AnnLoseva's Space

          March 29th-31st there was a huge ELT event held here in Moscow organized by the British Council, the annual (2nd this time) E-merging Forum, aimed, of course, to connect teachers eager to share and learn and develop. So I decided to go and learn and develop - and share as well, given my recent courage and confidence =). Proposal being accepted 2 weeks before the event, I faced the reality or REALNESS of the fact: I was going (seriously) give my first talk ever. And I tell you, it was a whole BIG deal to me.

          So here's how I dealt with it (the stress, the preparation, the moment) and then my brief account of the day I spent at the forum.

Pre-talk.

          I had my strategy to get ready for the presentation, I outlined the steps I had to take (notes on the ideas, ppt first draft, writing a talk, ppt second draft, rehearse rehearse rehearse). Now it was not quite as it happened, because being the me that I am I procrastinated for more than a week, of course being tortured by my conscience daily. This fact intensified the process=)

          When the talk was ready and the ppt was done as well..that was the moment I had dreaded..how is one supposed to rehearse the talk?! I find it hard to talk to myself and I cannot talk to walls and cups and notebooks. More than that, I had a feeling that I wanted to keep it fresh, well not TOO fresh (not raw), but not to be pressed by what I was going to rehearse at the talk was crucial, in my opinion.

          So what I did was what I remembered had been working for me during all the 5 years of university - process the same in different forms.

* I wrote the talk pen&paper.

* I typed the talk in a Word doc and printed it out.

* I arranged the talk in the doc in a table format, one box for each slide/idea, printed out, cut, highlighted key words.

* I recorded my talk using "mybrainshark" tool (thanks to Sandy Millin for giving me the idea - her post of IATEFL talk).

* I recorded the talk on my iPhone using "iTalk" App.

* I sent the written version of the talk to my mail.

* I wrote an outline of the talk on the paper. 

          Two days were left before the Day. How did I use the above-mentioned ways?

I listened to the talk on my phone in the metro 4 times, every time thinking it was complete nonsense and could be improved and I thought of better things to say, different every time))

I read the outline twice.

I read the talk (or rather skimmed through it) a couple of times.

I told the talk to myself in the bathroom once. 

            Another thing that I did was to cry for help)) I needed advice and practical tips from the people who know the thing. And because I have such an amazing PLN - I sure succeded (Facebook and Twitter being the medium connecting us)!! I did mention this in the talk as it serves a very vivid example of why PLN is so essential.

           The summary of what Chistopher Graham, Vladimira Mikhalkova, Lindsay Clandfield, Michael Harrison, Stephen Herder, Sandy Millin, Tyson Seburn, Phil Chappell, Dayle Major, Josette LeBlanc and Michael Griffin recommended to a first-time presenter:

• read Ken Wilson's two blog posts (the first and the second)
• don't over-practice
• worry =)) - like this one, I coped with it like a pro
• try to anticipate the questions, but don't be too intimidated by them (it's your/my show!)
• smile!
• be truly interested in people who come and make them feel good about their choice
• have some "tweetable" quotes
• have a strong ending/strong beginning
• make sure there are some practical ideas/applications that come from the talk (if relevant)
• talk to some people in the audience (early arrivals, those in the first row); they're normal people!=) ask them some question in the beginning of the talk, CONNECT!
•  think of what is really necessary to support the talk
• don't rely on tech
• rehearse
• "chill out, you're not a poser" - my favourite, Ty!!))
• do the presentation you would want to see!

          Wonderful ideas, aren't they?! Of course, many thanks to people and iTDi, who cheered for me before, during and after the talk! That was clearly felt!!

Talk.

          There were about 30 people willing to listen to me speak. Naturally, I improvised 50% of the talk (as I had expected anyway), left out many great phrases I had prepared, added some interactive moments and situations I remembered on the spot. 30 mins proved to be soo little to explain why iTDi is my perfect PLN shape!))

