Ten things I think I know (Tranche 2)

Here’s the second tranche of the ten things I think I know about teaching and learning. Sorry for the delay. They may seem a bit obvious or lacking in gravitas. But they’re here because the thoughts expressed keep occurring to me.

6       Most classes are seated in rows.

Mr Osbourne, may I be excused? My brain is full...

I’ve mentioned before that I did most of my teaching at International House London, where classes of fourteen were seated in a semi-circle. I also worked part-time in a Central London FE College, where there were up to forty in a class, all seated in rows. It doesn’t take a genius to know that this is a much tougher situation for the teacher.

However, it wasn’t until I started sitting in on classes to research books that I realised what a tough situation it is for the students, too.

The whole process of observing classes is fraught with difficulty and potential embarrassment, particularly if you are watching a state school class of moody teenagers. You either meet the teacher beforehand or – much worse for her – you swan into the class with the head teacher after it’s started. The head is all smiles but still casts an eye round the room to see what state it’s in and leaves with a pointed look at the teacher not to give a bad impression of the school.

Either way, the teacher is already a bag of nerves because you’re going to watch her. She introduces you to the students, and you can hear the slightly desperate plea in her voice, the underlying message of which is: “Please don’t muck about today and make me look like a klutz.”

You smile, wave, one of the brighter sparks says “How are you?” in a loud voice and the rest snigger. And then you go and sit at the back of the class.

Only when the lesson starts do you realise what a ridiculous idea it is to try to conduct a lesson where everyone is looking at the back of everyone else’s heads. If you’re on the back row, everything you hear is muffled, and the effect is often made worse by the hoodies worn by most of the boys in front of you.

Memo to writers of internationally famous course material mainly used in PLSs: this is the real world of state secondary school teaching.

The row-by-row set up results in the bright ones sitting in the front two rows, the cool gang leaning their chairs against the back wall, and the rest sitting in between. The serious point being that it is very hard to hear what other people are saying and whole swathes of students are excluded from what’s going on.

Memo to self: always remind teachers about this in talks. Encourage them to ask the students at the front (usually the ones who answer all the questions) to turn round and repeat their answers to their classmates. And teachers – please don’t just repeat the answers. If  someone wants to know what another student said that elicited a smile and an excited “Good! Well done!” from you, tell them to ask the student directly to get the answer.

 7       Reading aloud is (mostly) a complete waste of time.

Still on the theme of ‘Notes from the back of the class’, I wonder why so many teachers set such store by having students read texts out aloud.

Observing classes, I’m often without a book. I don’t usually mind this because I like seeing how the class deals the material in front of them.

Sooner or later, there’s a reading text in the book. This is what happens.

Teacher: OK. Look at the text on page 26.  Piotr, read the first sentence, please.

Piotr:  Mount Evvnnn, nvvn .. fnnn, fnnnn, fnnnn, fnnn….Nepal.

Teacher: Thank you. Ania, read the next line.

Ania: (In a slightly higher pitch) The first  mmmmnnn, fnnn, fnnnn, fnnnn…Norgay.

And so it goes on. And on.

Why do people do it?  No one is listening. The rest of the class are just reading the text.

I always ask teachers why they do it and they give some reason or other along the lines of giving the class speaking practice, which is very hard to achieve.

Hm, up to a point, Lord Copper. ***(see end of post)

But the best reason I heard for doing it was this: if they don’t read the text aloud, then the class goes very quiet.

Right. Because people are reading.

If you REALLY think it’s important for there to be sound when people are reading, then choose a course book where the reading texts are on the audio tape. Like Smart Choice

If the reading text isn’t on the audio, I have a solution which I recommend at workshops: ask your best readers to stand up, face the class, and read the text. And tell everyone else to close their books. Yes, close their books. If the class don’t understand something, they have to put up their hands and ask.

But… but… surely now  it’s a listening activity. Groan… yes, it is at the moment, but it was YOU who wanted to have people read aloud.

If the above solution seems wrong (because the same students will always do the reading), put the class in teams and assign each team a reading text, all the way through the book. Tell them at the beginning of term that they are responsible for that text, and they should work on it every free moment they have. They should find out what the new words mean, and if there’s a new structure being taught, they have to work on it themselves, and be ready to explain anything new to their classmates.

Should put the fear of God in them, but BOY will they concentrate!

8       Most students don’t like talking to the whole class.

A teenage student who's just been asked to tell the rest of the class what he has for breakfast...

When editors and authors sit down to talk about a new course book project, the usual buzz words fly around – the new material has to be communicative, stimulating, motivating, etc etc.

One of the words that never seems to cause any argument is ‘personalisation’. It’s a sacrosanct fact that every unit of every course book must have something that will allow the students to personalise the material.

Before I say anything else, I have to say that this obsession with personalisation leads to some hilarious classroom events. I remember watching an elementary class in Poland where the language under scrutiny was have/has got. The teacher dutifully told the class to follow the instruction in the book which said: In Pairs: Ask your partner how many CDs and cassettes he/she’s got.

Leaving aside the fact that the instruction was written in language much higher than the students’ level (Don’t worry, the teacher will translate if there’s a problem), the end product was quite magically surreal, like a scene from a Samuel Beckett play.

This is what I heard from the two boys sitting nearest me.

A:  How many of CD and cassette you have?

B:  Uh?

     A translated his question into Polish

B   Uh… CD no idea, maybe threety? Cassette, no idea.

A:  Uh…

B:  You?

A:  Uh… same.

As the teacher had given them five minutes for this activity, they then proceeded to speak Polish until she came nearby and they repeated the earlier exchange.

I don’t wish to make fun of students in this situation. Being an elementary student of a language is plagued with frustration. There are so many things you want to say that you can’t.  But some of the activities we give students to do in the name of personalisation are basically a waste of time, as the exchange above demonstrates rather well.

But I have a bigger objection to the whole idea of personalisation being a desirable aim for ALL lessons. I believe that teenage students would rather talk about ANYTHING but their own lives in English in front of the whole class. At that age, there are things you want to talk about to your immediate support group, in your own language and somewhere where you feel comfortable. We’re asking them to say these things out loud to a large audience (which may include people they are really not friends with) in a foreign language.

Even the simplest information about your immediate family can cause embarrassment to a teenager. Most teachers are sensitive enough to avoid questions like ‘What does your father do?’ in a class where there are lots of single parents, or in a town where there is high unemployment.

But imagine being asked about brothers and sisters and finding you are the only only child in the class. Some people might feel pleased to be unique, but most teenagers hate being different from the herd.

On the other hand, if you ask them about the sports, music, video games they like, this is good safe neutral territory. (And also personalisation, I hear you say – but I’ve made my point about the personalisation activities I have a problem with).

I’ve only talked about three things! And already too long! I will save the last two for another post.

