English

The Little Picture Book: Lost & Found

acton28Leave a comment

Eck and Timu, otherwise known as Echo and the late Tim Mileson, can be found in a book just shy of sixty glossy pages. The compact pocketbook is presented through poetry and story alike. It is conventional and yet unconventional. Interpretation is a skill you can choose to use, or just float on the muse.

Sandwiched between Tim’s personal writing, Eck explores emotions such as loss, belonging and echoes nature throughout. Cute eye-catching illustrations using a variety of sketching styles follow an imaginative route to deliver a peaceful and loving tribute in the form of a poetic manuscript.

There are lines throughout that transport the reader, catch them, hold them and bring them downward. There are uplifting words, moments of hope and flashes of light. It’s a sweet little book deserving of a wider audience. The book comes in both Chinese and English editions. My grade four students at Tungwah Wenze International School greeted that with joy. Next up they’ll interview the author…

In China? Further afield? Order directly from Eck by scanning the above on WeChat.

Punitively.

acton28Leave a comment

Words have souls. They have sounds that draw our attention. Punitively sounds so much more than a word about punishment or arduous tasks. It could mean much more. It could be formed of other words. It could be that within the word, there are words that aren’t really used. Punitively. An adverb .

Passively.

Unilaterally.

Nourishingly.

Intelligibly.

Tremendously.

Ideally.

Vociferously.

Efficiently.

Lifelessly.

Yawningly.

/ˈpjuː.nɪ.tɪv.li/

Toxic Positive Negativity.

acton28Leave a comment

Persist, insist, never desist. Let others resist. They won’t be missed.

Move on, it’s gone, voyage of bon. New days don. Move off the con.

Wrong ways, long days, hard plays. Some card lays. Time to seek a raise.

Tough path, don’t laugh, hard math. Take a hot bath. Sometimes you can’t get the staff.

Taken aback, forced whack, cut slack. Lives matter, white or black. Why’d do racists offer a crack?

Equal opportunity, low equity, not pretty. Rappers ditties. City’s witty and gritty.

Division here, always fear, hollow ear. Hate of queer. Too much abuse of beer?

Overgenerous happy, angry snappy, feeling crappy. Invalid invaluable emotionally. Tippy on the tappy.

Authentic prick, red brick, held trick. Fargo, Groundhog Day, filmed slick. Breaking Bad sequel filmed quick.

Persist, insist, never desist. Let others resist. They won’t be missed.

Keys.

acton28Leave a comment

It must be there, I swear.

Over here wouldn’t be so queer?

This is rare and surely will bare?

I fear it can only be near.

Under that, that makes sense?

From he to where did it went?

Up there? I’m so dense!

I will find it. It is meant!

Down below, it has to show.

In the cushions of the sofa, can I see?

Behind the bookshelf, yes or no?

In the freezer, it cannot be.

Behind my shoes? No! No! No!

In, on or by my big blue bag?

This hard hunt is making me sad.

Not here. What a drag!

Where it went is driving me mad!

Ah…

There…

Got you…

Surely…

Yes.

My pocket.

Loosely put.

acton28Leave a comment

His hands grip around my throat. He’s strangling me. Trying to choke my last breath out. I struggle. Twisting and turning. I try to raise my left open palm upwards to force his vice-like grip to release me. I slap. No change. I use both flailing hands. Nothing.

Still he pulls his chest towards his hands. My throat trapped between his intended route. I slide and writh but I get nowhere fast. I twist my aching legs, trying to backwards kick his kneecaps. Anything. Any little hope. He grabs tighter. I know I don’t have long left. My throat is burning. Every gasping breath I take could be my last. I push my body forwards trying to open a space between his chest and arms. The Steel-like bicep is sweating on my neck. I open my mouth wide forcing little air in.