          I chose several people who looked interested and were reacting to what I was saying by nodding, and looked at them)) Thank you, if you're reading this post! Your attitude was really helpful! Anyway, I can say that it felt like the majority of the audience felt good about what I was trying to share - my enthusiasm)

          Special thanks to Sasha Chistyakova, who came to support me and took pictures nad sat in the front row with an encouraging face!))

After-talk.

          I was very excited  and sort of "high" for the rest of the day which Sasha and me spent there at the venue. We attended several sessions, 2 plenaries and had lots of fun and did some networking. I met Nastya Fetisova, who was also giving a talk (she studied at the same university as me and used to teach my friends and is still teaching would-be teachers at my university). Sasha had been there at the forum the previous day and had a chance to enjoy Amos Paran's plenary where he actually occasionally mentioned my talk,  and so we came up to Amos and said hello and I think he's so nice. Shame I could not be there for his plenary on using narratives in the classroom, I hear he engaged the whole audience in activities and it was a lot of fun.

          A special note: British Council people did a GREAT job organizing this event, that was outstanding indeed! Plenty of food, tech working, people smiling and helping...perfect, really brilliant!! *clap clap clap*

          I also gave a short interview about my talk which is published together with a blog post on my presentation (you can read blog accounts of most of the presentations from the forum and more interviews). It was the funniest moment of the day, as there is the first, uncensored version of this interview, which is 21+ and cannot be exposed to public)))))

Idea.

Why not rock E-merging Forum 3 in 2013 (end of March) together?!

Is it possible for you to come  to Moscow, with a talk or without it, enjoy the time, meet new people, explore my city, have lots of fun?!

Just think about it! =)

 UPD: here's the official album of the British Council with the pics from the forum, all 3 days, professional pics.

 

 

What have you heard of? Parsnip? You should know, it's outdated!

 

Well the caption to this picture Luke Meddings took the other day in Glasgow got me laughing and instantly gave me an idea for a lesson to try out with a group of students I teach at university.

Conveniently enough, two weeks ago we had 3 hours of heated debate sparked by PARSNIP subversive activity from 52 aka my treasure book (if by some odd chance you still haven't, check The Round now and learn more about it, download the sample and buy the whole of it, this is a must, frankly speaking). I hope to publish one outstanding piece of student's writing, one day, now you just have to believe me the classes were awesome and caused some productive verbal fight (nobody injured, I"m not a bad referee), a couple of subverted minds, and all in all made a lot of difference.

Today the task for them was to think ANTI-PARSNIP - create an acronym for themes they would LOVE to discuss in an English classroom. Sure it had to be either a veg or a fruit, to stick to the eco trend. I didn't expect it could become so exciting for them - we spent 1.5h (brainstorming/creating/sharing). 

Sorry for the quality, I"ll comment on each of the posters below.

  

          Pollution         

          Electricity

          Automobiles

          Resources

This poster expresses environmental concerns. Mostly agreed these are pressing problems. Did not agree whether e-cars are the future or not (voted for hybrid models in the end). Agreed Russia should think forward and not rely too much on the export of its resources.

Literature

Exhibitions

Money

Olympic Games

Nature

 

This poster represents cultural aspects of interest, and rather funnily (but unintentionally) puts MONEY in the very centre)) Unanimously agreed all of these themes are exciting for all. Came up with an idea for a project to be done in May - reporting with photos and video on the exhibition/event visited. Agreed that coins and banknotes tell the histories of the countries. Looking forward to discuss London and Sochi Olympics, as well as the previous games, records and athletes. Will be interesting to see if the Chinese sportsmen will prove their dominance.

 Now comes the one poster which could be the two posters as each student feels very defensive of his own ideas, and of course the compromise is including both variants in some cases.

Cinema

Unabled/disabled people

Creativity (especially in science)

UK best TV show (Top Gear)

Modernisation/mobile phones

Big Ben (stands for symbols of cities and countries around the world)

E-bay/e-books

Relativity (!)

Sports

 

As it turned out, relativity is the cause of worries of many of my students, which is of course explained by the fact they have an introductory course into General Theory of Relativity first year of university and some find it really bizarre and ambiguous and fear credit time=).

