distraction

Sorry, folks, I will be a bit less active in the following months. No, I didn't get sick. No, I didn't get pregnant either. What? Thesis writing? Well, of course, who isn't? But that's not my reason. What happened is that I took a full-time job. Or rather, the job took me. It really has an incredible story how it happened. Out of curiosity, I applied to an online editor job in an IT company, didn't get a lot of effort into many resume, sttil, to my greatest suprise, I was called to the interview almost immediately. I arrived quite tired to the office, because the previous day I had just returned from an overnight trip and I was still knocked out (you know, I am not 20 anymore). I didn't expect a lot, you can imagine. But guess what, the interview turned into something else (no, not a menage a trois): into an inspirational professional discussion, centering on the revelation how much this IT company and I thought alike as far as research and science are concerned. The boss told me that they really want to hire me because they need people like me in their team. Actually, not so much in the editorial group, but in the core, research, team. I said, it's very nice but I have no background whatsoever in informatics nor programming. He said, in a couple of months I can learn into it and he believes I am a better, long-term investment, due to my open-minded character and my wide knowledge in science, than a programmer, who is less flexible and less likely to stay. I was truly flattered, and, although I did have my doubts (me a programmer? oh, com' on!), I accepted the challenge.

So here I am a programmer-to-be. Gee, I used to be a nerd, now I am becoming a geek? Ew, another social stigma to overcome. :-) I must admit, it is unbelievably challenging to find my way in this new world. It is not just the mindset -- to see everything in code -- that poses a challenge but also the community -- my colleagues need to be reminded to _sometimes_
- open the window - drink water - or eat something else than hamburger.  
Sounds awfully stereotypical, I know. Can't help it..

But from challenge comes triumph, the wise man says. And indeed, when I wrote my first code [print("Hello, World")], or when, after days, I solved Fibonacci with recursive functions, or when, after weeks, I put together an algorithm to count the days of your life, taking leap days into consideration, that was heaven. I learned that trying was the only way of mastery. And perfection is just an illusion.

Still at the doors of computer programming, with one foot in and one foot out, I am giving you now something inspirational (beyond this fairy tale of mine :-). Let's watch this short film together and find out who this weird species we like to admire and ridicule...

 

"...who a computer programmer is..."

look up

A couple of days ago a former student of mine posted a video on her Facebook page. Her description of the short film was: "This is a very thought-provoking film. Watch it, then get away from the computer." Her words made me wonder, so I gave it a shot. And it was worth. Watch it with me:

I was amazed, not so much by the novelty of the message, but by the extensive presentation of how far we go (or fail to go). I remembered how strange it feels lately that if I look around on the subway, 7 out of 10 people are on their phone, texting, emailing, playing, sometimes talking. Even if you overcame your shyness and wanted to exchange a word or two with someone, or just a look, it would be just impossible. Of course, I haven't given up on trying (though I must admit, ever since I have a smartphone, occasionally I also fall into the trap of being "efficient" while travelling: sending another email, instead of letting go of virtual problems and embracing real happenings). So, the other day I was watching a guy who was plugged into his phone. Listening to music -- ears occupied -- and texting -- eyes occupied. He was so absorbed by his phone that he almost fell when the subway -- gently -- stopped. Then, as he bounced back on his feet, he wanted to lean on the door, but it just opened: he almost fell out. Not only do we make clowns of ourselves but we also tend to risk our lives (to send one more sms or email while driving).

I used the video in one of my classes as a closure. My student was thrilled by it and admitted how true it is and we know that! Just as she uttered these words, her office phone started to ring... she hesitated a bit but then she picked up. So our class -- an hour of freedom and relaxed conversation in the middle of a crazy working day -- ended prematurely. It is hard to allow ourselves to be. Present. Relaxed. Free.

see me

I've been teaching and analyzing presentations for years. Part of my routine is that I watch (and make my students watch) TED talks. Of course I have my favorites but I also test them with my students. A lot of people found Sir Ken Robinson hilarious and inspirational. Some, however, felt it was too much of a stand-up comedy. Also a large number of people gave positive feedback about Steve Jobs's Stanford Commencement Speech, or in more popular terms, on his How to Live Before You Die talk. Nevertheless, some critiqued that he was not being authentic and seems just like selling something. Simon Sinek's talk on the Golden Circle also received applause, but to the European ear his style seemed too manipulative in a number of cases. 