*** If you don’t understand the reference to Lord Copper, check out this link:   http://tinyurl.com/yjl5axh

Ten Things I Think I Know (Part 1)

I think I might annoy some people with this blogpost, so to get myself psyched up for it – I’ve imagined that I’m being interviewed by the BBC’s arch-interrogator, Jeremy Paxman.

Jeremy Paxman interviews Michael Howard. “Did you threaten to overrule him?

If you don’t know anything about Jeremy Paxman, watch this 1997 interview with the then recently-deposed Home Secretary Michael Howard: http://tinyurl.com/ywf588 Count the times Paxman asks: “Did you threaten to overrule him?”

My imaginary interview with Paxo:

Paxo: So what’s this blog-post about, then?

YHB: Well, Jeremy, it’s a series of generalisations about classroom realities – what I think is really happening in English classes round the world.

Paxo: (Sniffily) And how have you arrived at these … generalisations?

YHB: They’re based on my observation of about 300 classes in 20-odd different countries during the Nineties and the Noughties.

Paxo: So no academic support?

YHB:   No Jeremy. No support at all. Unless we’re talking about Marks and Spencer underwear again.  (See note at end if you don’t understand this reference)

Paxo: (Drily) I’ll make the sarcastic remarks, if you don’t mind.

YHB: (Ignoring threat) It’s also about what I believe to be a widening gap between the contents of most course material – certainly the expensive stuff aimed at the international market – and those classroom realities.

Paxman: What EXACTLY do you mean by ‘widening gap’?

 YHB: Well, Jeremy, the perceived wisdom is that international course material designed and produced by UK and US publishers is superior to locally-produced material in any given country. In many ways it is – the material has been carefully researched, written and edited and the artwork and general design are usually far superior.

I think, however, that some international material is being used in places where it isn’t suitable. If it was only being used in classrooms where some or all of the private school (PLS) features I described in the pre-blog apply, that would be fine. But it isn’t.

I know that Headway has its critics (although most of the criticisms seem to be that it’s still being used) but I’ve always thought it was a good challenging book for late teens/adults. When I saw it being used with 12-year-olds in Slovakia, I was aware that both teacher and pupils were struggling.

That was one of the first moments when I thought – something isn’t quite right here. Locally-produced published English teaching material has its faults, as well, of course. But the thing that worries me is that certain accepted beliefs about realities in the world of ELT are just plain wrong.

Paxo: What do you mean by ‘realities’?

YHB:  In my view, there are three main realities that we should take into consideration when we produce material, and also when we train teachers. Firstly, linguistic realities – basically, how the learners will deal with learning  the new language, and how their first language may affect that. Then classroom realities and social realities.

By and large, modern teaching materials deal with the first of these very well. I’m not sure that enough attention is paid to the second and third, social and classroom realities.

Paxo:  An example?

YHB: Lots of examples coming up, dear boy. But the one that always gets me going is student motivation – or what people believe are factors which will definitely motivate people to learn English.

Paxo:  So your message in a sentence?

YHB:   Teaching English worldwide is not a level playing field. The teaching and learning circumstances of most teacher and pupils are very challenging.

Paxo: So, let me get this straight —

YHB: Sorry, Jeremy, I haven’t finished. Another thing that has exercised me a bit of late is teacher training, or more specifically, the kind of methodology that is presented as new, ground-breaking and (this is the problem) right for every English teaching situation. I’m thinking mainly about the sort of thing you hear in conference talks and workshops and the stuff churned out by touring authors and trainers doing one-off presentations.

Paxo: I suppose you’re going to take a cheap shot at the DELTA course as well, are you?

YHB: Oh, most definitely not. I’m not including any training courses in these general comments. Over a period of time, trainers usually find out enough about their trainees to focus on the realities of their daily working lives. So these thoughts are not meant to be a criticism of DELTA or other in-service training. But that’s partly because I don’t know for sure what goes in behind the closed doors of those sessions.

Paxo: Well, that’s all we have time for…

YHB: Sorry again, Jeremy, but I’ve started so I’ll finish. Here are the first five things that I THINK are true.

1       Most English students are there because they have to be.

I’ve searched in vain for statistics about this – but the fact is that the majority of students who file into English classes worldwide are in state (public) education. They are there for the same reason they are in the maths and geography classes. Because they have to be. Note to self: keep this in mind when you’re talking about student motivation. The only motivation these students DEFINITELY have is the desire to stay out of trouble with the authorities by being a visible bum on a seat.

I remember watching a plenary speaker at a conference somewhere in Central Europe listing ways to motivate students. His first point was to give statistics about the number of people who speak English. He provided the usual visual of Kachru’s rings for them.

Most of the people reading this will be ELT professionals and will know what I’m talking about, but for those who don’t know, Kachru’s rings relate to where English is spoken and by whom. Here’s a simple visualisation. (Warning: don’t learn it by heart, other models are taking over from it almost on a daily basis).

Back to the Central European plenary speaker. “Just tell your students that the language they are learning is spoken by nine hundred million people,” he said. “They will understand the importance of communicating with all those people. In English!”

Oh no they won’t, chum. Not if they live in the middle of nowhere and are acutely aware of their limited chances of going anywhere else. Or if they also speak a world language like Spanish or Arabic or Putonghua. If I was a native speaker of one of those languages, I think I would wonder why English speakers weren’t falling over themselves to learn MY language too.

Note to self: Never make a big deal about how many people learn English and pretend this is some kind of carrot for learners. It isn’t. Telling a group of 12-year-olds that English is important because a lot of people speak it cuts NO ICE AT ALL in most parts of the world.

2 Most English classes are monolingual.

Not only are most classes monolingual, but the students live in the same community. A lot of course books seem to forget this rather inconvenient fact, especially when devising pair and group work.

Note to self as author: Avoid pair work activities which say, for example: Ask your partner about his/her local transportation system/favourite fast food outlet/nearest mountain range etc etc It’s going to be the same answer for both of them.

3 Most English teachers aren’t native speakers.

The only statistic I have about this is one I heard in a workshop, an unverifiable one. But the statistic was this: more than 95% of English teachers are non-native speakers of English. And most of them are doing a brilliant job, making sense of this language that they learned and passing it on to people who speak the same language that they do.

There are LOTS of non-NESTs who not only behave (linguistically) like native speakers, effortlessly changing register as regularly as they … er … TAKE registers, but who also relish and enjoy finding out about new coinages or trying out exciting new classroom methods handed down by the experts. I know a lot of them, and they are astonishing people.

But there are still a lot of very good non-NEST teachers out there who struggle with the material they are being asked to teach and the information they are being asked to deliver. An awful lot of material presumes an intimate awareness of cultural norms in the English-speaking world which some teachers simply don’t have. And, like most people, they don’t have a lot of awareness of other parts of the world, either.

Note to self: always give lots of support for non-native speaker teachers when writing a Teacher’s Guide. Especially about cultural background information about the material, whether it’s about York, New York, New Zealand or New Order.