I"m so happy to see young people are educated, creative, concerned. They have diverse interests, they are active and ready to think critically, arguement their viewpoints, or take opponents' side.

This is very inspiring. THEY are very inspiring!

Image from http://www.littlenaturalcottage.com/

 

Go fresh with your class!

 

 

I was PLN-sourcing to find answers (or rather to gather authentic response) on the essence of Americanness and Britishness a couple of posts before, and not only did I recieve comprehensive commentaries from you lovely friends here on the blog, but also incredible resources on the topics related keep coming my way through your tweets, FB posts, and other ways. I"ve been favouriting them and marking and bookmarking but it's clear I should publish these in a separate space open 24/7 and for everybody to use - I believe some of these may come in handy and spark lots of ideas and conversation.

American

Vicki Hollett's blog "Learning to speak 'merican" is in itself an inexhaustible source of views on Americanness (there is not such a word, right?...hm)

 

Measuring the U.S. Melting Pot is an interactive US map showing distribution of nationalities across the country county by county. Astounding to learn that Germans seems to occupy like most of the US=)

 

Two infographics illustrating American Dream: Catching Up with the American Dream and Not Your Parents' American Dream (the changing face of it). Expect me soon to come up with some activities on these. 

 

America For Beginners is the blog I"ve recently found a link to in my mailbox. Its main idea is to bring American culture closer to new immigrants, and what's intriguing - the blogger is a Russian girl Anna who's currently a resident of Boston. Unusual stuff. 

 

British

"Make Bradford British" - a very timely TV show on Channel 4 (not to be broadcast here anyway). Check the home page for the main idea of the project, and the Union Jack composed of characteristics of Britishness tweeted under the hashtag #MakesYouBritish (flag updates every 30 sec).

 

An interesting article on BBC News page from Mark Easton "Define Britishness? It's like painting wind."

 

"What does it mean to be British" podcast. More debates.

 

A whole lot of various activities on UK Culture for learners of English from LearnEnglish brought by British Council. The vitals of contemporary culture, audio&video embedded and ready for use, recommended for Intermediate level and higher. 

 

My blog posts with the precious comments coming first-hand - to be checked here for American (the initial idea) and here for British (the follower to cover for another unit, and the one which got me considering Scottish/Welsh/Irish as very separate -nesses indeed).

 

I hope this post can be helpful not only for me but for some of you as well! Would be grateful if you leave any other relevant links in the comments, I will update the post that instant!

 

Cheers,

Ann

How far should 'learning by heart' technique extend in the process of learning a foreign language?

Image from http://www.marcias-lesson-links.com/ 

I have a confession to make - I rarely make use of it. But today I had a stressful (for me) debate which made me react defensively..and give it a thought. Do I miss something worthwhile there? Should I rely more on this *conservative* method, which was used on me and (maybe) even worked?...
 Important: the debate was around a certain point: learning whole texts by heart.

Arguments put forward by my opponents: it serves the basis for vocabulary building, phrases and chunks are remembered as those *memorized* parts of the text and may in future come out when necessary. Learners should learn by heart paragraphs of text, fullstop.

 The first thing that comes into my mind is that I am a bad teacher who has gone too far with communicative approach and fancy tech and dogme style teaching, that let the important and proven to be working methods slip away. Neglected. Ignored.

One of the opponents is a successful language learner who drew from personal positive experience. The opinion of this person is not professional but valuable and the one to be trusted, absolutely.

 My arguments: every task should bear a meaning and serve a short-term objective and a possible long-term goal. Texts are undoubtedly an endless source of various kinds of activities. I could also somehow put up with a widely-used task type - writing own essay, then learning it by heart (I've seen it done in many schools, though I don't practice it myself). In this case learning a two-page length text is not the ultimate goal, the ultimate goal to be achieved is expressing an idea in written form. You will not *probably* remember phrases from this essay for the reason that you actually learnt them, but because you first had had to consciously put them down, as rendering the idea you had intended to. And anyway you've practised lots before.
Basically, I don't believe in 'learning by heart' as a separate teaching method to deal with lexis. I feel seriously confused and ashame and really caught off guard here.

