你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do / S’mae / Namaste
This week has mostly been spent preparing for and running examinations. I’ve recorded six listening tests. I’ve assessed 76 students in their oral English examinations. I’ve also ran 26 mathematics and English papers for my class. Yes, we’re firmly into the final furlong of the school’s academic year. Next week will be spent writing 26 student reports and seeing their parents. In some ways it is a pleasure to feed back how good many of the students are behaving and how well they are achieving. My class’s students will have reports based on a school report I had at a similar age. The sections will include:
- Attitude
very talented / demonstrates a great capability / increasing in ability / consistent / vocabulary impressive / grammar improving / understanding of work clear / thoughtful / focused / cooperative / enthusiastic /often overzealous / observant / strong / very creative / daydreamer / seeks information independently / good organisational skills / positively curious / passionate / great listening skills / energetic / often a model student / great eye contact and rapport
- Interests
- Handwriting
excellent / very clear / very good / good / satisfactory / improving
/ needs improvement / poor at times / poor
- Effort
Almost the same options as per handwriting.
- Recommendations
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Read English books or comic books. e.g. Roald Dahl, Dr Seuss, Judith Kerr, Michael Bond, Judy Blume.
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Watch productive English videos. e.g. Blue Planet II, Our Planet, Life on Earth, ManCity.com
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Listen to English music. e.g. BBC Radio 6 Music, Doves, Arcade Fire, Cherry Ghost, David Byrne
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Keep building up their confidence. This is the beginning and we can only get better!
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They need more self-belief! YOU CAN DO IT! We can do this together. We need you!
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Try to speak English more often. Raise their hand more often. If you don’t try, you don’t do. Practice phonetics/phonics/sounds/reading aloud often.
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Practice and improve handwriting. Copy words and sentences from difficult storybooks. Improve accuracy.
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Improve teamwork skills. Be more patient. Stop shouting out! Share more. Use manners often. Follow the class rules more closely.
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Keep learning! Make mistakes without fear! Talk English as often as possible. Stay curious. Ask questions and look at new things.
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Find an interest in cultures, history, wildlife, music, entertainment, etc. What? Who? When? Why? Where? Which? Do? How? Which?
- General comments
WORK/CHILDREN/ADULTS excellent / very good / satisfactory / poor at times / poor
OVERALL considerate / well-mannered / positive attitude / would benefit from a little more care and attention / sometimes distracted by others / sometimes needs help controlling emotions / needs further encouragement / expresses ideas clearly / bubbly / dependable
From this, the conversation with each student’s parents will last around 15 minutes. My colleague Cici will provide a great translation service for some but not all the parents.
The raging battle for Number 10 Downing Street’s hot seat goes on. Jeremy Hunt, Tory MP said, the next Prime Minister “must be trustworthy to avoid no Brexit”. He them went on to say he is trustworthy. Is he oblivious to why people call him an obscenity that rhymes with his name? A year as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, followed around 6 years as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Before that he was the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport during a time when London held the 2012 Olympics. He was the Minister for the Olympics, having been Shadow Minister for the Olympics and Shadow Minister for Disabled People. Since 2005 he has represented the poor region of South West Surrey as their Member of Parliament. So what is wrong with 52 year old Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt?
Some would argue he is a cunt. Others just slip it into news broadcasts and interviews. As a son of a senior officer in the Royal Navy (Admiral Sir Nicholas Hunt), Mr Hunt hasn’t done bad for himself. His rise from impoverished Lambeth to the Houses of Parliament has been meteoric. It hasn’t been helped by him being a distant relation of Elizabeth II and Sir Oswald Mosley. Mr Hunt was educated at a school for the needy, Charterhouse. Here, as headboy, he read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics before attending Magdalen College – a kind of inner-city comprehensive blighted by gun and knife crime. Mr Hunt has been an English language teacher in Japan, on a TEFL-scheme but couldn’t sell marmalade to the Japanese. He needed to explore the Peruvian market.
Mr Hunt has never had trouble with expenses, rules, and has never had a topsy-turvy attitude to exiting the European Union. Nepotism and privilege are word unfamiliar to him. The News Corporation takeover bid for BskyB went well. Nor did he need to apologise over anything relating to the Hillsborough football disaster and national scandal by governments since. If he did, he could use his tax savings from his Hot Course project.
Throughout it all Mr Hunt has supported the NHS – even at the Olympics, via the proven science of homoeopathy, abortion control, chasing foreigners for lost money, hammering back any payrises for medical staff (the greedy undeserving bastards), and managed 231,136 followers on a UK Government website. He has dispensed helpful advice, championed experts, assisted Accident and Emergency departments, and backed extra weekend work. He has truly understood junior doctors, expanded medical care, followed peer reviews closely, without a worry about his own interests. After the NHS he backed the bombers and our bombs and has since battered the EU for being like the former USSR. How his Chinese wife Lucia Guo finds time to see Mr Hunt is beyond me? His political heroes are Hull-born William Wilberforce and Maggie Fucking Thatcher. Mr Hunt cannot be mixed up with the retired cyclist Jeremy Hunt because that 2001 and 1997 British national road race champion wasn’t a cunt. The now director sportif of Azerbaijani Continental team Synergy Baku Cycling Project. The cycling Jeremy Hunt would never refer to his Chinese wife as being “Japanese”. Bad stereotypes, talking about your own wife, and difficult rival nations aside, political Jeremy Hunt is a [INSERT EXPLETIVE HERE].
On the 24th of July, either The Right Honourable Jeremy Hunt or Boris Johnson will enter Number 10 as Prime Minister. The comedian and pub landlord sang. “If we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down together.” Knuckle down and strap yourself in, welcome to the new Blitz,. Snow White or The Huntsman?
再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr / Dhanyabaad / Alavidā
ACTON28: AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC 