Nobody ever takes one chocolate Hobnob. Not even two. In fact, I’m sure studies show even a trio of collected biscuits is unlikely. This biopsychosocial disorder has you in its hands the moment the blue packet is torn open. The slightest hint of chocolate spread thinly over rolled and jumbo oats have been dividing families and causing micro moments of intense eating since 1987.
McVitie’s debuted their chocolate Hobnobs in the eighties and for some the discovery wasn’t made until the next millennium. Few were spared the dependency that would follow. Stores and supermarkets around the world have replicated and perfected near identical copies. All equally a compulsion.
The chocolate-free biscuits are marketed as a variety of digestive biscuit. They’re not remotely addictive. They’re good but you shouldn’t get hooked. Although caution is often advised to prevent craving becoming dependence. Would Richard McVitie’s be proud of us?
They marketed these criminal snacks as, “Chocolate now has Hobnobs underneath” and drew in their crowd of followers. One nibble and we’re all nobbled. Captured. Drained of choice. Dedicated followers of the passion of crunch. Even Reading Football Club had fans hooked because of their nearby Hobnob factory. They had to move production to a place less likely to experience addiction: Glasgow. Each packet is branded by a Royal Warrant, from Her Royal Highness, Queen Liz the Second. That makes it a legal high.
Weakness exposes a chocolate Hobnobs eater with ease. A nibble here. “Just one more, Dave!” The mouth enacts enslavement as synapses across the brain fixate on filling the gob with crunchy goodness. Commitment to the condition of this substantial sustenance substance is done. Almost unbreakable, unlike the biscuit itself.
Packets rarely remain open longer than a day. To this day I haven’t kicked the habit. Even in China, I found myself supplied by a shifty importer slipping me packets via post. Even they know what they’re doing. Habits are wrapped up tightly, hidden from prying eyes. “Don’t judge me!” My craving makes me a monkey to the social mixing biscuits. Mixing with people of a higher class doesn’t take my priority. I just look to dunk the goods and chew relentlessly.
Chocolate Hobnob withdrawal can make you go cold turkey. But, what is cold turkey? To me, after a week without chocolate Hobnobs, my mind is distracted. I start to imagine the aftertaste, bits of oats between my teeth, a crumb on my shirt, smears of chocolate down my cheek, and a host of other sensations. I’ve even pictured a passerby as one giant anti-snacksize hallucination. The obsession makes me slather saliva like one of Pavlov’s dogs.
I find myself administering self made behavioural therapy. I draw huge alternatives. Custard creams, Bourbons, and Jaffa Cakes but never rich tea biscuits. I watch videos about raspberries and rhubarb. I dance to the music of the people chewing crackers and crisps. I pray to the Goddess of digestive processes (Gillian McKeith) and I read copious extracts of the food Bible (Meatpaper). My tolerance for distraction is weak. They draw me in. Taobao, an online versatile application in China suggests to me (with highlighted sugfestions) that I should buy a Manchester City mug, coffee from Yunnan province, milk from Asda and a packet of chocolate Hobnobs. They win.
You think you’re table to resist. But, open one packet. How long before you’re munching away? Do you resist? Masticating hard and not swallowing the pulp of chocolate oats? I don’t think you’ll resist.
The evening sun has arrived. It’s not a sunset if beauty. We won’t make it until dawn. This sun sets on you and I. Take the blame on oneself. Gloaming deepens. Put aside the dream of tomorrow. Today has just died. We could stand, aside, in a corner. Not now. Never again. Our motion becomes static. The pace fell away. White clouds rush. The sky’s twilight hides the moon. The sun shines not on it. Nor on you and I. The fireworks we had do not light the sky. All light refuses to break this darkness. Dawn may arrive. I choose to wake alone. Goodbye scenery of yesterday. I wake to a new dawn chorus, alone.
It’s easy! It’s easy! It’s easy! 1, 2, 3… Copy and paste. Trace. Select.Copy. Insert. Saving time too. Why spend too much time thinking? Find it, reuse it. Reduce. Reuse. Recycled.
What’s the answer that you’re looking for? Look over their shoulder. What did they write? Take it! You know you want to. Less time on work, more time to play. Right? Copy it. Just look how east it can all be!
Feeling integrity needs to be kicked away? Don’t worry. Who can spot you? They’re not paying attention. Go on. Join the dark side. Photograph it. Use their details. Submit it faster, they they’ll be the copy, right? Register the trademark, add the copyright logo, spin their materials. It’s all the same to you me. Same ending, right?
