ELT Musings and other tidbits

Photo by: Ian Hayhurst

Disclaimer: This post is about listening and not about the fantastic AlJazeera English programme which deals with social media in the mainstream.

I have been meaning to write this post for a long time. The first great victory of technology in my life happened when I discovered audiobooks and podcasts.

Let me start with audiobooks. I always looked at them with suspicion. Being a non-native speaker, and not having been exposed to much spoken English at the beginning of my language learning career, I never understood how people could listen to recorded stories. Then I went to Kurdistan, and bought  a set of iPod speakers which came with a free Audible download. On the ridiculously slow connection I downloaded the first book (Khaled Husseini’s Kite Runner), and I started listening, and then … I didn’t go to bed until it finished – I was hooked. Every month since then, the “let’s-choose-a-book-ceremony” takes place in our little family, and I am always jealous when it’s my wife’s turn to choose.

One of my most recent favourites was Remember Me by Melvyn Bragg (more about him later). A beautiful story an

d extremely well written – I enjoyed every minute of it. It’s not what happens that grabs you, but the way the story is written. There is no suspense as such but the language just takes you all the way from the first to the last moment.

Audiobooks are a great way for me to keep up with literature – usually of a more popular kind.

If there is anything you suggest I should listen to, let me know.

But the revolution to my listening habits came with podcasts.

Here are some of my favourites and a brief explanation of why I love them:

Dan Carlin has to be first I mention. He has two podcasts. One of them, Common Sense , deals with the United States and the most pressing current issues of this last superpower, which Dan believes should not be a superpower at all. He is passionate, honest, and provocative. Once you get over his sometimes irritating voice, you are in for a real eye-opener about America by an American journalist, who decided to become the voice of nonpartisan America. If you want to understand the USA, you should hear what Dan has to say about it.

Dan’s other podcast, Hardcore History is one of the most fascinating, passionate and well-informed podcasts on a relatively random selection of topics in history. Dan looks at historical events with a fresh, inquisitive pair of eyes, presents both sides and – although sometimes he gets a bit carried away – he makes his point very clear. His four-part series on the Ostfront was the podcast achievement of 2009. An absolute delight, and like all things good in life, comes in small doses. Never too early and always eagerly expected.

Language Learning:

“Deutsch – warum nicht?” and “Langsam gesprochenene Nachrichten” are my two new loves, especially the latter one. I am half German but unfortunately I have never had the chance to learn the language properly. I enjoy however, listening to the news in German and trying to figure out the stories as presented by Deutsche Welle. One of the reasons why I started this is to remind myself how difficult learning a foreign language is, even if it’s not that foreign. It’s also very good to get a bit of a look at the world through German eyes. If you’re learning a language, whatever your level, I’m sure you’ll find a podcast that helps you enjoy that language.

Radio Shows:

Radio 4 and ABC Radio National are a constant source of delight and joy.

Melvyn Bragg and Laurie Taylor come up with the most fascinating discussions about relevant, interesting topics. Melvyn sometimes flies high above my head, and I don’t understand a single word of what is being said – like the episode on the music of the spheres – but most of the time the topics are fantastic and both Melvyn and Laurie have a special talent of finding great people to talk about the topics of their expertise. They are funny and clever – what you expect from Radio 4. Great Lives is a recent find and I am very excited about it. A famous person (politician, artist, musician, you name it) is invited to talk about a person they admire, and an expert is invited to fill in the academic details about the person. Fantastic idea and some really good conversations, which have become the number one listening as soon as they are on the iPhone.

The World Book Club is also produced by the BBC and it’s a unique opportunity to have the greatest authors of contemporary literature talk about their work, usually one specific work.

The Aussies are a bit different but equally impressive.

I am a bit behind with my Lingua Franca programmes, although I really enjoy listening to Maria Zijlstra talking to people about language. The sheer diversity of topics she finds is impressive. The people are usually academics but they all have some very interesting things to say about certain aspects of language.

The podcast I never miss however, is the Philosopher’s Zone, where Alan Saunders looks at philosophical issues that are somehow relevant. Great conversations that make you think about important questions we don’t usually have time for.

The iTunes store runs a fantastic series where literary figures get a chance to meet the audience at the Apple Store and talk about literature, books, and apples. The great Stephen Fry did a fantastic job talking about his experiences with the digital age.

Nigel Warburton, author of the fantastic Philosophy: the Classics – also as a Podcast, does something similar but even more engaging with his fantastic series called Philosophy Bites.  One guest talks about a person, a question or an issue prompted by real life but interpreted philosophically. The best of contemporary philosophers are invited to talk about issues close to their hearts. Nigel Warburton is on Twitter, too.

Then there is my love of a lifetime: history. There are hundreds of great history recordings. Apart from Dan’s Hardcore history, the History of Rome is an absolute favourite, Mike Duncan knows how to tell a story, when to make funny asides and get even personal. His presentation of an evergreen topic is addictive. Thousands of people download travelling back in time with him.

