I used to be very proud of my undisputable ability to multitask and be always busy, now I am proud of myself for dedicating time (note: not finding, not grasping, not managing to get!) to anything that strikes my fancy, be it a short walk in the forest next to my workspace before work or half a Sunday to read a book. Loving and noticing every free moment is something everyone, in my humble opinion, should attempt to do. #burnout_resistance
#life
#random_musings

#work_at_school
#work
#funsies

Shouldn't it be soup? 🤔 #life
#funsies

A 60mins B2 lesson adapted and added upon. The original version could be found at the ESL Brains website. The last slide contains comments for teachers. #activities_ideas
#lesson_materials
#B2

I've been really interested in the concept of happiness and what makes people happy. Even if you are a teacher, it would definitely be good for you to do the HW task 😊 #activities_ideas #lesson_materials #B2

Here I am despairing my inability to gather my wits to do my HW for the "How languages are learnt" course when in comes my mother-in-law carrying a freshly brewed cup of coffee for me...
Sooo nice!
When you are a mom yourself, living far away from any mother figures, the appreciation for care skyrockets.
I am truly blessed. #methodology
#CPD #life

How can we speak about students’ motivation and autonomy when some people, given such a price, would struggle to make ends meet? When the first two levels of Maslow's pyramid are not covered, how can a person even fathom being autonomous? They would probably be motivated, yes, to squeeze as much as possible from these classes. I would. And that’s not the type of motivation everyone is raving about.

I am not saying that we should teach for food or anything like that, of course. But there is no well-being (be it psychological or financial) without struggle. And before a teacher sets the price at 3000R per lesson, they should become a teacher they would PERSONALLY pay this amount of money per lesson. #work
#life
#rant
#random_musings

I have calmed down a tad bit and would like to note down some clarifications for my yesterday’s “word vomit” as it seems quite harsh now. What I was talking about were not ESP classes or Exam Prep, but General English classes. For the latter, it is quite obvious that the price should be higher. General English classes were always less expensive. Why?

Because for General English, there is an abundance of wonderful coursebooks to choose from. Those books are very well supplied with additional materials, there are Teachers’ books, there are Workbooks for homework etc. We can offer students a choice between two or three books we know quite well, they opt for the one where the topics are most interesting for them and that’s it! We don’t have to reinvent the wheel (don’t start me on those «авторские методики»). #work
#life
#rant
#random_musings

In my experience, the students I had at the beginning of my career and now are quite content with the way I teach, maybe much more so these days. The difference between them is that at the beginning, as almost all novice teachers, I was trying really hard to make my lessons as engaging as possible and would print so many additional materials that we would be literally snowed under. Under the avalanche of papers, trust me, it’s really hard to be consistent. Logic, in most cases, is the casualty of this natural disaster.

These days, I use a course book as a basis. If I feel that there are not enough tasks to practice some topics, I do add additional material, yes, but not before using the book so much that if you asked it, it might have said that it was feeling violated.

When a teacher chooses to use all the tricks up their sleeve (I like the very colloquial Russian word «приблуды» for that), it’s their choice. Why should a student pay for it?

I guess we have somehow ended up in that trap that makes us use a lot of extra stuff in lessons. Students didn’t use to expect lessons being fun. Now they do. And it’s definitely a problem. #methodology
#work
#CPD
#life
#rant
#random_musings

One more point to make is that we, as teachers, sometimes forget that students need to be taught, not entertained. Entertainment is dessert for the meal that is education. It’s a nice addition, but something that we can definitely live without. For my students it might be weird to read this, as I am a firm believer that if you enjoy something, you learn it better, and try to season my lessons with something fun. Edutainment is a nice term, but I have the impression that “tainment” is almost 70 percent sometimes, whereas the “edu” is 30 like in the word itself. I am of firm belief that it should be renamed “educaiment” or something like that so that the ratio is 50/50.

P.S. The picture is AI generated and refers to a nice phrase I heard a long time ago from a colleague «Придется устраивать им цирк с конями». As you can probably guess, she was talking about a class. What you might find surprising, she was referring to a lesson with a corporate business group. And here is the question: Do we need to visit a circus to study functional language for negotiations? #methodology
#work
#CPD
#life
#rant
#random_musings

#life
#funsies