FEEL FREE TO COPY IT.
Disclaimer: Written during academic integrity week. Not to be taken seriously. This does not represent the author’s true views on the title subject. Feel free to copy this disclaimer though.
The bereaved have a particular look about them. They look flushed of colour. All their facial expressions drain away. One day they’re happy go lucky and full of vim; the next they’re a mix of grey pastels on tainted dull canvas. Their ears droop in tune with their frown. They look tired and out of focus. Loss is evident across their face. Their words are spoken slower and they take longer to stand up. They don’t bounce around looking for coffee and they certainly don’t race home on their bicycles.
I never know how to act around them. Do I stay the same? No. Not at all. Things are no longer the same. Loss is not a gain. I show my empathy but it never feels enough. I don’t want to say too much, but I do want and try to show I care. It’s not easy. Nothing ever is. Their loss is a challenge. My challenge is simply to be there for them, in the littlest of tiny small kind of ways.
How do you cope with loss? How do you act when someone departs? How many tears are too few? Or, too many? Is silence the treatment? Does that kind of loss ever truly fade away? How long does it take to recover? How many words need speaking? How does memory remain? How can I not forget you?
The dead don’t care. Maybe they did, before they left. Maybe their spirits go to heaven, Elysium or into the clouds. I can’t say. I’m no expert on the afterlife. Maybe they do care now. Or do they live on in us? Perhaps they flutter between the molecules and matters that make life? Could they be the vacuum of space? Or compost bringing life from waste?
I don’t want to feel what they feel. I don’t want to act differently or awkwardly. I don’t want to ask too many questions. I don’t want to forget the dead.
(on screen text) From the studio that brought you Schindler’s List…*
(further text) Just when you thought it was safe to go back into your bed. **
(yet more text and probably audio descriptive mode) They’re here, they’re everywhere. You’re not allowed to swear. [Not a football chant. Dramatic drumroll type music will play followed by a few seconds silence and then the title both swoops and crawls in.]
MOSQUROACHES
Or should we call it…
COCKQUITOES
(both can be working titles m whilst we figure out any problems with both)
(Narrator, deep booming voice like Mariah Carey) One mad scientist managed to take the eating parts of a terrifying cockroach and add them to the humble flying mosquito. It didn’t end there though. Soon enough a hybrid was born and it kept reproducing. Suddenly science was defied and the laboratory of birth overrun… (all scrolling text, a bit like Star Wars but less warmth and more fluttering)
(camera pans) a huge shadow cockroach mandible swoops over the screen which then slowly turns into a proboscis of a mosquito
(BBC Wildlife Guru Sir David Attenborough*** narrates, standing by a lake, looking all tranquil) We used to think of mosquitoes as pests. We used to dilly and dally at their annoyance.
(mosquito bites Sir Dave who carries on talking) Ah, shit! Kill them all, the annoying little blood-sucking bastards. (Sir Dave runs away itching himself)
(cameras swoops upwards along an abandoned McDonald’s restaurant… cockroaches spill over the wall, running and then flying away… with their newfound mosquito wings… the sky fills with darkness as they take flight)
Text flashes in the cloud of mosquito X cockroach insect cloud:
STARRING WILL SMITH+, RALPH FIENNES^, SIR SACHA BARON-COHEN, KATE WINSLET, DANNY DYER, KOREAN BAND BLACKPINK, and introducing JUDY DENCH.
Coming soon: 2000hrs, 2nd February 2022.
*Huge assumptions that they’ll be interested. **Spielberg won’t be too pleased, once again. ***Spared at no expense? +optimistic guess. ^There’s always a Fiennes knocking around.
Obviously, it’s work in progress. If I’d been a Douyin or TikTok user the trailer would be ready by now, but I’m not…
I don’t say the word love lightly. I find it hard to say at all. To family, friends, those I spend my time with and even pets: sorry, it’s hard to say it. Not now, anyway.
You may feel it from me. You may get glances of it. You may touch upon moments where I should say it. You can probably sense I want to show or say it. It probably is bubbling so deeply and ready to escape that I’m trembly. Won’t say it.
Maybe I’m confused. Maybe I didn’t hear it from my parents, siblings or uncles or aunts or Gran or Nana or the postman. Maybe I used it too lightly as a teenager or with that lady who made me a man or the friends who left my sides or the stories I read made me feel different instead. I just can’t find the words.
How can I not love you? How can you not love me? How can love not be for you and me? How can I not love myself? Is it all unrequited? Could I utter it? Could I think it? It’s a gamble, right? Instead I stay silent.
My heart may beat faster. My breathing may be deeper. My eyes may be showing excitement. My cheeks may be brightening. Other things may be happening, some bold, some exciting. But, I doubt I’ll speak it. Not here. Not now.
The next day may be different. There may be more momentum. There may be more desire. Need is here. Speed and precise private precious moments may have dawned. Surely now? Unlikely. Sorry.
The light is dim. Something is flickering. Whatever the source, it casts out growing stretches of darkness into the mostly dim room.
My eyes strain. They can’t focus. Whatever the cause, it struggles to grasp clutches of information by the deepest darkest broom.
My head spins. There’s no coordination. Whatever the thought, my imagination magnifies and spins a yarn out of control filled with doom.
My nose twitches. It tickles inside. Whatever I breathe, it’s not enough to match my growing gloom.
My heart beats. The engine is going faster. Whatever the mood, my lungs suck in and push air into my demanding body’s inverted zoom.
My brain slows. The air hasn’t arrived. My mood, breathe, thoughts and eyes fail. Whatever it was, it was enough. But, whatever I needed, did not show. Not one last little glow. I go.
She called. He listened. They talked. They laughed. It gave him warmth deep inside. She spoke openly. He told his story. They giggled. He answered questions. Once. Twice. Three times. The minutes stacked up. Time froze.
He chased. She was busy. He waited. She did not come. He wanted her. She was not available. He imagined. She slipped by. He thought of her. She had no voice. He dreamed. She remained silent. Once. Twice. Three times. It was as if it was a blink of an eye. Time came to a complete stop.
This is how it all begins.
This is where it all begins.
This is where it all began.
This is where we all began.
This is where we once began.
Thiswas where we once began.
That was where we once began.
Don’t look down at it. Too late. Don’t flip the camera to reserve. Oh, you’ve done it. Does everything need photographing? The way you’ve angled the camera to catch the fire extinguisher and your slightly edited face is exquisite. Just the nine photos. Each one like a time lapse with barely perceived difference. How thin exactly is your face? It looked a bit different an hour ago, a week back, some months ago.
How many moments did you fill? Is that video the same as someone else’s video? Pucker those lips up. Take a selfie. Snap! Snap! Snap! Take the photo from over there. No hazard there. Precarious overhanging places are fine too. Passing traffic? No need to look. Step out backwards. Drivers can swerve. Beeps are loud but you don’t hear it. Focus on your phone.
Cycling the wrong way up a busy road, in the nearest lane to the pavement kerb, and head down on our phone? Don’t worry. You could see beyond the cyclist going the right way. You could. Stay against the flow of the traffic though. Let the right do the right thing. Heck, even parallel ride with a friend. Both be on phones. You’re got it.
What conversation is needed? Look at your phone. Disengage from those with you in the group. By all means, one of you ramp up the volume. I wasn’t listening to my friend anyway. Perhaps some sounds of games will dazzle my mind. Go on. Some shooting sounds? Ideal. Money and other jingles. All at once? Perfection.
Is your child walking into a dangerous situation? Our won’t see. Your head is facing down. That black mirror is playing a video of a kangaroo hugging a panda, or mushroom in a bunch of flowers, or was it a video ending in canned laughter? The point is, your toddler has walked away. Too late? Hurry! Careful now!
And now I’m typing on a phone. Aware of the problem. Known to the addiction. Embraced. Doomed. Digital.
Gratitude is a faithless twat who hates you. It spits on you. It shits on you. It laughs in your face. It spits into your eyes. Right into the corners. Filthy dirty fucking flem.
As you kneel on the floor wiping the green and yellow saliva of another man’s flem out of your eyes, gratitude takes one Usian Bolt-sped run from a distance of far too fucking unsuitable, swings its legs up, full flying Jacky Chan and boots your balls harder than the moon colliding into Earth.
It all wants to smash you. The establishment and the unknowns. They gather in shadows and whisper out of earshot. You know it. Gratitude rings their ears and directs their blows. It sniggers and wheezes distorted taunts. They say you’re paranoid. You yell back that you’re not. You fucking scream it until your voice is hoarse and your head throbbing with echoes.
