2016 Charities

Yes.... the Ricky Ponting Foundation and the Glen McGrath Foundation are great ideas.

They are good men. I admire them for it.

But no.... I don't want their charity or anyone else's for that matter

I want a 'fair go'

Tutoring adults

Tutoring adults can be a pain in the neck.

Although there are exceptions the first question is usually  ‘Cuanto cobra?’(how much?)

Whatever you tell them they say it is too high

On the other hand, If you don’t charge them at all for classes they eventually start to abuse your charity  because they don’t  value the favor you are doing them.

You will find they postpone your class at the last moment for every conceivable reason under the sun from  bringing in the washing to scratching their balls .

 They lie routinely because they have no reason at all to cancel except their own idleness.

Tutoring adults can be a pain the neck

2016 Student false beliefs G groupwork

Group work in a classroom is not necessary for learning

Peer-editing is a waste of time

Only the teacher can mark work

Many students from overseas are not accustomed to working in groups. They are used to sitting and learning on their own and listening to the teacher.

It is not enough to simply exhort students to work together. Careful planning is necessary by the teacher so that each group contains students of a similar level and who are of different nationalities if possible. Doing this once and expecting the students to then form groups themselves is unrealistic. It may be time consuming but it is necessary for the teacher to form the groups again and again. In addition, sometimes students are simply shy-this has to be taken into to account.

Some students really do not believe that group work is important and will try and sabotage it. However, with practice, most students will embrace it and see it, at the very least to be an opportunity to socialize which they otherwise wouldn’t have. Other students see the value of it quickly and rapidly develop confidence in themselves as learners.

Peer editing of writing tasks is central to any academic English course and it is essential that students are familiar with group work before the peer editing sessions start.

One issue in connection with peer-editing is that students may not really believe in the validity of marking others work nor value the marking of peers. They always want the teacher to mark. The teacher knows that neither these assertions are not true. The student is quite capable of editing his partners work as long as clear and specific  guidelines are given for the task. Many students resist because marking is hard work –and explaining to their partner the reasons for the mark given is a complex language task.

Group work and peer editing are key activities in the program to produce the learner who is independent of the teacher. The teacher needs to be patent and persistent in the  promotion of group work.

2016 Lies , Business and the Internet

Lies, business and the internet

In the past 24 hours I have visited 3 businesses which have inconvenienced me because of their lies on the internet.

Yesterday I wanted  to get a DVD. I googled the name and was informed there was a  sale on at the ABC shop in the city centre where the DVD could be purchased. I drove the car to the train station , then took the train in and walked to the ABC shop. No DVD. No apology.

So... why was it advertised on the ABC website?

on a separate matter, this morning I checked the website of another bookshop to see if it was open. It said ""We are open today"  So, I got in the car, took the train and went to the shop. Closed!

This afternoon I googled scrap metal merchants to take away our old washing machinee for scrap. I phoned the local 'Free scrap metal merchant' at Reynella.  Ten dollar pick up charge! So.. its advertising as a free service but it is not free.

It seems that business and the internet are a deadly  combination desigened to increase their profits at the customer's expense.

I wonder what the next 24 hours will be like?

2016 Demonisation by the religious

One of the most disappointing things about 'religious' people is their  impoverished view of human nature.

For example, when they witness  'good works' by people, Christians and Muslims will not  fully acknowledge the people who carry out the acts-they give much of the credit to God or some other divine entity (not to the person who has done the good work)

The religious person thus  diminishes and dehumanizes me by not giving me credit where credit is due.

This could be why I have noticed that  religious people can not really form intimate friendships-their space for intimacy is already taken up by God. God is their only friend.

I believe this is one reason why the 'Christian' peoples of Europe where I grew up  are renowned for their coldness, their lack of ability to be intimate and hence their loneliness.

They are emotionally dysfunctional. How else can we explain that 50 percent of people by the age of 21 will have experienced a mental disorder in Australia? (I am sure the figure would be  similar in many of the so-called 'Christian' countries of northern Europe.)

The consequences of Demonisation

Because of this failure to acknowledge the good works of people, it is easier for the 'religious' person  to demonise others.

The consequences of demonization can be catastrophic...the next logical steps after demonization are enslavement, abuse and eventually murder..

There is a lot of false righteousness and shock regarding terrorist atrocities.

Isis should not be a surprise to us. We have been demonizing people in this part of the world for centuries. Now they are demonizing back with twice the ferocity!

The non-religious person gives credit where credit is due. He spends time thinking about others and his friends-and doing things for them - the religious person ignores people because he is always thinking about God.

If you are always thinking about God you will never be thinking about anyone else.

Give credit where credit is due.

Giving credit to God a very dangerous idea.

