Job Discussion Forums

[fluffyhamster]

[Sashadroogie]

Fluff, it is one thing to gnaw through the lit. It is another thing to complete academic assignments, think about feedback, and deepen your understanding of the field. But this would mean...Gasp! This wold mean dealing with trainers! And I think I am building up a clear picture of how you feel about people in EFL who have higher qualifications...

[Sashadroogie]

I don't insist on 'dumbing-down' in any of my lessons, for instructions or otherwise. I don't know where you got that misguided notion. I usually go along with the 'comprehensible input' notion. You know, Krashen's i+1 etc? Of course you do! You've chomped through the lit.

Ah, hang on. Is that Krashen or Krashin? My auto-correct is annoying me this morning, but you are right to point out mistakes like those, Fluffy, as proper citation is essential in any academic course...

[fluffyhamster]

Again, you are making assumptions, this time about a hamster's reading ability, and the capability of his paws to operate a keyboard to do assignments (I just scurry and hop from key to key, seems to work fine). I'm not sure that my reservations about the value of formal education matter that much though when those like you who've completed MAs don't seem to be placing much stock in the broader implications of what they've learnt.

Hmm let's try to phrase that another way, might help with your comprehension difficulties. Are you saying that research into pragmatics, DA, CA etc is only of real relevance to those who could at a pinch undertake the source reading themselves, in effect forming a closed or "loopy" circle? (It's hard to tell quite what approach you're taking with, or the level of the learners in, your 'personal research into raising Russian learners' awareness of turn-taking and communication repair strategies', but as they seem to be implicitly in contrast to your 'early teen FCE classes. Grade A and B unremarkable', I assume that the FCEs aren't getting the "real deal" that the others are). If so, I would say that is at least a good half if not a complete failure on your part to apply the linguistics. To use a doubtless enraging metaphor from piggy economics, there should be more "trickle down".

[fluffyhamster]

I only confirmed the name mistake as I'd stretched to get the book down and into my paws. I was even assuming that it was a deliberate ploy of yours to see if I knew the author well enough to at least spot the error. I prefer to say she is no relation to Lalo Schifrin (one f) LOL.

[fluffyhamster]

[Sashadroogie]

Loopy? Most certainly!

[Sashadroogie]

And deeply dippy!

But not as in diploma dippy, hee hee!

[fluffyhamster]

YES! Loopy like my current cereal, Kellog's Honey Loops.

Hmm, time methinks to re-watch The Road to Wellville. Has plenty of dippy dipping in it too. Imagine what a fantastic teacher trainer Kellog would've made! The exhortation! The passion!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ4yvfzBt-c

[Sashadroogie]

Hee hee! Weeeelll, some people speak through that opening too, I guess, so 15 gallons of yoghurt might improve the incomprehensible output, snicker snicker

[fluffyhamster]

Awww you jumped right to the end mmm snickersss

[spiral78]

I've given up trying to have a professional discourse with the hamster, though not giving up the points.

[fluffyhamster]

The only really sweeping assumptions here are those that you and Sasha are constantly making, and I'm not the only one saying that; then, I'm just working with what little you give people to work with (given your highly selective, ad-hominem ways of replying).

Your most fatal error however is in assuming that my questions to Sasha are necessarily being that critical of your "higher" practices (which without fail you never lose an opportunity to eventually trumpet and say are sooo different), when in fact my questions are simply asking why anyone, certainly anyone who has even half a brain and has actually bothered to do even a smidgen of "additional" reading unbidden, should be happy with comparatively "lower" recommendations, and arguably too-basic~sub-optimal practice.

So when I ask "How are the students meant to...?", I mean of course my students (if I were to follow your all-too-basic recommendations, and against my better judgement), or students in general, not necessarily yours (if I really really really meant yours I'd have said 'your students'). I want my teaching whatever the level to be sufficiently sophisticated, and just know that I for one am not content with the stale crumbs that you guys keep tossing out and then acting all upset about because nobody appreciates them enough.

But I suppose next thing you'll be telling us is that nobody here is paying you to be CELTA- let alone MA-level tutors, and that we should be thankful for any old input no matter how ropey. But then, I myself never asked you for your input, did I? Or, if I do ever want your input, I'll expect it to be at the level that I'm now (up) at, not that you presume I'm still (down) at. The least I'll then be able to say is like I did to Sasha: "Oh, you mean Schiffren with two f's, yes, I'm familiar with her book, in fact I bought it about 15 years ago, not that long after completing my cert". Your dividing and lumping together of teachers into just two categories - you versus the great unwashed - smacks of so many things, none of them positive. By all means talk down to newbies if you insist, but I'm not a newbie, nor are many who post on these forums in the hope of genuine discussion rather than endless admonition.

Anyway, if you could ever concede a single point - that others may be teaching in actually quite principled though differing (or thus differing!) ways to the "approved standard", while providing reasons, bases and evidence for that - it would really be something.

As it is, all you seem to want to do however is ignore and remain stonily silent at any suggestion that there might be more than two "real" English teachers on the entire planet, while insisting that all the other "pretend" teachers must simply do as you tell them to (which is to just fall back on CELTAish stuff they may very possibly have tired of or now find somehow inappropriate). You simply huff that the only place where things can be (as in "Only now you may!") and thus are done differently is wherever just you're teaching, as if there has been no evidence otherwise. A very poor, quite shocking attitude to have, frankly.

Still, as yours from the unattractive brochure sounds a very rocky and desolate planet (until you're absolutely forced to admit a bit more oxygen aka fresh air, which incidentally others [i.e. me], and not originally you yourselves, yet again thought to supply in the first place!), I guess only having two real teachers there is excusable. Just make sure the Space Madness doesn't get to you.

Anyway, I have given up hope of having a professional conversation with either of you back here on planet Earth, certainly in the context of teaching in Japan itself, which you know precious little about. (You can mewl, whine, howl, rage, evade, conspire against, invent, re-invent, and confabulate all you want, but certainly that last is an undeniable fact that I'll take as conceded beyond doubt).

[Sashadroogie]

Fluffy, I'll concede my knowledge of Japanese contexts is limited. But I assert that so little teaching and learning of English appears to take place there that nobody knows much about teaching. Arguing about the efficacy of giving clear instructions? Tsk tsk!

[fluffyhamster]

Well it's a country of over 120 million people, so they can't all cram into my classroom if they want to really improve, can they Sash! I know, I'll set up a nationwide chain of schools with ancillary teacher training courses, what could possibly go wrong with this personal vision of individualized approach gone superNova? Whatttt?!?! Some teachers might start teaching in their own ways?! The ungrateful wretches, they shall bend both knees to me as I demand my dues and neverending oaths of submission and fealty!

Ooh, I can feel a re-watch of Shogun Assassin coming on now too. (Not quite sure what the disagreement was in that film, but it sure got messy!).