I’m beyond desperate. I feel woozy and clouded. My brain is losing a battle. He slides a few millimeters along my throat. That marginal gain gave him the extra he needed. He already had the upper hand. I feel his chest muscles stretch and tighten. He takes a tired deep breath. One heavy pull and I resist the extra force. He loosens his grip by the slightest of pressures. A budgie feather in a fight fit for an ostrich. Can I escape now?

Lost for words.

acton28Leave a comment

A student stood up my class one day. She smiled as she asked a bold question. Her little voice was quivering but audible, “How many words can you write?” To my mind, I could not answer her. We began a class task, searching books, dictionaries (Cambridge and Oxford English), newspapers, everything and anything we could lay our hands on. The task followed each student and I from the classroom. It became an obsession. As time changed our research became simpler. Yet words expanded and multiplied. Eventually journals, magazines, compendiums and the internet came along, and how it grew and grew. We pooled our tasks together. The list for the student grew, even as she did not.

That first tough question was in the year 1948. I was a young teacher then. Just twenty five years of age. It’s now 2022. I’m still writing the list of words. I hope to be finished this decade. I fear our work will never be complete.

Believe

acton28Leave a comment

What do you believe in? Is it fairytale endings? Is it a happily ever after story? Maybe it’s pots of gold at the end of colourful striped rainbows? Perhaps there’s a pirate ship sailing through your skies above. Do you believe in love? Is hate something you shove?

Who believes in you? Do they think you’re a prince or princess? Are they your happily ever after? Maybe they’ve seen shining rings of gold? Perhaps they’re buying long dresses and swanky suits for that special day they dream of. Do you believe in yourself? Do you have a heartbeat of wealth?

Why do you believe in you? Do you know your happy ending? Is it flowers and sunshine at the end of your road? Maybe it’s celebrity and fame down your journey of fate? Do you believe in success? Is your life free of duress?

Whatever will be, what ever you wish may follow, but deep down, amongst it all you need to sweat it and bet it. Without a gamble, the adventure can’t be written. Without a step off the beaten track, you’ll never find what you’re looking for. Danger may hurt you but the monotonous life will drain and kill you. They may all sound like cliches, but didn’t they cliche writers have a point?

Your comfort zone: you’ll remain alone or go insane. Your sense of exploration: you’ll adapt or be born again. So, what are you waiting for?

TESMC #10: Ben’s feedback.

acton28Leave a comment

How do / Hello,

Well below are some comments passed on from Mr Ben. They may include quotes or the like.

Thank you kindly for your time. Take care!

LOVE this rubric. Good work. I agree that it will prove very valuable especially as a repeated tool or maybe a classroom environment resource (on the wall).

Hiraeth [hiːrai̯θ] is real.  I absolutely empathize. Its one of the reason why reading the Hobbit this past year hit me so hard and moved me so deeply. 

Our students undergo a similar experience; imagine hitting your limit for foreign, non-homestyle etiquette or expectations or communication or food or cultural normalities… and you just sink into a state of longing or maybe homesickness; at the very least a sense of bitterness about things here not being the way you know/feel they are back home; this frequently happens multiple times a day in the life of an ELL in the international school. you and i may now have developed and matured enough skillsets for living and maintaining sustained life abroad to only feel this way occasionally and usually only when we confront certain nostalgic memory-inducing reminders. But for the ELL, young, immature, undeveloped, and almost always ill-equipped to deal well with the difficulties that you and I confronted on our first abroad experiences, or maybe in university when we had to get used to the big city or the lack of family, whatever the case may be. It is these difficulties that we strive to remove from their day-to-day academic life; after all, study in our own mother tongue can be strenuous to the max, let alone in another language. This sensitivity, and the toolset to deal with it effectively, makes us English-language-in-addition-to-mainstream-subject teachers.

“For many of us, we may be able to pre-read and digest a news article, magazine piece or a book blurb just from experience. Our pre-formed ideas and exposure to templates could settle our mind on a track to read with ease. The imagination and interpretation of a seasoned-mind will draw out bold titles, enhance key points, find text captions, and articulate the who, when, what, why and how etc.”

