Job Discussion Forums

[fluffyhamster]

[naturegirl321]

[Mrs McClusky]

[naturegirl321]

[spiral78]

Surely most teachers would prefer to avoid 'negotiating' a syllabus whenever possible, Spiral?* (I mean, look at it from the average student's viewpoint: a so-called experienced professional is asking us what he or she should teach us - doesn't he or she know?).

In many/most teaching contexts, I agree. However:
Example of the kind of teaching context I mean:


5 government officials with c1 English (advanced) who have a range of job descriptions all very loosely related to sustainable industry and the environment. As they all share an L1, I knew immediately what likely common errors we could address, but their functions and needs for English I could not predict.

So, in class One we negotiated focuses:
English for running and participating in meetings with international counterparts.
Considerations of cultural differences in doing business across the nationalities they work with.
Ways to clarify and correct information, to communicate clearly across an international group
Planned speech: organisation, rhetorical devices to link to an audience and highlight important information orally, style, body language, handouts, powerpoints.
Negotiation: mix of planned and unplanned formal speech for discussing issues and reaching agreements (or not).
English for social/business purposes

Small items:
correct time expressions (not tenses, but for expressing deadlines and due dates, etc)
common grammatical errors for their L1


All of this is within my matrix of tasks. I did not know at the onset of this course whether they would want a focus on writing at all. We also needed to negotiate a time frame, to fit all this in in a logical way in 16 lessons.

We're going for our final class next week, and have planned a small celebratory lunch - it's gone extremely well, and I've received kudos on this. There was never any hint that 'here's the expert - she should know what we need, or else she's weak. They are simply too high-level both as professionals and English users for that to be the most useful stance to take.

I have three similar groups this semester. All have gone well.

Sometimes this kind of thing really works best, but it's certainly not universal, nor is it everyone's cup of tea. In our own office, there are three or four of us who enjoy such challenges and are able to be both content with the ambiguity and strong enough to pull it off in a credible way with students.

I'm not the greatest all-around teacher - give me a test course like Cambridge or IELTS and I quickly become demotivated and mechanical.

But let me analyse political adverts with students to identify rhetorical devices used to communicate or other such esoteric stuff- and I'm totally happy.

[Justin Trullinger]

I've met Naturegirl. Oddly, she does look exactly like her avatar, and also has the sort of superpowers you would generally expect from an animated character.

It's a little disconcerting, but quite charming.

Best,

Justin

[Mrs McClusky]

[naturegirl321]

[Sashadroogie]

Come on Naturegirl! Give him your pic. Dying to know his location.

[Mrs McClusky]

[Sashadroogie]

Ah, my Smersh agents will provide me with the info anyway.

[FrenchLieutenant'sWoman]

[johnslat]

Here she is, on the cover of Carl Hiaasen's aptly named book.

http://reviewsbylola.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/nature_girl.jpg


and - without make-up

http://www.snapsandbytes.co.uk/naturegirl.jpg

Regards,
John

[Justin Trullinger]

PS- I also look like MY avatar, which is in fact an actual photo, though I have upgraded the guitar since it was taken.


Best,
Justin