4 Most teachers have to use a book.

Note that this says most teachers HAVE to use a book, not WANT to use a book, although that is probably also true.

I love dogme and related ideas, I really do. There’s nothing I like better than facing a group of students with nothing but a basic idea of what I want to do. In fact, I try to make this happen as often as I can. When I observe lessons whilst researching a book, I tell the teacher that I’m happy and willing to take over at any point, should she want me to. This has resulted in being invited to take a class for a whole 45-minute lesson, completely unprepared. Brilliant seat-of-the-pants experience. But not something that most teachers would want to try, and certainly not what they would plan to do.

Anyway, back in the real world, most teachers have no choice but to use a book. The system requires it. They can go off-book any time they want, but if they abandon the book completely, all it takes is one student to complain to the DOS, or even worse to her parents, and the teacher is in hot water.

5 Most English courses are exam or test-directed.

This is an obvious corollary of point one. Most pupils are in state schools, most state schools have end of term/semester/year exams, therefore the whole system is geared towards exams.

Experienced state-school teachers have a very clear idea of the time it takes to reach the rather artificial exam-oriented goals. And they also know there is no time for frippery en route. To get through all the exam-related material usually means following the book religiously.

That’s five things I think I know. There are another five, but that’s enough reading for one post. More soon!

Have a great week.

If you are unfamiliar with the Jeremy Paxman/Marks and Spencer underwear story, you can read about it here – http://tinyurl.com/yfjexwt

Coming soon – ten things (I think) I know about teaching…

If there was a support group called CBWA (Course Book Writers Anonymous), I would stand up and introduce myself as follows:

“My name is Ken Wilson and I’m a course book writer. I’m a native speaker, I was a full-time English teacher for about ten years and a part-time teacher for about another twenty. I spent most of my teaching life in London, mainly at International House. During that time, I mainlined on classes of 14 students maximum.

“The students were seated in a semi-circle so they could all see and hear each other. They were, generally speaking, young, bright, motivated twenty-somethings and they had paid big bucks to be there.

“After class, they had enough money to go to pubs, clubs, gigs, movies and theatre shows fairly regularly. They swam in a warm-ish pool of English outside the classroom.

“And yes, I admit it. When I first wrote materials for students… (Pause) … I … I .. I wrote only with those students in mind.”

I get a round of applause from the other members of CBWA for managing to make this confession.

As the years have passed (Cue honey-coated background music), I’ve discovered that there are other teaching and learning situations out there. Classes of 30, 40, 70 (normal in China), even 200 (normal in many college and university situations). All over the world, there are students learning English who have no hope of ever communicating F2F with a native speaker, and TEACHERS who are in much the same position.

And because this is the case, something consistently bothers me…

I see a new course book at a publishers’ exhibition. I open it, flick through, and my eye falls on a really nice activity. And I think: this would be SO good to use with a class of 14 bright young things in Central London.

I go to a conference, attend a workshop and see a great classroom activity, which involves the students communicating with each other in an exciting, almost uncontrolled way. And I think: that would be SO good to use with a class of 14 bright young things in Central London.

And then I think: but most students aren’t studying and most teachers aren’t teaching in those circumstances.

So I decided to try to work out what I actually know for sure about the classroom. And teaching. In a worldwide context.

To do this, I decided to invoke the spirit of René Descartes and see if the old boy could shed any light on this teaching lark.

René Descartes, or possibly an International House London teacher circa 1974

Descartes wrote Discours de la méthode in 1637. In it, he attempted to find a fundamental set of principles that could be known to be true beyond any doubt.

To do this, he employed what is generally referred to as ‘methodological skepticism’, a method of rigorously examining anything he thought he knew.

To begin with, he decided that the only thing he could be certain of was that HE was a thinking being (he wasn’t sure about anyone else at this stage). He expressed this in his famous principle cogito, ergo sum – I think therefore I am.

He wrote an alternative version for pigs – I’m pink, therefore I’m spam. Sorry. Will be serious from now on…

So, with another year of conferences about to start, I’m going to be methodologically skeptical about what I think I know about teaching and learning English and see what I finish up with.

Ten (plus one) things I think I know about the realities of teaching and learning English. Coming soon…

How was it for you? A look back at the Noughties – Part 1

My stand-out memories of the early Noughties …

2000 – My first trip to China

Images of China - a performance by a dance troupe consisting of women soldiers. Really. This is the Chinese equivalent of ENSA!

As the Noughties dawned, I was in the middle of a stream of author visits, which had reached a peak about two years before and was showing no sign of slowing down. In 2000, I flew on more than 50 planes and visited every continent except Australia (if Egypt suffices as a visit to Africa). I was enjoying every minute of it.

However, I shudder to think how many air miles I did in those days and have vowed never to do that much flying in a single year again. In 2009, I was on 14 planes. That’s the sort of target I’m aiming at in future.

I’m aware that tales of ELT conference-hopping get a mixed response from people who don’t get the same opportunities, or only get them if they pay for their own air tickets. I also know that conference hoppers do go on a bit about the travelling they do.

But the fact is – if I’m not travelling, I’m sitting in front of a computer, so it’s fairly predictable that the main stand-out moments in an average year are likely to involve travel.

In 2000, I went to Siberia for the first time. After an extraordinary encounter with the fine folk who teach English in Novosibirsk, I then travelled to St Petersburg via Moscow by plane and train on the same day. The trip somehow managed to last nearly 24 hours, during which I didn’t sleep a wink.

I also made the first of 12 visits to Romania, where I managed to secure a huge chunk of the high school market for my book Prospects. And I re-visited some of the places I most enjoy giving talks, including Brazil, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.

But the stand-out experience of 2000 was visiting China for the first time. I’ve already blogged about the English Teaching Theatre’s first shows in Shanghai – stories of fantastic audiences and a hotel garden full of brides having their photos taken. Have a look in the November 2009 archive if you want to read more about that.

I have a very strong memory of getting on the plane home in Hong Kong, thinking it had probably been a never-to-be-repeated experience. In fact, I went back to China another eleven times in the next five years.

In other news… the US elected George Bush as president, a decision that probably set the tone for most of what happened in the ensuing eight years…

2001 – The World Trade Center

Everyone remembers where they were when they heard about the tragic events of September 11th at the World Trade Center (or more likely where they were when they saw the first images).

For what it’s worth, in September 2001, I was on my third author visit to Romania.  For the first time in my life, I was enjoying the experience of being a best-selling coursebook author. Only in Romania, I hasten to add, but hey – enjoy it wherever you can.

My book Prospects was the only title that was government approved for Years 9 thru 12, other more famous titles only having secured approval for one, two or three years. The result was that we had 60% of the state school market for two years.

This fact has very little to do with the value of the books themselves, although I thought the series was quite good. It relates entirely to a 10-minute presentation I gave in 2000 to the assembled regional English inspectors at a British Council event in the Black Sea resort of Constanta.

The inspectors were a formidable group of women (and one man) who had an enormous influence on which books teachers chose to use. They were led by a fearsomely intelligent and slightly scary woman called Anda Maxim, who apparently ate coursebook authors for breakfast.

They had sat through 10-minute presentations by several other publishers and authors before I got up. I could see that half of them were about to nod off, so I hit the ground running with a quick-fire Q & A session. Anda Maxim gave the correct answer to my first question.

“Brilliant!” I said, giving her a beaming grin. She smiled uncomfortably. But it was definitely a smile…

Anda Maxim smiling was such an unusual event, it used to make front page news in teaching journals. I was so pleased about it that I couldn’t resist going into a sequence that I use in workshops to demonstrate the value of praising students.

Let’s face it, if someone says “Brilliant!” to you, you normally feel good, right?

“How do you feel now?” I asked her.

“What?” she asked, suspiciously.

“I just said ‘Brilliant!’ How do you feel now?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

In for a penny….

“Imagine you were a student in my class,”I ploughed on. “And I said ‘Brilliant!’ to you. How would you feel?”

Before Anda could reply, the one man in the group – the regional inspector for Cluj-Napoca - said something.

“We’re school inspectors,” he said. “We don’t feel anything.”

A laugh from the whole group. Possibly the most important laugh I’ve ever heard in one of my presentations. Prospects was a hit from that day forward.

Having a best-seller is a great experience – I recommend it to everyone! Thereafter, I floated around that country on a tide of good will and teacher adulation. OK, OK, I’ll stop going on about it now.

On 10th September 2001, it looked as if the golden bubble of a particularly wonderful author tour was about to burst. I arrived in Iasi, Romanian Moldova, and made my way to the Grand Hotel, only to find that there was no trace of my booking.

The Grand Hotel in Iasi

My Macmillan minder was about to lead me away to find another hotel, when she decided to talk to the receptionist again. Some hushed words were spoken, a few furtive banknotes changed hands, and suddenly rooms became available.

Five minutes later, I found myself in a ridiculously large suite of rooms with a balcony half the length of a soccer pitch overlooking the central square of the city. The suite had been designed and furnished for Nicolae Ceauşescu. It was where he and the fearsome Elena stayed if they ever visited Iasi.

It was at the same time opulent, ghastly and shabby, a sort of metaphor for the Ceauşescus’ own lifestyle.

I watched the scenes from New York on a television the size of a small car. Two days later, I flew out of Bucharest Otopeni Airport. On previous departures from Otopeni, there had never been even the most peremptory search of belongings. This time, it seemed the entire Romanian army were involved in the departure procedure.  We all had to empty every single item out of our hand luggage into a plastic bowl and soldiers sifted through the lot.

I went back to Romania about four months later. Otopeni was back to normal. There wasn’t even a hint of a security search.

I’d like to mention one more special memory – or rather series of memories – of Romania. For four years in the mid-Noughties, I attended the Teenplay Theatre Festival in Arad, three days of theatre performances in English by high school students. The second year I attended, they made me a judge, and the third and fourth years, I was president of the jury.

Groups of teenagers from all over Romania performed 40-minute pieces, some that they had written and devised themselves. Some were ordinary, but many were hypnotically brilliant. One of many terrific memories was a spell-binding version of Edward Albee’s Zoo Story, which I would have paid money to see in London’s West End.

At the time, the organiser was Mihaela Voineagu, who was the English inspector for Arad (and had been in the group of inspectors I spoke to in Constanta in 2000). She moved to the US and one of her colleagues, who I think was called Camilla Aramescu, continued the good work.

I can’t find any information online about Teenplay Arad, so I’d love to hear from someone in Romania to know if it’s still taking place. I hope so, because it’s marvellous.

High school students performing at the Teenplay Festival

2002 – New Orleans

In November 2002, I flew to Houston Texas to meet up with Mrs W, who had been training on a CELTA course at North Harris Community College. At the end of the course, we rented a car and drove to New Orleans to meet Colin Davies and his wife Mary Ellen Lane.

Colin, who was once director of an IH school in Cairo, was by this time living in Washington DC, where he still works for a charity organisation and moonlights as a radio DJ. Because he has a posh-ish English accent, he’s known as The Professor, and his programme is called The Professor Rocks.

During the amazing four days we spent in New Orleans, and entirely thanks to Colin, I met the man who engineered the first recordings of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis (who by this time was running a 5 and dime store), and also met blues legend Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry.

With Clarence 'Frogman' Henry

…I also watched Dede dance in the street to a zydeco band…

 …and took the best nature photo I’ve ever taken. A heron taking off in the Louisiana swamps.

We also saw blind blues singer Snooks Eaglin live on stage – in a bowling alley. The venue was called Rock and Bowl. Really.

Snooks Eaglin at Rock and Bowl

You can hear Colin’s program here: http://www.theprofessorrocks.com/

2003 – The Iraq march

On 15th February 2003, the Wilsons were on the streets marching against the proposed attack on Iraq. We weren’t alone of course. Anyone with a shred of conscience was on the streets - possibly two million people in London alone, and goodness knows how many others in 800 other cities around the world.

I’d like to give special mention to the people who took to the streets of Rome. The protest there involved around 3 million people, and is listed in the 2004 Guinness Book of Records as the largest anti-war rally in history.  

And a fat lot of good it did.

The first bombs dropped on the Iraqi Presidential Palace on 19th March. Best not forget those who were responsible for this absurd and unjustified war and the tragic and unnecessary deaths of servicemen and women and civilians that ensued. One of them may try to become President of Europe or something.

Time to stop for a while…

2010 reasons to be cheerful….

 

 

Reasons to be cheerful:

1   BARACK OBAMA: Despite the fact that the current security situation means he’s sounding like previous incumbents, he is STILL the best thing to have happened to international politics for many a long year.

2  ECO-AWARENESS: When I look around at my nearest and dearest, and a little beyond into the fantastic people who constitute my PSG (personal support group), I see examples everywhere of people making an effort to live a greener life. And while it may seem insignificant, it DOES make a difference if we (and these are just a few examples) switch off lights, buy local produce, walk more, take public transport, drive less,  fly less and STOP EATING MEAT (or at  least have meat-free days).

Link to information about why we should stop eating meat: http://www.show.me.uk/site/news/STO873.html

3  THE PEASANTS ARE STILL REVOLTING: The big difference between the first protests I was involved in the 60s and 70s and now is that in those days, we marched and then we went down the pub and thought we had changed the world. All we did was change from sober to drunk. Protest is much better organised these days and action groups realise they will do much better if they IGNORE POLITICIANS and appeal directly to the general public.