I loved Lars Brownworth’s fantastic series on the Byzantine Empire and I was very excited to find out from Jim Mowatt, of Historyzine fame, that he has just started a new series on the Normans. After four episodes I can say, that anyone interested in a good yarn should listen to this podcast presented very eloquently, in great and interesting detail.

I mentioned Historyzine. The focus of the podcast is the War of Spanish Succession, which pretty much created the foundations of Europe as we knew it and had far reaching consequences. Jim created a complete history programme, (with a brilliant piece of music to set the mood) great reviews of podcasts, and blogs about history. It also has a great trivia section on the origins of certain English phrases. (The last time, mind you, I disagreed with him on the origin of “put your nose to the grind stone”. While he suggests that it originates from  the knife sharpener’s stone, I would rather think it to be a reference to the mules that were tied very close to the grind stones on the flour mills and were made to walk around endlessly. – Does anyone know the answer?) This podcast is a great find. A fascinating topic, great presentation and a wealth of information.

Matt’s Today in History by Matt Datillo is a great short series that has become much less frequent in the last year or so. The idea is great. Matt chooses a day of the week and makes a 10-15-minute very well prepared and presented podcast about an event that took place that day. I enjoy this podcast but I think a series like this should be more regular. However I understand that creating, researching and recording a free downloadable podcast is a very time consuming thing. Matt tried to turn podcasting into his livelihood. It didn’t work out, so it remains a random treat but a treat all the same.

HowStuffWorks.com has some fabulous programmes and a great website, and although I do listen to the episodes of Stuff You Missed in History Class, I have to admit that it is a bit too American for me. The programmes are incredibly well researched, have depth and the commentators’ enthusiasm for their subject is undeniable, but it’s just not my cup of tea – I might have an American History teacher or two to blame for this.

Cameron Reilly, the visionary behind The Podcast Network, produced two great history podcasts together with the American Napoleon buff J. David Markham. The Napoleon series was a fascinating discussion about one of the most controversial and influential characters of European history. The Biography Show never really fulfilled its potential. The 10 episodes were good but lacked the passion, preparation, dedication that made the Napoleon series such a delight despite its incredible length. (54 episodes – over 100 hours.)

Finally, a few words on two fabulous podcasts. Anne Hodgson asks a seemingly straightforward question every week or so and then records her own answers to it. I’m pretty sure that every reader of this blog knows this great little idea. If not, head over there now. The way I do my “Anne Hodgsons”: Step 1. Read the question. Step 2. Think about it for a day. Step 3. Listen to what Anne says. Rarely do I get round to step 4: Leave a comment on her blog, but that’s what I’d love to do. Even better: Between steps 2 and 3: Write down/record my answer to the same question before listening to her answer.

The other podcast from my PLN is by Darren Elliott, the “lives of teachers” is on its way to becoming a very exciting programme where an interesting person talks to other interesting people he happens to meet.

This is rather a lot, you’d think, and I agree. This is about 10 hours of listening a week, on average. Listening to podcasts and audiobooks has pretty much replaced music recently. My drive to and from work is at least 1.5 hours a day, and then there is the treadmill, the pacing up and down the flat with Sophie, the occasional walk to the shops or cooking.

I didn’t talk about iTunesU which is another favourite.  It perhaps deserves a whole post, because it’s not only the programmes but the concept  that makes it a very interesting phenomenon.

My simple challenge, or rather request: Recommend a Podcast to me (preferably not EFL or technology).  By doing this and linking to them we actually support these great people doing great stuff.

The Listening Post Wordle

This ladder at our school symbolises many things

Big sigh…. We have reached the final installment of these ramblings about why I have reached the decision throw in the towel and leave the UAE.

It’s been a very interesting journey. The comments and the support form the PLN has been amazing as always.

My family and I are looking forward to the move with less and less trepidation and more and more enthusiasm.

We can’t wait to get a chance to face real life with real challenges.

My final reason: This is just so not funny

I feel I have been the butt of a tremendous joke in very bad taste

I don’t want to

- have to explain to the father of a 20-year-old 10th grader that it’s not my responsibility if his son decides not to come to class.

- have to tell students spitting that sunflower seed shells on the floor during class is not very nice, let alone explain to teachers that going out of the classroom to spit in the flowerbeds is also not very hygenic

- witness teachers and students taking turns taunting students who are fat, mildly autistic, or just darker skinned than most of them

- accept that people from less privileged countries (mainly South East Asia) are considered inferior by the students and (even more shockingly) by the teachers. They are treated like mind and soulless automatons whose job is to carry to teachers’ bags, clean up the schoolyard after the students and be taunted and abused on a regular basis

- accept that the passport you carry, the car you drive and the phone you use defines your social status and the students’ attitude to you. Being Hungarian, as it turns out, is not that bad. Oh, no, the days when Puskas was the reason everyone knew of Hungary are long gone, now it’s NOKIA, apparently the second best sets come from my little country. Obviously driving a 6-year-old Peugeot does not look very good, but the iPhone compensates a bit (though it should really be a Blackberry). But if you are teacher from North Africa or the Levant, well, you have very little going for you, I’m afraid. This then shows in the teachers’ attitude to teaching, students, professional development, and we’ve run full circle.

