2454. Back soon!


I arrived back in Granada yesterday, from a camp of English for boys. It has been great. I hope to post further! Thank you, readers!

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2864. On Shakespeare. Bringing Him to the Classroom

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  We are celebrating the 400th anniversary of the death of grand William Shakespeare, as you all know. I’ve just read an article about his obscure life but brilliant work. I say “obscure” referring to the fact that we have close to no knowledge about his life – I don’t intend to say he was obscure (or dark). It seems he wished to slip through the history of his time… I’ve made the resolution of reading his dramas one more time – I’ve read some, and we had a whole academic year dedicated to him and his theatre (or “theater”, as you like) at our college degree of philology of the English language and literature, and now I would read one drama at least. He’s awesome, and worth to read, or what’s more: he’s a must-read, for some of his dramas. And adaptations can be brought to the classroom, for our kids, and with so many human values and interests to be worked out! – I count on your discernment as a teacher, for a very few plays require some moral education. Moral ...
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3206. How to Be Great at Exams

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  We second or foreign language teachers should test our students’ communicative competence. I would advise you to test speaking along lessons, while the other three language skills (listening, reading and writing) can be assessed and tested at regular written tests. However we should test these three latter skills also along the school year lessons and not only at written tests. What I propose is a continuous testing and assessing, and not only confined to written tests at each “evaluation” or term – I also would propose five (or four) “evaluations” plus the final testing. Only three “evaluations” seem little to me. The communicative competence should be tested more often. As well remember that our students should not find the test activities unexpected: those activities should have been worked out along the lessons too. I could carry on by writing about all this testing thing, but what can we do to minimize our students’ anxiety at final tests and at regular tests? ...
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3686. How Flexible Are You as a Teacher, eh?

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2483. They Are the People We Have to Teach

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3687. The Teacher Is Essential in Class

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