I haven't seen that as something particularly beneficial.

 I remember the torture of it when I had to learn a whole file of 30 topics by heart. With little to no chance to make a mistake. Won't remember a thing now. 'London is the capital of Great Britain" - yes, that's pretty much what stays forever.

Note: we're speaking of teens!

I"m in favour of learning poems, and maybe even a piece of outstanding prose.

 

Please, share your viewpoint!

How do you approach this issue? Do you set a task to learn by heart?  What can be a subject to that? What's your opinion of learning texts?... 

 

 

 

Brad Patterson is incredible at throwing in challenges. When I saw a link to his fresh blog challenge "How and why you learned a foreign language" in my FB feed, I was in two minds really. First, the urge to share my experiences. Followed by a bump on the head - sharing stories with no good end to brag about?..Seriously, share these nothing-to-be-proud-of stories ALL OVER my PLN?!

 

Yes, I will share. Because I've learnt from my baby-aged blogging practice that writing a post about something that is difficult to think/talk about is the best way to reflect on it, put up with it and happily let go of it=)

 

The crucial point underlying my failures in learning any other foreign languages than English is my "dream and speak about it a lot, do little about it" nature (too long a statement to hyphonate it, sorry). This actually is the attitude which prevents me from doing many of the things I plan to and  write in my to-do lists. I've recently started to be learning to take my own self as it is and not to be too hard on myself. One step at a time, a reflective lookback, acceptance of little progress/failure - that's my way and it seems to be working I think. So this is not going to be a post of bitter regrets. It's just an account of my language learning experiences!

 The languages I've seriously (and semi-seriously) ever considered learning are German, Italian and French (very lately). Spanish has always been on my mind (I know only a set of common touristy phrases that I can do with) and Greek (which seems a most unusual and mysterious language to me and I hope I will one day learnt a bit of it!), but there were never given a shot, so they don't officially count. I don't take into account Dutch and Danish as well, though I think I can read Dutch and when I stayed in Holland at my friend's I picked up a little of it. As for Danish, I printed out pages of phrases to use in Copenhagen (which is the BEST city I"ve ever been to), and a set of phonetic rules, I tried reading and pronouncing these, but the language is extremely hard, so it didn't work out really=).

Which leaves me with German, Italian and French.

 German.

I had 2.5 years (5 terms) of learning German (formal) as a second foreign language at university. That was exciting experience, I loved it very VERY much. We had an awesome teacher, about 3-4 years older than us, strict, with clearly set rules, a person of principles. I can say that I picked up my passion for discussing news in the classroom from her - that was really challenging to prepare a piece of news in German for me at that time, I should say! Still, even though I studied hard (not too hard, ok) and got EXC for my exam in the end, I know it and knew it then that my German was..invalid. One class a week is definitely not even close to enough to master a language from scratch. For the next 3 years I tried to devote a couple of hours a week to continue studying it all by myself. I've got plenty of textbooks, graded readers, grammar reference and practice books, audio CDs, dictionaries, phrase books and my own notebooks. I haven't got back to German for more than a year now. Though I have a book intentionally put on the table in front of me several months ago to remind me of my desire to speak German.

I know it for sure I will improve my German and return to it, but I know I"ll be doing it sporadically, because I don't need it badly. Here it is - the true reason..English is quite enough in the modern world. It seems to be enough at least. Is it too bald? Is it too bad? Is it true?..

I will not be visiting courses I think, I'm afraid to get disappointed.. (vain! very bad(( but honest).

 (*read about Ken Wilson taking his German classes! Follow his series of posts - amazing chapters, fantastic story-telling! Not connected with disappointment))

The ways to study for me are still to be decided upon.

 One last thing about German - I love the way I sound when I speak/read it!=) Not typical, I know, as many people have this idea of German as being a rough language, but I love the way it sounds, especially from my own lips=))) (now, that must sound bald and bad, really!))

 

Italian and French have similar stories - BBC 12 week courses.

I started with Italian 3 years ago, was very diligent and made through the 8 weeks of it, then dropped it for no explicable reason I can give you now.

I started with French less then 2 months ago, am not very diligent as the BBC notification letters getting insistently lost in my mailbox  can prove and I have a lot of PD plans which seem to have put French into the shade (until summer, that's the new plan). The funny thing is - I'd never really liked French as thought it too sweet and glossy)) BUT my trip to Paris in November for TESOL conference turned my world upside down))) Hearing French everywhere around me, trying to read it and getting the chills when getting it right - looked so lovely and inspiring all of a sudden! So I bought a book, set the goal and..am going to linger to reach it)) I know myself, and so be it. Nothing to boast of, sure. Throw your stones at me.

Now that I"m finished, what about English?..I"m well aware of the fact that I"m still a learner of it. I have to say that maybe being a teacher of English is the best thing I could do in my life to be a successful learner of it!=)

This seems to be it, my story of no-wins.

Regrets? I've got a few (and envies of those who can say they're polyglotes and passionate language nerds, which apparently as life shows I am not).

Hopes? I"ve got loads.=)

 

#thereisaidit

 

 

It's only so natural that the more the people - the more the ideas! Isn't it what brainstorming can be all about? And crowd-sourcing?

I'm going to do PLN-sourcing, then, and again!

Like I did once, here - and it got me incredibly inspired (and 3rd time published on an exctremely local scale))!

Fantastic shares, contributions from all over the world, thoughtful, sincere, differing, controversial - JUST like people themselves (diversity, huh?=))

Finally, the education can get personal. The pages of our course units can spring to life and speak different voices - authentic voices. YOUR voices!

Seriously, I have this feeling more and more often, I realize how lucky I am and most importantly - my students are. Since we have the chance, not so often offered in our context, to learn from PEOPLE, not from paper and ink. I feel it very acutely when I start sharing some phrases I"ve learnt thanks to you (caught smth here or there in a blog, lurking through my Twitter stream, etc). By learning myself all the time, I can literally feel it I"m giving them better quality teaching. And then we're learning together, which is the key idea of my perspective on my own teaching style.

So much for contemplation)

I promoted the idea to use real native speakers' response in our Country Studies Culture units, and luckily it was positively welcomed.

 So here I am, addressing you once again!

 

What does it feel like to be British? What does it mean to you?

 

Share your views, whatever they are, spread the word, and this can help Russian students (and maybe many others as well - since this is an open blog!)) get to know the sense of "Britishness" first-hand! What a good thing to do, isn't it?!=)

 

Thank you!

 

Today saved me from the slow unproductive procrastination *bog* bordering burn-out which I"ve been recently experiencing in the downtime after winter holidays, with tiny bits of teaching, huge amounts of time spent asleep, all in all, being totally not the best of me)

Finally, here they come, helping hands to drag me out.

Students!

Three groups of first year students to teach this term, one of these I worked with last term.

I'm very well aware of course of the importance of the very first teacher-group meeting - producing impressions, setting the rules, meaningful ice-breakers, sparking interests, establishing firm/friendly teacher "status". I've been giving first classes quite a lot of times already, yet each time I get nervous. When I get nervous I talk a lot=)

 I don't think (at least I don't feel) today's first lessons were particularly successful. Maybe they were, from students' viewpoint (looked like they enjoyed), but I keep getting this feeling I could've done way better! and I"m normally no perfectionist...What was it? The worst thing about first lessons is that they'll never repeat. What's done is done.

 What was done?

 Speaking.