There was one speech only -- which by chance has been my favorite from the start -- that gained appreciation from everyone. And that was a presentation from a (for me) unknown Indian guy who charmed his audience not only with his simple, clear, and adorable message but also with his personality which he allowed to shine through every second of the talk (or rather, story-telling).

 

"Within infinite myths lie the truth. Who sees it all? Varuna has but a 1,000 eyes. Indra a 100. 

You and I only 2."

tea

It is exactly a year ago that I got a business group whose instructor decided to quit teaching temporarily and asked me to replace her for a couple of months. The group and I got to like each other so much that her return never happened. One of the students, a big, confident, tough guy, who likes to call himself a choleric, became so soft and caring in the classes that he brought me tea every morning. Because these very early morning classes (god, how nice it is to get up at 5 AM!). Even when he had to go to a meeting or on a field trip, having to miss the class, the mug and a tea bag were waiting for me on the handle of the classroom.

Now that the classes stopped, he gave me the same mug and the same box of teas, as a present to commemorate those pleasant English (to be fair, Irish) breakfasts of ours. I must say, I still like to drink that tea when I have to get up early in the morning.

This post is a thank you to you for the inspiration you gave to this TEA blog.

self-reflection

Like I wrote before, the end of the year calls for summary and closure. With children, I tend to find that creative frameworks work better, also for such a "serious" task as summarizing and visualizing the progress achieved in a period. With adults, however, more straight-forward methods seemed appropriate. First, I wanted to write, efficient, but I realized that would be an overstatement. Why? Because I experience that these self-reflective summaries have a very limited efficiency. Some people are more willing and able to observe (themselves) but a large majority just settles for what they think the teacher wants to hear.

I keep repeating that these evaluation forms are important to take seriously, because it is self-reflection that provides the most realistic feedback about their weekly efforts, serving either as an impetus or as a heads-up. And by the way, the assessment can be a source of valuable information for the teacher, the facilitator of those weekly efforts, as well. 

Funnily, the most useful feedback I received in these feedback forms was from a guy who didn't have the courage in any other way to ask me to call him not Andris (Andy) but András (Andrew).

creativity?

Creativity is a crucial element in my life. It is as much my antidote to boredom and monotonicity, as it is my expression of vitality and presence. I cannot imagine teaching, or more generally, human relations, to survive without it. However, I had to realize that, even though this statement may hold true, what creativity means for the specific person or group of people is not self-evident. 

With children I tend to experience that creativity means handicraft, involving drawing, coloring, cutting, gluing, assembling, and so on, which must bring a tangible result -- a piece of art to take home.

For academic people, may they be students or professors, it is much more verbal production that is the safe manifestation of creativity. Debating challenging topics or writing dialogues and short essays functions as the canvas for them to express their intellectual power and creativity.

 

The toughest cookie, as far as creativity is concerned, seems to be the business environment. Accepting that it is a far too broad category, I still feel like grouping office jobs together, because, no matter what the specific topic and field is, they are quite standard in their expectation, and in the implications, of sticking the employees to their chairs for 8 hours. In such circumstances, the language teacher needs to be cautious with too much of creativity imposed on workers who, outside of the classes, are required much more to bear and conduct monotonous tasks. With business English students, what seemed to work is the variation of activities, each involving just a little bit of creativity, so to keep them within their comfort zones but to bring some color into the office black-and-white.

It also happened that someone just couldn't tolerate any extent of creativity. He refused to engage in pair assignments, situational tasks, or discussions involving personal opinion, let alone in the creation of his visual resume. I must say, I was struggling with him for a month until I managed to reconcile the group's needs, my expectations, and the dynamics of the class with his comfort zone. I don't intend to imply that he was wrong; he was just the exception, in that group. And it's a piercing dilemma how to "leave no man behind" but to satisfy the needs of the majority.

pro

Pronunciation is an important part of language learning. You have mastered a language if you manage to express yourself in a way that the majority understands you. With English, used as a common but foreign language by millions of people, it is tricky to decide what guidelines to follow when teaching pronunciation.

