark chocolate on a plate. It did say 120 grams in the menu, but that didn't deter me. I wanted to try as many chocolates as possible. I am not going to go into how I felt afterwards and, of course, I didn't remember the taste of any of the chocolates I tried.

Photo on Flickr by Laughing Squid

This is the way I have been behaving on the net. Signing up for too many newsletters, too many courses, too many applications... Then never reading the emails, never visiting the places I have signed up for and dropping out of the courses. I need to choose my battles more carefully. Yes, the internet is like a chocolate shop. Everything is there for you to sample, but if you are not careful you will overeat. And that might put you off the internet for a while. So, here is the list of my priorities in the future:

1. The People

I have met some great people during the past two and a half years. They are members of my PLN and I have learnt a lot from them. But some of them are more than that. They are my friends.

2. The Blog

Yes, this blog. No matter how infrequently I publish something here, blogging is still the most important thing I do online.

3. The Groups

Even if I succeed in cutting down the time I spend online, I will still keep participating (or rather lurking) in my online groups and forums.

4. Pure Fun and Just Surfing the Internet

Not only is this very important for my mental stability, but often that's where my best lesson plans come from. Reading interesting stories, browsing through Flickr photographs, listening to music, watching cartoons on YouTube... Sooner or later I will come across something that I can use in class.

Finally, I would like to thank all of you who kept my blog alive during the summer by leaving new and fresh comments in my old posts.

Swimming or Drowning?

Photo on Flickr by Online Photography School


So, how are you doing today? Have you managed to read all your emails, answer the urgent ones, delete the unimportant ones, read all the relevant tweets, retweet the good ones, tweet something yourself, check your Facebook home page, rant against the new policies of Facebook and Ning, write back to all the kind people who wrote to you in all your different forums and groups, leave comments in various blogs and tweet the links to a couple of great blog posts? And how about your blog? Eh? When are you going to finish that post you started some time ago?

How were the classes today? Were your students happy? Or were you distracted because you were thinking about that blog post you haven't finished yet? It is really important to finish that blog post. Blogging will greatly improve your teaching, you see. Clears the mind and helps you focus. Are you focused right now?

Are you swimming or are you drowning?

Right now I am drowning. It always happens when I have too many offline obligations. I try to compromise by losing sleep, but my treacherous body starts complaining after a while and my mind refuses to work. So, every now and then I disappear from the internet for a couple of days, or even for a week or two. It is terribly difficult to come back after two weeks. Your inbox will be full, you'll find a dozen different messages addressed to you all over your forums and your poor blog will be neglected and lonely.

If I was a digital native, I would probably not worry about this. I would simply erase all my email messages without a second glance at them and write a blog post about what I did during my absence. However, I am not a digital native. When I was a child, my parents taught me not to procrastinate and never to let others wait for me. It is the feeling that I am letting others down that makes me feel like I am drowning. And it makes me procrastinate. Just like this guy:





There has to be a better way. What do you do to find that perfect balance between your life online and your offline obligations?



Photo on Flickr by Paraflyer

It's Worth Keeping an Eye on This Blog

The image you can see at the top of this post is an award. I am very proud to have received this award, especially since it came from Janet Bianchini, whose blog I really love. Anyway, as Janet says in this post: "This award is part of an initiative called "Vale a pena ficar de olho nesse blog", which means "It's worth keeping an eye on this blog". The chosen blog has to copy the picture above, with a link to the blog from which it has received the award . Then write ten more links to the blogs which you think are well worth a visit. They in turn if they would like to, of course, copy the image above and link to 10 blogs, which shouldn't be the ones I have chosen below."

Copy-pasting the information from another blog was the easy part. The difficult part is choosing only ten blogs to link to. I read a lot of TEFL blogs. Like most people, I often lurk (oh, you know, lack of time, not being able to think of anything clever enough to put into the Comments area, etc). I think this initiative is great because it shows bloggers that what they do matters and that there are other people out there who are reading their blogs. So, in no particular order, I will list here some of the the blogs I often read:

Kalinago English (Karenne Sylvester)
Miss Shonah (Shonah Kennedy)
Six Things (Lindsay Clanfield)
TEFLtastic (Alex Case)
Teacher Reboot Camp (Shelly Terell)
Ozge Karaoglu's Blog (Ozge Karaogly)
Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day (Larry Ferlazzo)
Nik's Learning Technology Blog (Nik Peachey)
English Virtual Community (Nelba Quintana)
My Integrating Technology Journey (Jennifer Vershoor)

As usual, I am quite late with this post. I started writing it on 4th May and, as you can see, it hasn't been 4th May for some time now. My offline life interfered with my blogging once again. I have been really busy for the past two weeks. Among other things, I have been to a conference and I am planning to blog about it soon (though you should notice that my definition of "soon" is a little flexible). In the meantime, this "chain blogging" phenomenon as one blogger called it has spread over the TEFL bloggosphere. Quite a few blogs already have this little stamp proudly displayed somewhere.

There is a good side to everything, isn't there? If you have missed the main wave of "chain blogging", here is your chance to catch up. Visit the blogs I have linked to here and enjoy.