2016 Student false beliefs E Lateness to class

I don’t need to come to the beginning of the class

Students arriving late to class are a common and serious problem for teachers. The most important part of any class is usually the beginning and the end. At the beginning the class is set up by the teacher. He recaps what was done in the previous class and connects to his plans for the activities for the day. If a student misses the beginning  he generally doesn’t know what is going on in the entire class for that day. Eventually such a student may turn into a ‘problem’ for the teacher. He may become a complainer and invariably he blames everybody but himself for his poor performance!

It is difficult to know what to do as a teacher. I use a carrot and stick approach which varies according to the circumstances.  I generally try berating the latecomers with jokes and sarcasm etc-but sometimes this is not appropriate as not all cultures appreciate sarcasm. Sometimes sarcasm does not work and may even backfire badly!

If I have a persistent group of latecomers in a class I generally try to create an activity which is not essential to the days work. However, if this happens too often, the students who do come on time justifiable feel short-changed by this approach as they realise  I am  effectively ‘waiting’ for the latecomers to arrive. In the end , they too may start to arrive late!

I sometimes refuse to give latecomers the days instructions-although this may mean they are a pain in the neck for everyone including the teacher during the class. I certainly don’t repeat the instructions every 5 minutes as each cohort of latecomers arrives! Some teachers just ask the latecomers to get their instructions for that particular days class from their peers in the class. But this approach also can upset the law-abiding  peers!

It is a thorny problem for which I have really little more  to suggest except to play it by ear with each class.

Many cultures do not value punctuality in the way Anglo culture does in Australia.

Our initial reaction may be  to apply some form of sanction-but of course the managers of  programs in Australia are loathe to do that because they do not want to upset their paying customers! Students may complain to agents who put pressure on recruiters who then put pressure on managers etc. eventually.

It is easier for a manager to berate a teacher who is the subject of complaint than to take on (a group of)  recalcitrant latecomers with the agent.

Inevitably, like many other things–this problem is therefore often thrown back to the teacher. I have not yet found a universal method of dealing with it. To compound the problem teachers often won’t  admit to the problem because they think the latecoming reflects on their teaching competence.

Another reason for the persistent lateness is that many students believe that they don’t need to be in class to pass. One reason for this is that they don’t really want to be in the class (their parents want them to attend and / or are paying). Another is that they overestimate their language competence and think it doesn’t matter at what time they turn up–they will pass anyway.

It is easier with school-age students. In Colombia where punctuality was a notorious problem I was famous for locking the door five minutes after the class started. This caused a furore at the time but there was little the students could do about it as I was the Head of discipline and the Vice-Principal of the College! However, many schools would not permit such an approach by the teacher and/or don’t have lockable classroom doors.

One can never be too careful with regard to cultural sensitivities. I thought locking the door in Colombia  was a joke at the time (32 years ago) but I recently contacted a student on Facebook who I had taught and  one of the first things she brought up in our correspondence was me locking her out of the classroom one day!

 

2016 Student false beliefs E Generic

I need to write down what you say

I don’t need to listen to the teacher

Learning is writing

Homework is a waste of time

Experienced teachers will be familiar with the student who insists on copying down what the teacher has written on the board -often- precisely at the same time as he/she is presenting orally the next section of the lesson!

In the mind of such a student-and there are many of them-writing down what the teacher writes on the board proves (to himself) that he has  learned something important: this is much more important  in his view than listening to the teacher.

We teachers know better.

The only way to deal with this type of student is to stop talking and stop them writing.

"You can't write and listen a the same time!" is a useful intervention

The rationale for this behaviour is that the student believes  'If its not written down it is not worth learning'

In many countries this idea is strongly embedded in the learner: Speaking and listening are not important but reading and writing are. The reason for this is that writing is easy to test for the teacher. The pedagogy of many countries is therefore based on what is  convenient  for the teacher-not what is good for the learner.

The reasoning goes like this..

What do we teach?

Hmm...maybe this ...?

How do we know they have learned anything?

Well...we get them to read something and then give them a written test.

No need to listen to teacher - just read and and write: the instructions will be on the test

Another attitude that often goes in tandem with this is that homework is not important.

At the beginning of the academic course homeworks often involve readings and this type of student doesn't  do them. This slows down the pace of the class the next day.

Again this false belief stems form the lip-service which teachers pay to rules in overregulated and overly prescriptive systems in many countries. Teachers set homeworks because they are required to, not when they are necessary. It is the policy of the institution. The homework is often irrelevant and the student learns to do the minimum.

In some countries I set very little homework as only a quarter of the class would even attempt it!

I could not set homeworks, the completion of which was necessary for the next day's class. I fi did , a quarter of the class would have done it and the other three quarters would not-so I could not do the class which I had planned.

Later on in academic courses in Australia written assignments are set which attract some type of sanction if not completed so there is not such a problem.

I have tutored  many able and keen adult students as tutees who will not do homework because this false belief is so deeply entrenched.

Patience is required to restore the faith of the student in the need to do homework!