You’ve successfully articulated the objectives of the language-in-addition-to-subject teacher’s instructional planning when re consider granting out students access to written/visual texts. With a bit-o-revision you could change this quote into a succinct set of reading objectives that you should now be better equipped than ever to address explicitly as a teacher.

Polias, Nominalisation, meaning making in the written realm by Brian Dare, and How accessible are the texts we use by John Polias made for riveting reading. They kept me up into the wee hours and on my toes. Why? They made me question my teaching and my selection of textbooks. Hugely.” I’ll be sure to pass this on to the two writers of TESMC (now called TEMC) though i’ll be careful to leave out the ‘fellow hair challenged Brian Dare’ bit; in the meantime, remind me to pass on some other works sure to ‘rivet’ and further call into question instructional practices. 

” Our job is much more proactive though. We’re targeting an end product.” Your use of ‘targeting’ here carries such a nuanced depth of meaning, it is hard to ignore or avoid commenting on; everything we do should be focused on how to grant access to the end product on behalf of our students. 

I’ll also admit to opening the test your vocab link you shared….thanks for that time-murdering resource. Appreciate it.

“I never teach my pupils. I can only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” – Albert Einstein

This of all your quotes most closely aligns with my educator sensibilities. And it is upon this mentality that I think the TEMC course is based;  assessment should not be a method  of judging student efforts and progress, but of success of failure of our attempts to create the necessary conditions for learning to occur; teacher who take their responsibility seriously immediately embrace this, while those who’ve been slighted or taken advantage of by schools/districts/governing forces using assessment result as the rationale tend to knee-jerk push back against this, citing student lack of effort. I understand both responses intimately. We must be aware that in practice and in theory it is the student at the forefront of our motives and to forget, when necessary, and to embrace when available, the inclinations and perspectives of administrations be them top-down or adjunctory (there’s wordplay for you).  Teachers must draw a line and say within themselves “if it is in the best interest of my students, I’ll do it without grumbling and even with determination. If I cannot see how it even benefits my students or that it in fact takes away from the learning environment, I reject it, all personal repercussions aside.” Thus you sleep well at night and must choose employers very selectively.

TESMC: The end of the beginning.

acton281 Comment

Jiǔ (九) is nine in Chinese. It sounds like jiǔ (久) which means long-lasting. Nine is considered a lucky number. So, with the ninth class of Mr Ben’s TESMC course, our journey into the English as a Second Language (ESL) course will hopefully last forever. Failing that, until retirement to the R.Y.P. (Retirement Years Programme) at the nearby care home that is under construction (by the Tungwah Group). With our nine bows we took aim at the challenge of teaching a foreign language in a foreign land.

In some ways the ninth module was like a Best of… TV show. It was a compilation of all that was before it, applied to our very own school situation and discussed in part, to remind us and drill home the finer details. The module title of Programming and whole-school models of support for ESL students summed up the content. That is what chapter titles do after all. It gave an increased awareness of the importance of collaboration throughout the school, with respect to ESL students’ and their delicate needs. It gave us a chance to reflect and evaluate the course before clarifying the next steps (after the course).  It reassessed person programmes and combined them with understanding gained throughout the TESMC course.

“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me.” – The Reverend Fred McFeely Rogers, Children’s television presenter, actor, puppeteer.

As we zipped through an overview of the course, Mr Ben outlined how far we had come on the TESMC journey. Whilst much wasn’t too new, much of it was refreshing and cohesive – something to take away and re-digest before using actively. It was the beginning of the end, of the start of something. The sun was on the rise with the sky brightening.

“The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as every child should be given the wish to learn.” The Right Honourable The Lord Avebury John Lubbock, author and X-Club founder.