Do you pick one of the most dominant English-speaking cultures, say British or American? But then why not Irish, Canadian, Australian, South African, Nigerian, Indian, and the list could go on. Or do you expose the student to the dominant accent of the culture he/she will need to use the language in, say German English? Since for most students the destination is not this clear-cut or exclusive, do you choose to use different Englishes, giving up on a uniform, standardized input? Either way, it remains a dilemma, and most probably you will need to adjust the material to the needs of the specific student(s), while of course you won't be able to change your own (acquired, inherited, chosen, preferred) dialect. Or could you?

Check out this guy and be amazed by the variety of how English can sound and still be English.

Any preference?

frameworks

How do you start a class? First of all, you introduce yourself and encourage the group members to introduce themselves too. Since this is necessary but often quite awkward, exactly because it is perceived as a must, it is best to put it in some unusual frame so you make them relax and forget about their uneasiness. 

Then, if it's not a formal (academic) class, which was announced and put together months before, the specific goals and the specific needs of the specific group members are fuzzy. Of course, they hired you to develop their language use or presentation skills or prepare them for a job or a trip, and so on, and you may even know an approximate level (say, A2 or B2 or C1, and so on). But before meeting the specific participants, you can only think in stereotypes and assumptions. What their strengths and weaknesses are, what they like and dislike, what experiences and frustrations they bring to class can largely influence how you need to plan the classes to be effective for them. And the earlier you get clear about these, the better you all will manage.

So, what I did with some of my business classes is that I made it clear on the first class that it is up to all of us how we organize the course. I shared the responsibility, thus trying to motivate them to take part in the class and in the learning process more actively (too often do I experience that learners like to consider themselves as customers and learning as a service, instead of realizing what it is: sweaty work).

After we discussed, based on the triggers in the presentation, what they wanted from the classes, and what rules we all keep, I filled the board with what we agreed on and sent them the outcome. Like a contract. "These are the frames we set together." Usually it is quite effective and can be the basis of mutual respect and trust.

scoop.it: a scoop of chocolate for me, please

To continue with online curation tools, let us now turn to Scoop.it! (www.scoop.it). Similar to Pinterest, Scoop.it! offers free registration. Once you added it to your browser, you can categorize, curate, and comment online materials, including text. Based on your key words of interest, it sends you a daily selection of various online content, scooped by others. 

I like Scoop.it! too, using it parallel to Pinterest. The tagging here is an advantage; though it doesn't always work as you would expect. Well, naming is quite subjective, isn't it?

Take a peek at my Visual Resumes folder. I just love visual resumes; they are imaginative, to-the-point, and convincing. Wouldn't it be useful for us, educators, to consider making a visual resume, instead of the boring CVs? Aren't we supposed to be creative? And so we are!

assumptions, handle with care!

It is too easy to fall victim to assumptions. And of course we do, because that is how our mind works. We categorize, we predict, we assume -- that is, we draw on previous experiences when trying to decode the signs of the present situation. Many times it works just fine. For example, if you expect to teach a class that is composed of older people, you will be most probably right about not beginning with a Lady Gaga song. Or, if you are preparing to teach presentation skills to young adults, it is not a long shot to assume they might be interested, in one way or another, in the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs's famous talk.

In other cases, however, you can be seriously misled. Take the following situation for example. I was contacted by a young adult who just passed an intermediate (B2) exam. She wanted to "just keep up" and practice communication. So, I'm preparing for the first class: interesting article from an online magazine, a funny talk from TED, and some discussion tasks. How unprepared I had been for what was to come! She froze after each of my questions (type, How are you? or What do you think about it?) and had to pause and stare at me for 5-6 seconds to start producing an answer. There's no problem with having to stop to think, but B2 in my experience was a good conversational level, so initially I was clueless why she was staring at me instead of answering the most obvious questions. You could think it was just the initial excitement blocking her. Well, the performance didn't improve much. After a while, though, I realized what lay beneath. Funnily, she was perfect at grammar, at least in theory, and it came to me that it was just the lack of exposure to the language that had prevented her from putting this all into practice and confident, real competence.