4  TWITTER AND OTHER WAYS TO LEAK INFORMATION: It is getting more and more difficult for the bad guys (and they usually ARE guys) to withhold information about what they are doing, be they megalomaniac national leaders, industrial giants polluting rivers, fat cat bankers lining their nests or British MPs lining their moats and bell towers. Someone somewhere will leak information, including photographic evidence of wrong-doing. Whatever fun we made of twitter a year or so ago, it isn’t just something to idle away a few minutes, it’s actually a force for change.

Please add more reasons to be cheerful below.

My first four months of blogging have been an absolute blast, thanks to you, readers and contributors, including my fabulous guest-bloggers. Thank you so much for visiting in such numbers. You have made a happy man feel very old …er … yes…

Catch you later.

New Year's Resolution: Work like crazy and keep June free for serious TV watching...

Coming soon – my stand-out memories of the Noughties…

On New Year’s Eve at midnight in 1999, I was sitting in a jacuzzi with Magenta De Vine … This looks like the start of a very bad poem or possibly an even worse limerick.

Who is Magenta De Vine and what was I doing in a jacuzzi with her at midnight on the eve of the twenty-first century? Especially considering I had only met her about five hours before?

Magenta, whose real name is Kim Taylor, was (and as far as I know still is) a journalist and TV presenter. In the 1990s, she fronted a very popular BBC2 youth travel programme called Rough Guide. Before that, she had worked in the music business, amongst other things as a promoter for the cyberpunk band Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

Magenta De Vine

Magenta always wore sunglasses, day or night, indoors or out, including when she was presenting to camera in a TV studio. No one had ever seen her without them, in photos or on TV.

In the jacuzzi she wasn’t wearing sunglasses. I took a photo of her with a pre-digital camera that had a film in it (remember those?) and – surprise, surprise – it didn’t come out. I think she had some kind of magnetic power that destroyed it.

It just occurred to me that ‘Magenta’ and ‘magnetic’ are almost anagrams

So what were we doing in a jacuzzi together? Well, let me first say that Dede and various other people were also in the jacuzzi. We were all guests of a very wealthy magazine publisher at his estate in Warwickshire. The publisher shall remain nameless, but I will refer to him mysteriously as Mr D.

I had met Mr D on several occasions but I didn’t really know him. Dede and I were merely friends with one of his best friends. This tenuous connection had already secured us a week at his villa on the island of Mustique in the Caribbean.

On New Year’s Eve 1999, we were once again free-loading, this time on his sumptuous estate. Apart from the main house, the estate includes several thatched cottages and a field full of bronze statues of Mr D’s heroes.

One of Mr D's thatched cottages and the little convertible run-about he uses when he's in residence

There’s also a wonderful purpose-built leisure area (dubbed ‘The Fun Palace’ in a salacious article in The Sun newspaper) which contains, amongst other things, a swimming pool with a pool-side Juke box, a library with a Van Gogh painting on the wall, a private cinema … and a jacuzzi.

The jacuzzi at Mr D's Fun Palace

Mr D wasn’t with us on Millennium Eve. He was in his other house on Mustique, which incidentally he had bought from a famous rock star, who I WILL name as David Bowie. This is what one part of the house looks like:

The house that David built - the boy has taste...

The house was brilliantly designed. You could swim in the pool and feel as if the Caribbean stretched out to infinity in front of you …

However, that was when we were free-loading in the mid-1990s. Back to the story of when we were free-loading on Millennium Eve…

Those of you who were using computers in 1999-2000 will remember the millennium bug scare. There was a wild panic-inducing rumour going round that all our computers would seize up at one minute past midnight when the number 2 appeared at the beginning of the year-date for the very first time.

I remember being so worried about this that I got out of the jacuzzi at about five past midnight and went and turned on my laptop. When I saw that it was working, I headed back to Fun Palace, where the party had re-located to the cinema, and Fargo had just started.

Steve Buscemi (right) and the scary one who doesn't talk in 'Fargo'.

So… that’s what I was doing at the start of the Noughties, and here I am at the end of the same decade about to reminisce about my personal stand-out events and experiences of the last ten years.

I’m afraid sitting next to Magenta De Vine in Mr D’s jacuzzi was probably the most exotic thing that happened to me in the entire decade, so there won’t be any more stories like that.

But there will be stories about things that I did or witnessed during this incident-packed decade. Some will be mildly-amusing anecdotes, one or two will be more serious…

Coming soon…

In the meantime, another huge thank you to the ten great guest-bloggers who have graced these pages during the last couple of weeks. If you haven’t read what they wrote, scroll down and have a butcher’s.

Guest post 10 – Orsi Nagy from Hungary on downloadable vocabulary stuff for kids…

My guest-blogger today is Orsolya (Orsi) Nagy from Hungary. I can’t remember how or why I stumbled upon her chirpy little blog, but I was very taken with the title and raison d’être. The title is WE PREPARE, WE TEACH, WE HOPE and below that is written: This is a place where I can let my stream of consciousness flow. About teaching. About teaching English as a foreign language. if you’re interested, hop in the truck!

I wondered what ‘stream of consciousness’ was in Hungarian, and Orsi told me it’s tudatfolyam. So now you know.

Orsi’s guest posting is about downloadable material she found when she wanted to teach clothing vocabulary to very young learners.

Orsi Nagy

I started teaching 4-5 years ago when I was at university. At first I was a private tutor, then I worked for several language schools during my university years. I had two majors, English Language Teaching & Hungarian Literature and Linguistics. When I graduated I decided to leave the language school I had been working for, and got a job in a secondary grammar school. I’ve always been very interested in technology, and I like trying crazy and techie things, such as online lessons via MSN, writing a blog together with my students, or having a ning site. And probably a lot more

MY FAVOURITE DOWNLOADABLE SITES

Okay, so this post is going to be a a wee bit like Lindsay Clandfield’s Six Things, although I have no idea how many I’m going to end up with

Even though it’s almost Christmas, I had to teach the wee ones (fifth graders) some items of clothing. They probably would have enjoyed some carol singing more, but I wanted to get this over with before we go completely crazy and Christmassy

So here are my top favourite websites with DOWNLOADABLE & PRINTABLE material, all about clothing!

eslflow is a very nice-looking site – maybe I’m childish but I prefer warm and bright colours and playful fonts with tons of links. These concern vocabulary (describing people, housing, environment, etc) and some other things like icebreakers, debates, grammar.

eslprintables is a tricky site but it’s totally worth the trouble! So here you don’t exactly get the goodies for free, but you also have to contribute with some of your own handouts.

First you have to register (with this unfortunately you have to download an eslprintables toolbar, but I got rid of it in seconds, so no big deal…you just have to uninstall it) and upload some handouts done by you. If somebody else downloads them, you get points for which you can also download other teachers’ stuff.