Screaming from rooftops bucket fulls of curses, you could send thunder into the mountains and torrents of anger down to the very stones that hold them up. You kick and stamp hard, so hard. Your toes bleed and bruise against the inner soles of your shattering shoes. The threads tear and break away. Your gratitude is kicking dirt back in your face.
You could walk off and not stop walking for days, weeks, months or even years. Fueled on rage, anger, gritting your teeth. You shake inside. Your heart beats like a Slipknot album. You breath deep, but too fast and too hard trying to suppress this stupid furor. Temper and madness are your bedfellows and you hemorrhage a mania unknown before. Gratitude is grasping your heart, twisting it like child’s soft plasticine.
Your knuckles are white as you clench animosity and refuse to let go. It holds inside and around your chest like a jellyfish tangled to prey. A spasm here, an eruption teetering and ready to blast out there. The spleen ferments more than agitation. This huff is pure wrath and gratitude is unwilling to submit.
That’s what you should say, in some shape or form, when someone asks you casually, “How are you?” But, you find few words come out: “Not bad, thanks.” Gratitude has won.
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.
I’ve never owned an iPhone. When in groups, I’m alone. I don’t have a power bank. Tesla, I couldn’t rank. Nike Air Max did nothing for me. You buy one, you get one free. Fashion, fads, phases and crazes passed me by. Reebok classics, I did not buy.
Lining up to see the latest movie? I wouldn’t rush; no hurry! Thrilled by a new rollercoaster ride? Look out to sea; I’m by the tide. Dancing in a crowded room? In the darkest corner; I’m in the gloom. All outside, drinking and eating? I’m inside; self-retreating.
Against the flow of the traffic is where I belong. If you need me, I’m here, just plodding along. What I do best, I do it so strong. Being myself, not the rest, that’s where I long. Just me, being myself, right or wrong. Listen to a clock going ding-dong. I’m sat with time beating my own gong. I’m a little further north of famous Hong Kong.
Instagram, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn? Maybe I’ll join; maybe they’ll win. Perfection in the artwork? Not for me; I’d go berserk. Quality and quantities, over and over? For me, myself and I; it doesn’t matter. Keeping current and up with the Joneses? I never did buy; one of those onesies.
Funny looking things they are. Five little protruding rounded stumpy endings. Not like leaves on trees. More like branches that broke away and fizzled out their growth. Each one with a kind of cover. Those shiny nails continually grow and need hacking back like a rainforest refusing to bow to the city. Hairs grow from mine, wiry and infinitely unorganised. I look down on them usually, because if I’m looking up, it’s either exercise or gravity winning.
I’ve seen people with more or less of the usual number of five digits. I’ve seen webbing between and I’ve seen tattoos and scars. Mine sometimes resemble a relatives head shape. I won’t tell you which older brother that is, as he’ll probably be upset. I’ve seen fluff under my nails, often blue or black in colour and more than a fair share of mud and dirt. My toes have ached and hurt and witnessed impressions of Lego bricks and even three pin plugs.
I can’t remember my toes being sang about ‘This little piggy’ and so on but I know my Mum played with my toes as a young child and baby. These days my Mum wouldn’t be seen near my toes, and I’m all the better for it. They’re my toes and they’ve walked with me everywhere I’ve been. They’ve swam and danced and kicked and been strong as tiptoes. These toes are my toes and I’m proud to have them here for the journey ahead. Where are we going next?
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?
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.
Rabbits and their habits. Mice into vice. Whippets who whip it. Dogs who do doggy dogging. Cats who prowl for pussy. Porcupine porking time. Zebras who do lines. Heroine hyenas. Hung like a horse: a story of execution. Penguins Eat Nice Icy Salads. Cock a doodle do? No, Dr. Seuss, we decline your submissions.
Sat here just thinking. Thoughts rattling through my head. Should I do this? Should I do that? Maybe I can go there? Perhaps a visit to such and such a place is order? How about I do that thing? You know, that thing, the thing I always say that I should do. Or maybe learning an instrument is in order.
Maybe, I said maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me. No, not my words. Sorry Liam and Noel. I could listen to music or write a song, or see a band or play an old vinly record. Is it just the ideal time to dance? Alone or with a stranger? Someone familiar or someone I want? I’ll decide one day.
What if…? Oh, so many what if questions. What if I add another question? What if questions mount up? What if they become a mountain? What if I can’t climb that mountain? What if the mountain has a landslide? What if the landslide swallows me up? What if I’m buried alive? What if the burial is long and starves me of oxygen? Oh. What if?
