Deep TEFL quote of the day
“While many teachers may attend to the questions ‘Do you like this language? Do you like this class?’, perhaps the more fundamental question for a student is ‘Do I like myself in this class?’”
Zoltan Dornyei and Tim Murphey, Group Dynamics in the Language Classroom pg 33
I’ve only flicked through the book so far, but this looks like living up to Zoltan’s usual high standards. “Zoltan”- quite possibly the best name AND the best author in TEFL! It’s supposed to be a slightly more theoretical version of the classic Classroom Dynamics by Jill Hadfield, and if it lives up to that billing I’m going to be a very happy TEFL reader indeed, once I get a holiday and my enthusiasm back…
Here’s a little taster of Jill in full flow, quoted in the Zoltan book, to show you what they need to live up to:
“somehow as teachers we have the feeling that we ought to be able to resolve all human conflict, and if we meet a problem that defies our best efforts to solve it we have failed in our job. Whatever gave us this idea?” Jill Hadfield, Classroom Dynamics pg 157
The Zoltan book also has possibly my favourite chapter heading ever: “Conflicts and apathy happen!”
Flicking through a book is not just a sign of summer lethargy (or apathy), btw, but one of the best study tips I have come across. If reading through a book isn’t working anymore, either temporarily or permanently, just try reading it entirely a different way. Here are some examples of livening up your academic reading, tips that should work for both your students and any teachers who, like me, and thinking of taking another shot at an MA, but this time more successfully:
-Just read the summaries and go back and read the chapters before them if they are interesting enough
- Open at a random page, and if it is interesting read the pages before or after, the summary of that chapter, or similar sections in all the other chapters
- Just pick out the bits that seem most interesting, e.g. flick through the book looking for quotes, suggestions for further reading, stats, teaching tips or boxed bits of information
- Start at the back, or at least at the beginning of the last chapter or section, and work your way forward
- Look at the contents list or index and just look at the most interesting bits
- Start writing a book review, so that you can appreciate the book at several different levels and increase your motivation to really read it