You probably need to visit this site long before you need something because you have to wait for your points But some of the uploaded handouts are just gorgeous! You can preview them before you download.

teachchildrenesl is a site with loads of flashcards. Maybe that’s why I like it so so much With the little ones, you definitely want to use a lot of these things. In my experience they enjoy the pictures, the colours, the games we play with flashcards. But be careful, they can go seriously mad

freeeslflashcards is another flashcard site with dozens of topics including clothing and holidays as well.

esltower doesn’t have too many printables about a topic (maybe 2-3) but those are very nicely done. Check their grammar and pronunciation sections too!

eslkidsworld is designed for teachers of young learners. They have very usable and free handouts, my only problem is that sometimes the level required for completing the tasks is far too high for such young kids…

anglomaniacy is a site with both online and printable material For kids only!

So, that was my list of favourite websites with printables, I hope you can make use of it!

Next time I promise, I’ll go Christmassy!

Orsi blogs at nagyorsolya.blogspot.com

This is the last of the ten guest-bloggers who agreed to write material for this series. I just want to send a huge THANK-YOU to all of them for giving me their time, their ideas and their enthusiasm, and for providing such a varied, entertaining and informative set of posts. I really appreciate it.

Guest post 9 – Melania Paduraru on Romanians speaking English and other political matters…

My ninth and penultimate guest blogger is Melania Paduraru from Romania. I first visited Melania’s blog partly because of Dede’s and my long-standing interest in her country. I have re-visited it several times because I love the precision with which she describes Romanian life, history and her teaching circumstances.

Dede was one of the group of teacher-trainers who went to Romania in the early nineties with John Haycraft, and Melania was one of the teachers who attended those training sessions.

Melania Paduraru

I live and work in Mangalia, a small town in the south east of Romania, on the Black Sea coast. I have been teaching English for 24 years, level K-12 in state schools and adults in LLL programmes. I am interested in Web 2.0 tools and I use some of them in my classes. I also like attending national and international conferences (when I can afford it).

WHY DO ROMANIANS SPEAK SUCH GOOD ENGLISH?

This post is meant as a possible answer to a recurrent question that has been asked by many plenary speakers (most of them NESTs) at each and every conference in Romania over the past ten years.

Our distinguished blog-host himself could testify that the above statement is true because, when writing the Prospects series, he and the team working on those textbooks were requested to write one more level, above Advanced (which usually ended the series at the time). The request was based, among other reasons, on the Romanian students’ level of English. This is how the Prospects Super Advanced textbook came to life.

If you’re expecting to read about how extraordinarily intelligent and super-hard-working Romanian students are, how skilful Romanian teachers are at applying new methods and adapting to the cutting-edge technologies, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. On the other hand, this post is not about myself, but I need to refer to my experience and base my writing on what I lived through as a pupil or student and later on as a teacher. Otherwise things might be misunderstood.

In order to make things clear, we’re going to need a bit of history.

Before December 1989

Nicolae Ceauşescu's Casa Republicii, now known as Casa Poporului (The People's House), the world's second largest building, after The Pentagon

Romania had been a communist country for forty-five years, part of the Eastern European communist block led and controlled by the USSR. Although French had been the main foreign language studied before World War Two, after Romania declared itself a socialist country, Russian took over and became compulsory in almost every school. French and German could also be studied in school, but very few pupils had this chance and they considered themselves really lucky.

For those who don’t know, it was not the Russian language Romanians were against (even though it is not as beautiful as English or as musical as French), it was the strong influence of the USSR, their interference in the communist countries’ leadership and the permanent threat all Eastern European countries felt.

Moreover, the Romanian communist party did their best to convince everyone that we, the communists, were on the right track taking us towards a bright and happy future, while the Western European capitalist countries and the USA were on the brim of the abyss, heading for the definitive destruction of their societies and people.

I’m sure it sounds unreal, mature people would be expected to know more and better than simply believe what they’re told, but remember that most Romanians had no access to information, we could not compare our reality with the one abroad. The few who were lucky enough to travel were forbidden to speak about the countries they visited, the quality of life, the freedom of speech, the human rights… Unbelievable, I know, but most of the information about the rest of the Europe reached us through a clandestine radio station based in the Federal Republic of Germany, where some Romanian exiles worked, always fearing for their lives.

Radio Europe, as it was called, was mainly listened to at night, in the privacy of your home and the news and information you heard was whisper-shared only with the people you trusted the most, otherwise you risked being arrested and imprisoned for high treason.

Under these circumstances, it’s no surprise that the “informed” Romanians looked up to the Western European countries and hoped that one day they would have the chance to leave this country to go and live in the US, the land of all opportunities, the land of the best music, best films, best liberties, best life, best… everything! Did we have a distorted image of it all? Yes, but we didn’t know it, and compared to what we were living here, the US was heaven on Earth anyway!

English as a foreign language was introduced in Romanian schools on a somewhat larger scale sometime after 1970, at a time when Romania was granted the status of a “favourite nation” by the USA for several years. Obviously, English was studied in very few schools, by very few classes, usually as a second foreign language. At the age of 10-11, in the 5^th grade, pupils would start the first foreign language (Russian, French or German) and when going to high school, at the age of 14-15, the second foreign language (French, German or English).

In language faculties, the combinations offered were mainly Romanian and one of the foreign languages – with the largest number of places, while fewer places were offered to the combinations between two foreign languages. In 1980, when I started my first year in the University of Galati, we were two groups of ten students each, specializing in English-French and English-Russian.

Teachers and textbooks before 1989

I started teaching in 1985, using the methods I had been taught in university, from the traditional Grammar-Translation, the audio-lingual and the cognitive methods, to the humanistic approaches to language teaching (the silent way, the comprehension approach and  suggestopaedia). 

Teachers of my generation and previous generations might remember what these methods meant and how one applied them. For those who don’t know, these methods aimed at developing the listening and speaking skills and mainly focused on acquiring vocabulary through translation, drilling, repetition and habit-formation as the central elements of teaching.

As a pupil, I myself had been taught using those methods and I’m not proud to admit that I entered university not knowing too much English and graduated from university unsure of my grammar accuracy, pronunciation and vocabulary. Had I been in the situation of sitting for a Cambridge examination for FCE, I might not have got higher than C…

The textbooks were loaded with texts about the accomplishments of the communist party, the great leader, and the important events in our history. No reference to Western Europe and very few things about the UK, general things like the double-decker, Big Ben, the British Museum or Stonehenge.

Stonehenge - vital cultural information about the UK ...

Even so, we need to give the authors of those textbooks the credit they deserve: they used as many English literary texts as they could, probably aware that, even if the censors cut out whatever was considered inappropriate by the communist party, they could not touch the literature. This is how kids aged 15 to 19 discovered Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Hardy, Dickens, Wilde, Shaw, Hemingway, Salinger etc.

The texts were followed by comprehension exercises, vocabulary practice, grammar and structures and everything culminated in the literary analysis of the fragment, based on some guidelines which were so difficult for the students to understand and apply!

Can you imagine that some teachers would dictate a literary analysis of two A4 pages and then ask the students to learn by heart and recite everything during the next class? Can you imagine that some students could read and write in English without understanding most of the words, unable to connect pronunciation and spelling with meaning?