Possession is nine tenths of the law, apparently. After nine great classes, we’re in control of more than we entered the classroom with. The teachers were the students. We went the whole nine yards to get where we were – and didn’t need the nine circles of Hell. With the conclusion of our class, I should have been on cloud 9. Instead, my head drifted to the question, “So, what now?”

Notes from the final class:

Programming and whole school models of support for ESL students.

What is our the school’s ESL policy? Can we describe our student group? How much time has been allocated to our students? What are the roles of our ESL students, classroom and specialists within our school? What are the anticipated learning outcome throughout an appropriate state of the ESL continuum? What themes, topics and topic objectives are covered by our International Baccalaureate programme? Is there a specific language goal and objective list? Are any grammatical structures focused upon? Will there be a final series of Money Heist (La casa de papel) in 2021/02? What’s our methodological approach? Have we got an appropriate assessment and reporting plan in place? Together with guidelines for programme evaluation and resources available, we looked deeper into how our school functions for the benefit of the ESL students within it.

The conditions of the International Baccalaureate methods satisfy the below key points:

1. The long-term programme

2. Units of work

3. Daily diary or work program

4. Assessment program.

The course finale gave me chance to think about my own planning and collaboration. I must look at the below more closely:

include / delete / modify / elaborate upon

I’d written ‘involving and working in partnership with families and the community’ and underlined it with two lines. My reasoning being that like the whole course, we must consider ways to set up a successful whole-school framework that is achievable over a manageable time-frame and is completely sustainable. As an early years teacher, I must adhere to four principles: every child is unique; positive relationships are essential; the classroom must have an enabling environment; we’re all here for learning and development. To that end, I wish to thank Mr Ben for enabling us throughout the TESMC class. There’s plenty to take away. Be that practical suggestions and language clubs, or birdwatching groups, or revision centres or cultural exploration… the world of teaching is diverse and open to sharing through collaboration.

So, what now?

Essential TESMC reading titles:

  • “ESL Students:  some factors influencing their school experiences and learning outcomes.”
  • “ESL Students:  changing and re-shaping identities (identities under construction).”
  • “What ESL students may bring to the learning context.”
  • “From speaking to writing in the content classroom”
  • “Using small group work”
  • “Talk about literacy in the content areas”
  • “Supporting ESL students with written and visual texts across the curriculum”
  • “Multiliteracies in literate futures”
  • “Reading for meaning across the text”
  • “Perspectives on vocabulary”
  • “Nominalisation:  meaning making in the written realm”
  • “How accessible are the texts we use?”
  • “Making assessment supportive”
  • “Reviewing ESL provision within a culturally inclusive curriculum”
  • “Models of ESL program organisation”

Pulse.

acton28Leave a comment

My heartbeat is firing like a machine gun rattling out bullet after bullet, streaming out flashes upon flash of doom and fire-streaming life-ending hot metal. My breath is heavy, laboured and gasping in pockets of air, struggling to deliver the necessary components to my demanding heart rate. I can’t open my mouth fast enough and suck air inwardly. It burns with every gasp. It rasps as I force it down my windpipe deep into the cavity of my lungs. They heave and tussle at their over demanding master’s will. My chest throbs and I swell with redness. My temperature is rising. I shiver with fear and pain. I can’t get air quick enough. I quiver and flutter like a bird stuck in a net. My eyes water and my nose sounds dry and tight. Air filters in and out of it like a vacuum in a hurricane. I grasp my hands tightly onto my sweaty shorts. They’ve crinkled in the heat of my own body but I don’t know it. I can’t see further than my own nose. The vision around it blurs and blends. It’s coming soon. I can feel it. My mind swirls and whirls. It moves around like a dishwasher dancing on a violently shaking washing machine. I taste something metal. Little do I know that the iron taste is my own tongue shredding between my clenched teeth. I smell nothing. I feel less. Suddenly. No warning. Nothing. Light’s out.

Dedicated to Daft Punk. It’s been a ride.