By the time I’ve thought all of this, time has slipped away. Was it relaxing? Was it a waste? Was it time lost to history? Was it a moment of reflection or a moment of? planning? Was it worth it? Procrastination, what’s that all about? I’ll tell you later…
Wasted energy just fizzled away. Wasted thoughts upped, up and away. Gone. Entropy, all said and done? Faded light in the thick darkness, a laser pen without power. No battery cell to zap outwards. Protons and neutrons inactive.
Plastic shreds, humanity on meds, ducks strangled by packaging. Gone. Waste management, and no fun? Carrier bags drifting in murky waters, a container without a rubbish bin. No recycling scheme to expand areas. Wrappers and sheaths defective.
Rubber tyres, telephone wires, headaches caused by noise. Gone. Bikes of thunder, and not one gun? Airplanes thunder overhead in shrouded skies, a siren without an emergency call. No laws to control the sounds. Banging fireworks completely reactive.
Grimy air, murky vision, stuffy noses full of dust. Gone. Smells of flowers, not by the sun? Machines clatter earth on stripped land, skies fill with ashes. No rule visited this land. This is all productive.
Do you remember trees?
What happened to the bees?
Rainbows and clouds vanished. Elephants and rhinos banished. Trees and grass diminished. Lakes and rivers finished.
Do you recall the smells of spring?
When did the birds last sing?
Dust filled the sky with pain. To see the horizon is a strain. No animals left with a mane. People struggling to stay sane.
I’m too tired to write this. I started writing an hour ago. I can’t think how to continue the words. Did I forget something then or am I forgetting something now? I can’t shake my mind into gear. The ideas are there. I can feel them. I keep getting bits of this and that, or something and another. Nope. Gone again.
I’ll try memory techniques. I can’t remember how to do them. I’ll walk around in circles. Why am I doing this? What is it that I set out for? Left, right, left right? Look up here. No not there. Oh, there’s something I was looking for. When was that? What was I looking for it for?
I am shattered. My shoulders dropped down a life time ago. What did it to me? Why this week? Now and again it all seems to build up. Then the glass overflows. I need a rest. I need naps. I need to lay in bed. My muscles don’t just ache, they throb and they pulse. They burn. I eat right, I think but something is lacking. I rest well, usually, but what is it that I miss? I relax with books and movies and television shows and music and love and peace and quiet. I lack something.
I overslept. I barely moved today. My step count was liked by friends and colleagues but on those days I’d barely moved an inch. Are they mocking me? Even so, I don’t have the energy to ask them. I’m drained, pooped and my battery is empty. Duracell bunny? Not a chance. Time to close my eyes. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be full of energy. Here’s to hope. I’ve been too tired for optimism. Pessimistic thoughts didn’t join me either. The number you have dialled has not been recognised, please hang up and try again…
My eyes sag heavily. Dry lips. My mouth tastes like yesterday. There’s a smell I recognise as the fumes of frustration. I’ve blinked and the fidgeting of my hand is twitching away. I’m stammering words and mumbling hopes. Dreams pass by. I’m fighting a battle. Just can’t sleep or stay awake. Time to rest. Rest in peace. Not that way. Just quiet. Me, my mind and no movement. Rejuvenating restful rest. I close my eyes, without concern of waking. No plans tomorrow. Just rest. Only rest.
*…Walsh, Gündoğan, Sheron, Creaney, Wright-Phillips, Benarbia, Fowler, Barton, Geovanni, Pizarro, Nasri… and all those other wonderful Manchester City numbers 8s.
These are the voyages of the starship TESMC. Its nine-module mission: to explore strange new words. To seek out almost new teaching methods and relatively new vocabulary. The bold crew of the giant starship explores the excitement of strange uncharted dictogloss things, and exotic uninhabited refined writing.Imagine it – thousands of noun groups at our fingertips…To boldly go where few teachers have gone before!
“Navigation was always a difficult art, Though with only one ship and one bell: And he feared he must really decline, for his part, Undertaking another as well.” – The Hunting Of The Snark, a poem by Lewis Carroll
During TESMC classes we have focused on language in learning across the curriculum. Here’s a recap (to build on the 7th instalment), at the Using English for Academic Purposes website, of nominal groups, structures and examples with exercises. There’s two links here and there for dictogloss activities. Look at this website called The Up-Goer Five Text Editor. It expects you to type a complex idea only using words from a list of 1000 common use words. That’s that, done!