The activities that I can positively relate to:

* Describing groupmates (for the sake of introduction AND most importantly for me to remember them, on a more personal level than register's name-surname style supposes)

Aim - to introduce a student to me, giving some special kind of information about him/her, something I could associate this person with and thus remember. Sitting in a circle facing each other (got to be this way only with one group because of unfortunate desks arrangement in a tiny room for the rest), the first student gives a description of the person sitting next but one. Continue this way until a certain point (basically when I get bored and feel we need a change). Then the system changes - now the task remains the same, but the form - now every student in the circle has to express one idea about the student of attention, points cannot repeat one another, ofc. I admit: it becomes much more difficult for a teacher to process and digest the info, BUT the winning side of it is that it gets really active. Everybody's attentive, involved, corrects others' points, supplies extra info or own examples of situations to illustrate the stated qualities, for example. This way a simple get-to-know-me activity has become (in my experience at least) a great collaboration story.

In the end I tried (and managed to) remember all names&connections (with their help and hints). I"ve got FULL picture of the class atmosphere, of relationships as well.

 Problem faced - in one of the groups the activity lasted for..an hour I guess..?! Because it was a most heated discussion. Level of the group appeared to be high and enthusiasm didn't have to be fuelled by anything more than my comments on their stories.

I've got the key - genuine interest of a teacher, as simple as that! Feedback, support. Sense of humour=)

We've come up with several vocabulary items as well during the activity - CRUCIAL, ASPIRE, DAYDREAMING, FAITHFUL and some others. All of these emergent language, as you may guess. Crucial turned out to become everybody's favourite, it was many times suitably used in descriptions and comments.

 

* A personal star.

This one I should give credit for to Ania Musielak, whose wonderful workshop I attended during TESOL France in Paris last November and went out of it with 3 pages of ideas to try out (which I did))

One piece of info for each point of a star refers in this or that way to you. Work in groups (3-4), ask questions to find out connections. That worked well, we had some very creative and totally unguessable points (like 133 for Pentium133, the first computer of a st., and more amazing ones))

Speaking, interactivity, question forms practiced and peer-corrected.

 

Why do I feel a tiny bit frustrated? I sense I could pepper the lessons with more diversity, maybe more challenge.

Anyway those were the first lessons, and I'm planning lots and lots and LOADS more to do.

Online part of the course will include work in our group in vkontakte.ru (Russian Facebook), Moscow-Grenoble wiki, msuenglish.posterous.com for showcase. And Google Docs probably.

 I hope for no indifference from their part.

Cheers.

 

 

No, I"m not going to answer this question in the post. Basically, because I have no practical idea)

The reason a title like this has arisen I will explain, though.

I'm entrusted with writing another unit for a Country Studies course, "Culture in the USA". This is going to be a little brochure, just like the previous ones I did on Education, Science and Technology. These materials are published at Physics Faculty and are used with students of Physics exclusively. This is the way university publishing works here, teachers supplement  official courses with self-written extra material - grammar, lexis, topics for discussion, loads of ESP stuff like works on Optics, Astrophysics, Thermodynamics, etc. There are textbooks in the library which provide full courses of English for students of Physics..but they were written in the 60s..unbelievable!..Am I the only one who thinks that science well MIGHT have made a little jump forward since then?..Sure not. But it's hard work to get a course SO specific written, and published here (I hope I"ll be among the ones who will get it done though!))

 Anyway, the problem we're facing does not only concern ESP courses. First-year students study General English and the official book (recommended and present in the library) features the Clarks and Stepanov, a Russian scientist visiting the UK, and his "adventures" (he's lectured on the history of the country, on the sights of London, on customs and traditions and the way the British consume their meals and garden their gardens). I have to admit, it's almost the most boring book I"ve ever seen (the top one is the notorious BONK book). Luckily, the head of the chair is a great woman who understands that we can't help our students meet the requirements of the world they're going to live and work in using these Soviet time textbooks. So four teachers of the chair including me are writing and putting into a test a Country Studies course to use as a supplement for Int+ students. Hopefully, it could become a decent book one day ("decent" means hard cover, colour printing does not seem to function at our faculty, so not many chances to insert pictures IN the book, I"m preparing a separate Picture File).