In many schools, each English class would start with checking homework and giving marks. At least four students would be picked from the register and summoned to the front of the classroom, notebooks in hand. Every mistake, irrespective of its nature, was corrected on the spot, no matter the task of the exercise. The larger the number of mistakes, the thinner the teacher’s patience and the lower the mark a student would get!

And, as if a bad mark was not enough, the teacher would also humiliate the student, because that’s what the communist party had always excelled at and that’s how almost all the people in some authoritative position would treat all those “below” them. Usually, three out of five students would be granted this treatment, not because their English was that bad but because “they need to know who’s in command here!”

The lesson continued with the teacher presenting some new vocabulary or structure, a new text etc. The teacher would write the rules and examples on the board, the students would solve an exercise or two, humiliated again for not having understood the rule or the task. In many cases, the students would not dare to say they didn’t understand something because they knew that they would get no explanation but even more humiliation.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention one tiny little detail: besides the model-reading and the corrections, the teacher would mostly use Romanian during the English class!

Some of the best and most talented students in English continued their studies to become teachers; when graduating from university some of them replicated their teachers’ behaviour, others remembered the atmosphere created by the humiliation of the class and changed their behaviour. It is mainly teachers in the latter category that were open to the changes and eager to discover the new methods the English teacher training programs brought to Romania after 1990. (You can read more about this on my blog.)

After 1989

One major change the Romanian revolution brought in December 1989 was the opening of our frontiers. After dreaming of leaving the country for so many years, Romanians were now allowed to travel and see the world. Cable TV was introduced in almost every town, offering a choice of channels and programs people had not known existed. Films and documentaries, cartoons and music, almost everything worth watching was in English, with Romanian subtitles.

Those who were born between 1972 and 1983 were either starting or still in school. Their parents, people at least my age (30) or older, aware of the novelty of the times and of the future opening in front of their children, demanded English to be studied everywhere, urban or rural. All other languages lost ground to English and Russian almost disappeared, as mysteriously as a sock in the washing machine. The demand for English was huge and it (English) simply boomed across the country in just a few years.

The leaders of the country encouraged foreigners to come to Romania and help to implement the “rotten capitalist” life-style. The British Council took this opportunity and presented the Ministry of Education with teacher training programs they organized in Romania or they offered as scholarships in UK. It must be difficult to imagine how teachers in the first years of their career reacted to these opportunities and what they felt after living through such a course and experiencing real communication with NESTs…

Things improved gradually, but steadily! The enthusiastic teachers, who realized the importance of the chance they were offered, started attending methodology courses, teacher training programs and conferences. The more courses and/or conferences they attended, the more their way of teaching changed, attracting more and more children towards English. The more the methods changed, the better the results. The better the results, the more enthusiastic the teachers!

In a few years, Cambridge university exams were brought to Romania and the number of students sitting for and passing these exams grew every year. The British Council and the US Peace Corps facilitated the presence of volunteer native speakers in some schools, in programs covering at least one school year. Year after year, more and more students graduating from high schools in Romania were accepted to do undergraduate courses in universities across Europe or in the USA.

The level of English of students entering Language Faculties in Romania improved each year. University professors could travel abroad and they, too, adopted the new approaches and adapted the new methods, thus raising the standard of the new teachers graduating from their universities, who enthusiastically embarked upon teaching English and attending methodology courses and/or conferences.

The snowball has been rolling for twenty years now and it keeps rolling…

A word of advice:

If you happen to visit a town in Romania and need directions, four out of five kids aged at least 12 would be able to help you.

Ken, thank you for your kind words and for the opportunity you offered me! I am so grateful!

Melania works at Liceul Teoretic “Callatis”, Mangalia and blogs at http://mellaniep.wordpress.com

Guest post 8 – Anita Kwiatkowska on ‘Teacher Burnout’

Today’s guest blogger is Anita Kwiatkowska, a Polish teacher of English working in Istanbul. I like her blog because she makes interesting cross-cultural connections, and, like her compatriot Agata Zgarda who lives in Brazil, Anita is very good at describing the culture-bumps that lie in wait when you live and work in a different country.

Anita Kwiatkowska

I’m a teacher of English, coming from a small village called Tuchom in the north of Poland.  A true Sagittarian – optimistic, freedom loving and straightforward. Face painter, traveler and Pedro Almodóvar fan. Currently teaching Young Learners in Istanbul and blogging about anything that comes to my mind.

My Burnout Experience

People who have met me since I settled in Turkey open their eyes in disbelief when I confess to having suffered from a burnout syndrome a few years ago. Having just turned 28, being a beginner blogger and occasionally a speaker at TEFL conferences, even I find it sometimes hard to believe. Yet life is plenty of surprises and back in 2006, I wouldn’t have dreamt of reaching the point I managed now.

The truth is I never really wanted to become an English teacher. As a seven year old, I saw myself as a future explorer, a female version of Indiana Jones, solving mysteries and having loads of adventures. Later at school, I dreamt of teaching Geography and was really into studying that at university. Eventually I chose English Philology, largely because my mom convinced me that focusing on this area of study will give me all – a secure job, money and the possibility to travel. Needless to say, she was right.

In order to gain experience and a few zloty in my pocket, I jumped into teaching at a second year of university. When my friends were partying, I was giving private lessons traveling around the Tri-City in Poland to the homes of my students. In 2005, during my final year, I was working part time in a primary and a middle school and taught a few groups in two different language schools in Wejherowo and Sopot in Poland.

After graduation, I reduced the number of schools I worked for to three and slowly started becoming a workaholic – one that forgets about his/her friends’ birthdays and has no weekends free. That’s when I realized that the burnout got me.

I remember feeling constantly tired. I was always thinking of work and how much I dislike it. Thinking of school made me nauseous. I saw no point in teaching whatsoever. Every day was the same – routine and boredom.

Obviously I wanted a change. I tried teaching different levels, using new course books, changing schools and attending seminars. Nothing worked.

One day, searching for pen pals for my students I came across two teachers from Turkey who were very willing to cooperate. The letters our students exchanged were a ray of sunshine in my miserable existence back then. It wasn’t until my university friend told me about the CELTA that everything started to change for good.

For a whole year, I was saving up for the course which I decided to take in Istanbul. Now, I can honestly say that it was the best spent money in my life. The people, both trainers and colleagues I met during the CELTA, have been the first among my PLN. Emek, for example, is a huge fan of drama and she was the one who dragged me to a seminar by Ken Wilson one day. How much I learnt that evening!

Ken giving a talk in Istanbul

Having decided to work abroad was another great decision. Although the beginning was hard, I have never regretted that choice. Different people, different approaches and ideas about teaching or life are what make me want to wake up every day. I have a feeling of constant learning and realize every day how much I still don’t know. That pushes me forward, makes me search and adds confidence. What I keep learning doing the DELTA or from other bloggers, Twitter and Ning is priceless.