[Now, an important announcement] Lemma: a word family, e.g. running, run, ran; blue, bluer, bluest, blueish, blues, etc. [Announcement ends]
Another vocabulary test website was pointed my way. Cheers ears! You know who you are. VocabularySize.com is a tool to create customized and test vocabulary tests for students. It was created by the University of Wellington, in New Zealand. Their School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies worked with School of Engineering and Computer Science. Language acquisition takes time, patience and exposure. Those students in an international school such as Tungwah Wenzel International School, surrounded by numerous international teachers, are most likely to increase their vocabulary than students in Inner Mongolia without a foreign teacher or access to YouTube. To them English will be as Scottish as a suntan.
Judgement value calls shouldn’t be drawn from memory. Responsive attitudes towards data collection over time carries more merit and significance. By showing a daily goal, we set a part of a bigger picture. The bigger picture should come from steps and aims. Those goals need organising. Rubrics are familiar territory that often get overlooked. I know, from my experience, that I have often favoured an in-head calculation over pencil, pen or paper. That’s not fair. Formative and summative assessments need clarity, not just for the teacher or the parent. The student should have the goalposts set early on. They must know what the task entails and how to achieve maximum marks.
“When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative; when the guests taste the soup, that’s summative.” – Robert E. Stake, Professor Emeritus of Education, University of Illinois
Having a summative assessment that resembles activities earlier on is key too. If you use formative pieces that have multiple choice questions and then for the finale you switch to an all-singing, all-dancing 2000-word essay, then that’s totally not playing cricket with your students. English as a Second Language (ESL) students need modelled methods that allow them to switch between multiple forms. To do it without preparation is unfair. Failure or success depends on students and their experience. To think outside of the box without the necessary scaffolding is not easy. One activity that I found useful was to assign half the class the activity of being the teacher. The other half had to follow the instructions given by the teacher. Afterwards peer review of the followers revealed that some students gave clear instructions. Others did not. Some students improvised where instruction was lacking. Many students competed to give the better and clearer instructions. Positive peer pressure gives chance for evaluation and reflection. Using a checklist or rubric over the top of that student’s activity gives a more meaningful insight to the activity and assessment. The teacher can play the role of referee or judge. The peers become the jury. Hopefully no executioner needs assigning. That being said we’ve all had that one student who never does homework… [It’s gallows humour, relax]
“What we learn with pleasure we never forget.” – Alfred Mercier
Student age gives us an idea of where to set our expectations. Within an age group, each student’s experience and exposure to English needs to be factored in. Then there’s nationality, multilingualism, academic performance in their native language(s), and so on… or what they ate for breakfast. Classrooms are living breathing jelly-like places that seldom remain constant. One gargantuan factor to take into consideration is that of student behaviour. Special needs and cares need to be taken into account. Not every student has the level of focus that we desire. To give confidence, informal formative assessments and their analysis will benefit the teacher and student. In the long run, reforming practices to unlock their true productive potential using a variety of interactive assessments will become a most valuable teaching tool.
“I never teach my pupils. I can only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” – Albert Einstein
Formative assessments can guide a teacher to how a student is or is not progressing. It can allow the teacher to amend their methods or tailor an individual student’s needs much more fluidly. John Polias, of Lexis Education, describes it as:
assessment of learning;
assessment for learning;
assessment as learning.
I read that in the style of Pep Guardiola as an intense football manager. He, like many great football managers, uses coaching of football in the game, after game analysis and during the game. The game is the test. The game is also a time to test new formations and tactics. The game is something to reflect on and to understand new learnings. This can also be said within our classroom. This should also be applied to our students. Assessment as learning is a real chance give appropriate and frequent feedback – in order to modify learning activities. It’s proactive and not reactive. Assessment of learning, the summative part, is reactive. It’s done, it’s dusted. Game over, almost. Assessment for learning also allows us scope to work away from the traditional unit test and external testing of old. Here in assessment for learning and assessment as learning we allow magic to happen. Students can express themselves. There’s self-assessment, self-monitoring and peer-assessment time. Students can create or make their own checklists or rubrics. With that, they can be employed for the purpose of learning. They allow students incentive, a drive, a spur on to get to a much more useful end. Therefore, Making Assessment Supportive focuses on how we can devote adequate time to making a type of assessment that makes sense for our students – and being able to use it at varied points of instruction. At points along the teaching cycle allows us to make assessment more fruitful. Lorna Earl’s Assessment as Learning: Using Classroom Assessment to Maximise Student Learning further strengthens this material showing a host of judgements about placement, promotion, credentials, etc to fit with other students. It shows information for teacher instructional decisions to meet external standards and expectations. It shows self-monitoring, self-correction and adjustment to reach personal and external goals.