That was all an intro, as you might've guessed=)) Sorry, I think I do get carried away in the prefaces to my posts)))

OK, in a nutshell now: there's a certain structure I have to follow, it's rather fixed but I"m allowed to try out different novelties, which will anyway will be looked through and edited. What I"ve thought of introducing in this Culture unit is real experiences of real people..I have to shape the idea into some more or less clear form which will look good in the format already existent..but i'd love to give it a try.

And I will need YOU (if you don't mind)=)) your views, your stories, your authenticity! This is so simple and yet could be so exciting for our students!

If you feel interested here's the first task I"ve got for you. Regardless of where you're currently living, if you consider yourself American, can you please in a couple of sentences write

What does it feel like to be American to you? What does it mean to be American? 

I can't wait to read some replies..you'll be quoted in the beta-version of my brochure properly, and you can link to your blog or website if that looks appropriate!

Thanks a lot in advance, I hope my idea will get going, well if it doesn't..I will think of something else ;)

 

Now's finally the time to keep a promise! Here's my post for Vicky Loras' blog challenge.

The question posed goes: "What's Your Story?" How have I become the teacher I am, the personality I think I am? Well, it does look to me like a pretty tough question to tackle. Many things have been happening shaping my teaching style and affecting my personality. But I will just give you the brief account of 2011, or rather its first 6 months. Because to me they seem to have been just what has constituted my professional outlooks as I might observe them now. The changing and transforming me.

 

The end of 2010. Professionally - I teach first and second year students of Physics. Give Business in-company classes. Most of my time (16 academic hours a week) I spend tutoring a 10-year-old boy, coming to his place 4 times a week..to help him do his school homework (English and German). We study in a smoke-filled room, always dark because the windows are always curtained up thick, not even a single ray of light ever coming in. Grumbling parents, swearing in the presense of the child, calling his teachers at school really bad/rude names.The most depressing atmosphere I"ve ever experienced. The enormous amount of psychological pressure I find hard to bear yet can't escape. Emotionally by the end of the year i feel as exhausted as one can get, deep in depression, disappointed in myself, feeling underestimated, unvalued.

On the 30th of December in the Hague where I spend my Christmas holidays I get a stupid injury and have a surgery done in the hospital.

When I get back home on the 12th of January I fall ill with a flu and remain on a sick leave for a whole month. In this time, my grandad dies. I find a substitution teacher for the above-mentioned kid and feel the burden off my chest (yet very guilty about leaving the child in the middle of the school year) - the sky seems to be clearing!..

February, 14th - next day after my birthday I fall ill and stay on a sick leave for another two weeks. OK. I know what's wrong, and the doctors tell me - I've been working too hard. Prescription - cut down teaching hours, more walk, healthy food, good emotions, a glass of red wine every evening=) Looks like something I would gladly stick to!

March 26th. On the way to a countryhouse get into a car accident. The other car drove and crashed right into the passenger seat where I was sitting. I'm unconcious for a couple of minutes, then can't remember for about 30 minutes where I am, what season it is, where I was going, what happened, etc. The only thing I remembered clearly though was that I was with my boyfriend.=)

(right now that I"m writing this I get very nervous, palms are sweating, sort of getting the temperature even, it is all still very vivid)

2 weeks in a hospital with brain concussion and "a state of moderate severity". I"m only lucky to be as little and thin as I am, because otherwise the door could have broken my legs. 2 weeks at home.

At this point I have to say it looks like the end of scary happenings I had in 2011 - and it is!

The misfortunes I've been going through in a certain evil succession have helped me in many ways.

 

I have remembered to take care of myself.

 

I have practically realized the wisdom of the saying "a sound mind in a sound body"

 

I have picked up healthy habits, like jogging, balanced diet, morning cold showers, slow pace!

 

I have turned to myself ready to listen to my own needs and react accordingly.