I want to

- wake up in the morning and worry if my ideas will work in the classroom

- think of how I can find a way to engage-motivate-like the most demoralised-unlikeable students

- come up with new ideas, new challenges to make learning what it really should be: a discovery of something new

- help teachers who want to help themselves

- spend hours correcting papers written by students who have opinions or at least know what they have downloaded from the web

- be able to take my favourite songs/videos to class and talk about them and encourage students to do the same

- come up with ideas and have conversations about them with the administration and school management

- see students at the centre of decision making instead of cheap and easy compromises that sustain the system at the price of sacrificing the most vulnerable

- be proud of my students’ achievements and my colleagues’ successes

- get up in the morning and look forward to getting to school

I know this all sounds very easy and idealistic. I know it’s not. Teaching is a hard profession but staying a professional is definitely something I expect.

I might be wrong. Would not be the first time, and definitely won’t be the last. But I can’t wait to begin a new learning experience that will make me better as person – a teacher who has learnt something from an experience.

I feel I’ve learnt all that there was to learn here. I’m grateful for the experience. I will take it with me and use it. Has it made me a better person? I think so. Will it make me a better teacher? I am convinced.

Form an English exam by a grade 11 student

Thank you very much for following me through this journey. Farewells are always difficult. Change is always a challenge, it’s a tunnel, you don’t know what you will see when you reach the end of it. It may be just another tunnel, or an even worse place, but the train runs forward and it’s only at these stops you get to see if you want to stay on this one or perhaps take one that’s a bit slower, a bit simpler but rides through majestic landscapes.

I have a few questions about this series, about the decision and your predictions. I’d love it if you took the time to visit the survey and answered the four simple questions to let me know what YOU think.

Click here to take survey

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This is part four in my series of posts on how I arrived at the decision that I could not stay in the UAE without jeopardising my personal-professional integrity.

Photo from Flickr by DennisSylvesterHurd

Reason 4: I want a real life PLN as well as the virtual one

Caveat: Yes, there’s learning everywhere, and everyone you meet along the way can contribute to your learning curve. It is also true that I’ve met some fantastic educators in the UAE.

Although PLN-theory and research have yet to catch up with what is  happening in the real world -  to make sense of the amazing improvement in the interconnectedness of educators across borders, age groups and disciplines -  it is my gut feeling that one of the conclusions of the research will have to be that a virtual learning network is best complemented by having a real-life one at the same time.

The shared space and time is an essential component of one’s  professional awareness and development. There is nothing to compensate for having a chat after a long and frustrating meeting, going on a bike trip with students and colleagues during the summer holidays, putting on a teachers’ play at a school party. Fooling around when possible and being serious when necessary. Is it tiring? It sure is. Is it fun? Definitely. If there is one aspect of schools that I like, it is the enormous sense of belonging,  the sharing of good times and coping together with the hardships.

My virtual PLN does not only consist of educators. There are thinkers, musicians and poets who contribute to who I am, what I think and how I  feel. Every experience is a chance to learn, it’s a fragment of a story, and our life is spent inserting these fragments of other people’s stories into our own, thus creating our own story. Well, living and working in the UAE has failed to provide me with the professional bonding I had wished for.
Whose fault is it?
I am sure I could and should have done a lot more. I let my general negative attitude prevail. There are are some amazing educators I am very happy and honoured to have met (some of them through the virtual PLN) and I do regret not having made more effort to find the inspiration that’s there.
My bad luck is that the actual learning and teaching environment didn’t prove to be inspiring and I projected that experience to the rest of the country. There is a lot of good will and hard work going on in this country and I applaud every educator who doesn’t take no for an answer and plods on, trying to make a difference.

Education is a precarious business: everything depends on who you end up dealing with. A good teacher can sow the seeds of a life-long love
affair while a bad one could have made Mozart hate music.

I don’t know if there is any research into this but I think that foreigners working in the state education system abroad are a unique bunch. The longer they stay, the more they lose their relevance. I think the UAE education reform is headed by Westerners whose knowledge at the time they were hired was superb. They sincerely believed that they were agents of change. Slowly, as the weeks-months-years has gone by, many of them lost touch with the trends and developments. More depressingly, though, they have lost the belief that they can and have to be agents of change. They turn into complacent bureaucrats and become instrumental in maintaining a system that is flawed – to the detriment of their students and to society as a whole.  Even the government media have to admit that the public system fails the students and forces parents to choose private schools if they want to provide their children with a relatively acceptable level of education. There is in fact a fascinating discussion about Emirati students flocking to the private sector with the hope for a better education on one of the most visited, though heavily moderated,  forums for the expat community in the country: forum. That this topic has had more individual visits (4769) than any other thread (apart from a heartfelt request for spiritual support) indicates how grave this issue has become.

So yes, I miss acting in my colleagues’ plays, listening to another colleague singing Jewish pub songs from Odessa, shivering in soaked tents after cycling 100 kms in the rain. And still,  there is so much more that a real-life PLN can offer.

Today’s question:

What is your real-life PLN like?

Is it important for you to have one?

Photo from Flickr by: Urijamjari

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