“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.” – Kahlil Gibran
So, with all that, I ask you, teacher or not, what does the assessment pyramid look like? Identify how your school, current or old, had their pyramid. Where would you place the below? Top, middle or bottom?
assessment of learning;
assessment for learning;
assessment as learning.
Let’s each analyse samples of assessment tasks being used in our schools. Are they devised to be assessment of, for, or as learning? How can we incorporate a more overlapped approaches to assessments within teaching? What’s the understanding from students within our classes about the kinds of assessments that we do?
“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.” – B.B. King, musician
“Ben told the class that nouns are sexy. I couldn’t agree more.” – Mr Lee, 2020/21 cohort, TESMC, TWIS
Noun groups are everywhere. ESL (English as a Second Language) learners may find ordering tough, whereas a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, may find that their description of the fictional Scottish public and private boarding school of magic for students aged eleven to eighteen child’s play. The British magical community’s Ministry of Magic may not be an ideal place to start an exploration of noun groups, that most specific to English topic, but we can begin here with a dabble into the magical realm of TESMC class with Mr Ben. It’s our seventh class, hence the title.
“Many a man has a treasure in his hoard that he knows not the worth of. (Sellic Spell)” – Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien
Perspectives on Vocabulary by John 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’ve always been a fan of a DK Board game called Very Silly Sentences. This game helps to expand the vocabulary and manipulates verbs, adjectives and nouns. The idea of manipulating the nominal group needs base knowledge. That is to know the density of meaning slapped together inside a written text by giving numbers to nominalization per clause. Heavy stuff. Really heavy packed stuff. As a teacher we want to see the evolution of a student’s writing. It must go from: ‘It is a cat.’ We’re aiming to add weight to the sentence. Students, like adults, should be spouting Shakespearian cat descriptive pieces.
“foul night-waking cat” – The Rape of Lucrece, Sir William Shakespeare
If we sit our student’s first grade work alongside the same student’s work as they enter their early teenage years, you will see progress. The same can be done if we take week two work, week ten and week 17 work. Analysis is easy because it is reactive. Our job is much more proactive though. We’re targeting an end product. The factory assembly line of our classes must be targeted to show our desired outcomes of language learning. The crux of the matter is vocabulary extension: It’s a pretty cat. John Polias makes some strong cases for playing detective and taking visuals aside for as good old interrogation.
Fellow hair-challenged Brian Dare points out the pros and cons of refined writing. The high end of the mode continuum gets a fair treatment. He points out that suddenly students are less likely to be thinking on their toes. Students should be encouraged to both rewrite spoken text and speak in different ways about written text. It has to be bidirectional and the transpositions should become the tools of meaning-making in language. Going back and forwards, inverting, flipping it a bit, and relocating words here and there will provide the necessitous scaffolding. Do you remember the joys of messing with words and creating something clean and trim? The mode continuum gives our students something to blend and bend as a way to develop knowledge about language.
Explain these terms to a student without using the terms: common noun, proper noun, abstract noun, concrete noun, countable noun, uncountable noun, compound noun, collective noun, singular noun and plural noun. Respective examples could include window, Manchester, love, house, bike and bikes, rice, textbook, crowd, monkey, and babies. Easy enough, right? Now explain the function and use of a noun group. A noun group is a group of words relating to, or building on, a noun. There may be a pointer (a, an, this, that, these, those, my, your, his, her, its, our, dad’s, Mr Ben’s), one or more adverbs and adjectives. Before and after the main noun. The pre-modifier and the post-modifier offer ample opportunity for exploration. Referring back and forwards, within a sentence is a highly useful skill and tool for an up-and-coming writer. Adding weight and detail to the noun expands the information about the noun itself. It offers a clearer mental image. With these skills, our students can tell us much more about a cat. It’s a pretty fluffy cat with a wonderful temperament. The students are now armed with magic wands to cast spells on their noun structures. Effective writers need detail. Expanding the nominal group should be a weapon of choice.
Note: Nominal means as planned, or as named, or as written (in the mission plan). It does not mean normal.