 

Long periods of staying home allowed me to plunge into a new professional life! It's not a new wave, it is literally a brand new start! I can't possibly ennumerate ALL of the ways I"ve been changing..I've created a webpage for my chair at university; I've become part of international teacher community; I"ve been invited to become an iTDi Associate; I have designed and got published two brochures for a Country Studies course at my university; I've travelled to Paris and attended my first ever ELT conference and presented a poster there; I've met sooo many amazing teachers!!! I"ve done my first ever presentation (though a 3-min online one) at TeachMeet Int'l. I"ve given an interview to Larry Ferlazzo which he published on his blog. I"ve started to participate in webinars. I've implemented a lot of web 2.0 tools in my classes. I've learnt what Dogme is (and was happy to notice I"ve been doing these things without naming them as such). I"ve started to blog. I've started #ELTworkspaces project. I've become more sociable and learnt to take pleasure in these contacts (for a very long while I was for some reason locked in my own shell..feeling it was not my nature but unable to find the right motivation to get me out). I've found inexhaustible sources of inspiration and creativity!!!...I"m not sure that covers all, really..but it sort of gives an impression..of the scale of my transformation=)

 

I have realized that I matter.

 

Happy Not the End!=) 

 

Vicky Loras - thanks for waiting for my contribution for several months!

 

 

 

 

 

Recent couple of weeks have been very insightful for me from the point of looking at the future. It used to be very vague for me, random ideas not supported by any plans, speculations with myself on how I can achieve lots and so on=) As the year has turned my path into a more or less visible and clear way to go ahead, I now can use this to contemplate my life on a more practical basis.

 And because I've been so lucky this year - I've been prompted with many forms to shape the content. Chuck Sandy created a Facebook page called "In Five Years" which is open and gives everyone a chance to share thoughts and expectations - and eventually, grow together. You are most welcome to join the group and post your personal five year SMART goals, New Year resolutions, or just lurk and see what is going on =)

I hope you've skipped the long reflective introduction noting the link and Five Years idea,  and are now here, where the real story begins)

This blog post yet gets us back to the exhilirating DECEMBER 17th, the day of days on our Continuous/Bumpy (c) ELT PD path.

During the 1st TeachMeet Int'l Vladimira Mikhalkova @vladkaslniecko gave an insiring - and as fantastically designed as ever - presentation called "Bookmark your dream". The idea is simple - let your students create a personal bookmark. Give it the sense and meaning. Let it be a GOAL to be reached and an ACTiON PLAN to be followed. The idea appealed to me the very first moment I saw the title, actually=) I knew it had to be something surpr@ising (http://www.surpraise.com), and it proved to be just that!

In a nutshell, I've had only one opportunity so far to bring this idea to life (the term at the university being over, finals and other boring and bothersome routine things to do). But I've had a 1-2-1 lesson with a teenager, 16, with a lot of creative potential as I"ve always seen him.

Time for a pic - that's what he came up with.

 A decent piece of handicraft I'd say) Another thing is, I was amazed when the boy told me that the way he had depicted the word GOAL is symbolic. I'll reveal the truth now and i hope you can see the image clear enough to get the proof.

G's image stands for giving FORCE/POWER and DIRECTION to him to fulfill the plan.

O's image stands for FOOTBALL where you have to score a goal to win=)

A's image stands for the all-seeing EYE watching the boy (Dr Eckleburg!!! - and he hasn't read Fitzgerald)

L's image stands for the MOUNTAIN of a goal he has to climb (you can actually see a little figure of an alpinist there).

Should I say, I was impressed! I"ve always believed in the power of creativity, and thanks to Vladimira for giving this great idea to explore its depths!

 

Frankly speaking, I love being part of my lessons and doing tasks with them. That was what I did. Anton helped me come up with a couple of points for my Action Plan!!! The essense of teacher-student collaboration in action!

Here's my humble bookmark I'm carrying now inside Mantissa:

Thank you for reading my second blog post! This holiday time seems to be a great time to reflect, so I hope you check the FB "In Five Years" page (where quite some of the PLN have already posted, including Chuck and Vladka and Tyson and Ceci and me), Vladimira's Surpr@ise Page and her presentation "Bookmark your dream" (ask for a link!).

Would be happy to read your comments and see your bookmarks!=))