Of course it makes you wonder about the efficiency and trustworthiness of language exams.

pride and prejudice

What comes to your mind if you think of these brands?

Well, for me, elitism. I must say, I was prejudiced when I got an offer to hold classes in one of these brand-stores. I didn't like the philosophy of the brand -- for me, elitism is about superiority and exclusion, two things I fight against. I assumed, I wouldn't like the people associated with it either. 

I was wrong. The employees were kind, simple people, and one of them gave me a memorable lesson. As we were discussing the customers of the store and the brand, I couldn't hide my negativity about elitist people. She said, That's right, some of them are arrogant. But, then she continued, not all of them. They are like everyone. There are nice people, and not nice people. As simple as that.

That day I looked deep into myself. I felt like Elizabeth Bennet, ashamed of the blindness prejudice pulled over my eyes.

pinterest: pin your interests

As a teacher, one needs to be handy with online tools, because it is impossible to be always creating; you need to get comfortable with curating as well. One great tool is Pinterest (www.pinterest.com). It is simple, practical, and social. Once you registered and added the red icon of the pin to your browser (as a Chrome application for example), all for free, you can start creating boards, let's say, folders, of your interest, and then, you can start collecting your pins, let's say, visual files, from the internet. They can be images, animations, talks, films, etc. (though not documents). By doing so, you can sort your materials and keep them in one place; and what's more, you can check other people's collections and pin them, that is, add to your own.

Check out my boards. You may find stuff you like.

Teaser: I have a nice collection of some inspirational TED talks on education. Well yeah, who doesn't know Ken Robinson's hilarious talk? But do you know Rita Pierson or Tyler DeWitt? You'll love 'em!

dynamics

I love situations when I have the chance to teach the same material, or something similar, for several groups. It is always very inspirational and insightful, not only making me understand the material deeper and from more perspectives (students' questions and struggles teach you a lot) but it also sheds light on the importance of the group setting.

I taught presentation skills at the university for two years. In the first one, I had two so amazingly different groups that it took me some time to get used to them (the fact that the classes followed one another immediately didn't help). One was composed of diligent, soft, clever, but timid girls (and some friendly boys). They always wrote long and analytic papers as home assignments, were supportive of each other when they had to give a talk, but they rarely initiated debate or provoked each other in the Q&A session. They were reserved, polite, non-confident, and grateful for my support. At the end of the semester, they gave me a football as a present. The other group, however, was composed, miraculously enough, of active boys (and some loud girls). They had lively discussions, often I was just an observer or functioned as the moderator. They were not always on time with the home work but I didn't have to encourage them too much to provoke and be OK about being provoked in the presentation sessions. In the end there was no emotional goodbye; we rather cracked some jokes.

Later in a semi-academic, semi-business context, something similar happened. I had two small groups, both composed of two young academics, strangers to each other, whom I had to tutor in academic English and presentations. The groups were set according to the results of some previous test, whose accuracy I was quite dubious about, but in the end the pairing proved to be beneficial for all. In one group, the B2 (the lower), there were two quite talkative, opinionated, active students. We had endlessssss discussions about everything, from education, through gender, to pop culture. In the other, I had two shy students, who, although their language competence was strong (B2++), didn't dare to communicate with each other. Usually what happened is that I posed a provocative question, calling for an opinion that can start a dialogue; they replied individually, looking solely at me; and then there came silence. For them, the discussion setting didn't work. What did work was putting the story into the context of a grammatical task, something that had a clear, non-subjective, answer. And at that they were great. It was only after a couple of months that they started to open up for communication, to share their opinion with me, and with each other. Comparing one group to the other, that is pushing free discussion here or stopping debate there for grammar drills, would have been a failure.