In my case a solution to burnout was changing the country and focusing on professional development, a rather curious combination, I must say. Time has shown though how beneficial it was.

One may think of the motto of my story being ‘pursuing knowledge always pays off’.

I see it differently. ‘If you don’t like something in your life, change it. No one is going to do that for you’ – that is what I keep telling myself every day.

This flag, which is used by the Union of Polish Tatars, looks like a composite of the Polish and Turkish flags. Ken found it online and hopes that he hasn't accidentally offended anyone by posting it at the end of Anita's piece.

Anita blogs at  anita-kwiatkowska.blogspot.com

Guest post 7 – Tamás Lőrincz on Iraqi Kurdistan

Today’s guest blogger is Tamás Lőrincz. I first met Tamás at a Magyar Macmillan conference in Budapest about 15 years ago, when he was a young teacher with an interest in drama. His working life has changed quite dramatically since then. Tamás now lives in the United Arab Emirates and before that, he worked for a time in Iraqi Kurdistan. The moving story he relates below shows what a profound effect that experience had on him.

I started teaching in the picturesque Hungarian town of Szeged in 1993. Although I’ve experimented with teaching English in a variety of settings, I consider myself predominantly a public (state) school teacher.

From 1999 to 2007, I worked with Macmillan Education, first in Hungary as a teacher trainer and rep. Later I joined the company’s marketing team in Oxford. The third phase of my engagement with Macmillan took me to many exotic countries in my role as marketing and teacher training coordinator for the Middle East group.

I’ve trained teachers in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Northern Iraq, UAE, Qatar, KSA, and Bahrain. I’ve recently resigned from my job in the UAE and am thinking about his next move.

I’ll be talking at TESOL Arabia (Dubai, UAE) and IATEFL-UK (Harrogate) in 2010. 

Most importantly: I’m the dad of a beautiful 5-week-old baby girl, Sophie. 

A tribute to the real unsung heroes

Writing for this blog is a great honour – being acknowledged by someone I consider a role model and example both professionally and as a human being is more than I have ever hoped for.

When Ken asked me to write for this series, I thought I would use this opportunity to acknowledge some much less fortunate, real unsung heroes of our profession.

I could have chosen a great number of scenarios I have witnessed:

«   the amazing work educators do in Lebanon

«   the fantastic efforts of teachers in Gaza and the West Bank

«   teachers working away from their families in the Arabian Gulf

«   Saudi national teachers battling against prejudice and the hardships of teaching English there

But the story that touched me and never let me go is that of the Kurds in Iraq. As many of you probably know (especially because I love bragging about it I worked in Iraqi Kurdistan for 10 months as a teacher trainer and coordinator. The memory of the time I spent with these fantastic people in this magical country will stay with me forever.

This video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU1mYWnWkYs) tries in some way to show the passion and dedication that Kurdish teachers have for their work, which they do in the most difficult conditions.  They have few resources, overcrowded classrooms and earn meagre salaries, yet still come to school every day committed to shaping their country’s future for the better.

Here are 10 key events in the history of the Kurds, based on one of the best books ever written about Iraqi Kurdistan. (1)

1200 BCE      The Medes – the ancestors of the Kurds – settle in the Zagros mountains.

1514             Kurdistan divided between the Ottomans and the Persians – these borders remain until the end of WW I

1918              After WW I, British mandate

1920             Treaty of Sevres (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_S%C3%A8vres)                          promise of independent Kurdistan (and Palestine). Kurdish uprising against the British mandate brutally put down –  Churchill uses chemical  weapons against the Kurds. Churchill  unsurprisingly still not very popular with them.                          

1932             End of British mandate – Kurdistan becomes part of Iraq

1946             Kurdish Republic of Mahabad proclaimed in Iran

1970             Kurds reject Saddam Hussein’s “Autonomy” law – the beginning of the long battle with the central government

1980-88        During the Iraq-Iran war, Kurds support the Iranians

1988             The “Anfal” campaign leads to the death of 180,000 Kurds and the                                       destruction of some 4,000 villages

1992             The Autonomous Region of Kurdistan is established   

Of course there is a much longer and more exciting version of the history with all the intrigue, machinations, fights and evil back stabbing that characterises Middle Eastern history (well, any history), but I thought the short history was important to include because if you don’t know about these things, you might not realise the value of every smile, every act of trust, every friend you make.

From the moment I entered the country for the first time I saw a sadness behind the smiles, a suspicion in the outstretched hands that I could only compare to those of my Holocaust survivor grandmother.

I saw the dedication, love and never-ceasing energy of people trying to rebuild their country – a country they were promised but never given. (Even according to the most conservative estimates, there are about 12 million Kurds living in the world today, which makes them the largest ethnic group without a country.)

Their never-ending hope for a better life, and the understanding that education is a key to the survival of the nation, was humbling, invigorating, and left a mark on my soul forever. Yes, I think after having been to Kurdistan – talking to the Kurds, laughing with them, dancing with them – I have learned another meaning of the word hero, and have become a better person as a result.

I dedicate this post to the work of all the wonderful teachers and the hopes of all the great kids in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Just to remind us that this story is still alive, here’s a very recent heart-wrenching story from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8397547.stm.

Everyone in Kurdistan has a Halabja story.

This is mine.

After driving for 5 hours, visiting classes, talking to teachers and administrators, I found myself in a car with a supervisor (Mr Rizgar) and his two colleagues. Like after other school visits, I thought we would do the usual – have lunch at the local “Brinj u Mrishekh” (rice and chicken) restaurant.

Instead, we headed for the vast fields outside the town. I must admit I wouldn’t have been a Westerner if the thought of abduction and ransom notes to the parents hadn’t crossed my mind… Instead the boot flew open, the marinated skewers of chicken and beef were laid out, and the cans of beer were freed. Mr Rizgas slowly started humming a song and the others joined in.  As the food was getting ready and beers disappeared, the sun went down, and the song is still in my ears.

 

Mr Rizgar and friends preparing lunch

I will be forever grateful to Macmillan Education, and my then boss, Flavio Centofanti for the opportunity to work with these fantastic people in this amazing country.

“Zohr Supas” – Thank you very much in Kurdish.

“Xwahafis” – Good-bye.

Some books about Iraqi Kurdistan and the Kurds that helped me understand them a little bit better:

Thornhill, T (1997): Sweet Tea with Cardamom Pandora Publishing

Bird, C (2005): A Thousand Sighs, a Thousand Revolts

Randal, J. C. (1997): Kurdistan: After Such Knowledge What Forgiveness?

Lennox, G. (ed) (2001): Fire, Snow, and Honey – Voices from Kurdistan

There are numerous websites to learn about Kurdistan and the Kurds. The Regional Government’s website is a good starting point: www.krg.org

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