One more quiz

Bee started it, Nate and Lesley followed in her footsteps and here I am doing the same. Guess what? I'm a postmodernist. This definitely did not come as a surprise.

You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis. Postmodernist 69% Cultural Creative 50% Existentialist 50% Romanticist 44% Modernist 38% Fundamentalist 31% Materialist 25% Idealist 25% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

Losing direction?

Some time ago, Bee wrote about her wish to be more reflective than action oriented. I think I can live with fuzzy ideas that put me in action mode. The latter brings greater satisfaction.
This blog of mine is losing direction and is not regularly updated. I don't want to quit writing. But I need a reason to write. And I noticed that I post more regularly to another blog, the one I keep for my second year students. They stopped writing posts in their own blogs, but they keep visiting my blog and the class blog. They don't send posts to the class blog, but they leave short comments in mine. I believe they are still interested in what is going on, they even follow my links to the articles that I write about in my posts. There's still hope for them. Especially because they have learnt a few lessons this spring.

• First of all, they realized that they missed the opportunity for being read by their peers and getting comments. They did enjoy getting comments from me.
• Next, they realised that reading is important and that you can improve your reading skills if you keep reading regularly.
• They also found out that they can write in English. They've written short summaries of articles about tourism, short reports, and even a 4-page assignment based on three sources and with a proper introduction, conclusion, reference to their sources and all. I told them how proud I was of them (I really am!).
• They realised that doing homework is helpful.
• And finally, keeping a portfolio does reflect the progress they've made. They can see it now.

My goodness, isn't this the thing that makes us teachers satisfied and proud of our students? Now I'm just hoping their progress will show in the results of the exams.

Friends and friendships

I was in Ljubljana a couple of days ago and went for a walk down a street where I used to love to walk as a student. However, the houses have changed, the students I met seemed terribly young. Still the chesnut trees were as beautiful as ever. The trees reminded me of a friend, Andreja, who lives now in Australia. I called her but her phone was dead. She probably moved house and forgot to let me know about it.
I decided to find her. The Internet wasn't very helpful, but eventually I managed to find her brother's telephone number in the online directory and he gave me hers.
When I heard Andreja's voice, it felt so good. She didn't change. It was as if time didn't go by. We were both glad to hear each other.
It's such a pity when we allow losing contact with a friend. It happened this January that a childhood friend of mine died. Just like that. We used to meet every day sharing our stories and secrets for years. She got married first and had children. I found work in another part of the country and moved house. Then I fell in love and had children too. We saw each other from time to time. We both knew we kept the other in the heart. We promised to find time and visit each other. Have a long talk. And then she was gone. I miss Marjetka a lot.

Learning English or learning in English?

The British Council's SearchEnglish web site has a link to an article published in the Guardian Weekly recently on the topic of content and language integrated learning (CLIL), which is basically lecturing college course subjects in English and expecting that students, to whom English is a foreign language, would learn both the subject and the foreign language without language classes. The lectures are given by subject specialists (native speakers or lecturers to whom English is a foreign language?). Wow, how trendy! And how economical!

Is this a promotion of English as a second language in the new borederless Europe? A promotion of English as the lingua franca of modern times? A neo-colonial project in which English plays again the main role? Or is it just a way to provide new jobs for the increasing number of jobless, young, English speaking academics (native or non-native)?

At the same time, the number of students entering tertiary education with their English on A2 or B1 is on the increase at least in Slovenia as a result of "modern" trends in elementary and secondary education. How on earth are these young people going to cope with subject specific academic English which is 2-3 levels above their level of foreign language proficiency? Genre and variation studies have been showing us the subtle and less subtle differences between general English and discipline specific Englishes. There are things we've learnt about language and about foreign language teaching in discipline specific contexts. How can language teachers ignore that in the name of a new educational non-linguistics-based trend?