Synonyms and antonyms are keys and tools to create colourful and abstract language. They’re also ideal for adding dimension to concrete dialogue and reports. One of my earliest English class memories was at Clayton Brook Primary School in Manchester. I, under ten years of age, and my peers were tasked with finding as many synonym words for the words good and bad. Many students talked about it. Some sought books. The tall loner in the corner dived like goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel and grabbed something useful. The dictionary fell into my lap. I was hooked. My personal vocabulary grew from word hunts, games, and reading. Mr Jones, class 5AJ, at Chapel Street Primary School, where I later attended, had me constantly finding words, or even searching for made up words, which made me look up similar words. These strange games certainly gave me reasons to live amongst the pages of discovery.
Here on vocabulary played a part. Even to this day, I enjoy expressions, terminologies, and styles of writing because the words within are shouting at me like conversations and whisperings that I must hear. According to TestYourVocab.com, most adult native test-takers range from 20,000-35,000. The average 8-year-old native speaker already knows about 10,000 words. Foreign test-takers tend to hit 2,500-9,000 words – and even by living overseas that only tends to hit 10,000 words. As I slotted my answers into tick-boxes and scored an estimated 32,700 words for my vocabulary size, I realized how few of the 300,000 entries into the Oxford English Dictionary that I probably know. In reality knowing one word from the 20,000 printed pages of the Oxford English Dictionary isn’t all that bad (and in truth, just 35,000 are useful). Are the website’s findings accurate? Well, entering your data is based on honesty and over two million surveys doesn’t accurately reflect a global population of umpteen billion people. Also, who uses the internet?! Their website’s methodology, the nitty-gritty argues that their accuracy is around ±10%, so in my instance, I could be closer to 35,970 or 29,430 words. Either way, it’s a curious little tool of play. I’m not showing off. Not at all. It gives me a good reflection on how many words I have yet to experience or learn. The bad news, however, is that their findings say middle age is where vocabulary retention tends to end. The best reading I found on their website related to reading habits. They found that reading habits directly increases vocabulary growth. It may sound like, as my Dad would put it, “stating the bleeding obvious” but it goes a long way to reinforcing the habit of reading at an early age. This website is part of an independent American-Brazilian research project. The decade-old findings of China show that the average vocabulary size here for English as a Second Language users was 6,636 words. Now, considering the education boom in China, that could be higher now. The website is an indication but not a science. It made me think about how many base words we need to learn a language. But, then how often do we use the words and do we lose the words? Who do we talk with that make us use new words? Are some words specific to some scenarios? Oh, the endless questions! Where on Earth is Anglesey?
“One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilising or it will die.”- Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh, writer (28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966)
Textbooks need selection. Most of us read reviews and even more of us get handed a reading list and stack of books tall enough to paralyse a student’s passion for reading. Trying not to overwhelm a young kids with a stack of books is a good start. As John Polias points out we need to support the students. If I throw the Welsh town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch at you and say read it. With that name of the Welsh village just over the Menai Bridge, you can unlock the language of Welsh, possibly. Possibly not. That’s where teachers must support every textbook handed to a student. A book without support may scare away passion for reading.
“Our song escapes, on little silver discs; Our love is plastic, we’ll break it to bits” – Reflektor – Arcade Fire
Too long, didn’t read? Well, that’s half the problem. If reading isn’t for you, how can reading be for someone else? And if reading isn’t a habit, how can writing be a skill? I haven’t read any of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Am I a sinner? Maybe. It just never grasped my attention. So, now, I believe that I must read it. I won’t read it alone though. I’ll make it my personal mission to read it with each and every student of my grade four class. Maybe they have read it in Chinese. Maybe in English. But, how did they enjoy it? I’m sure we can enjoy the magical journey as one. If you don’t have one of the Harry Potter books to hand and you want to dig on into the wider world of English, check out the below sites:
The Economist (Johnson blog: named after Samuel Johnson, who made dictionaries. This blog is all about the use and misuse of language, with its ripple effects)
FreeRice.com teaches and tests vocabulary whilst donating 5 grains of rice to the U.N. World Food Programme.
Language Log. Simply put, Mark Liberman, at the University of Pennsylvania, is a linguist with love of words. His Language Log website is a ticker-tape of blogs, posts and news all relating to language. Expect popular culture, controversy and history.
Dictogloss: a language learning technique. Used to teach grammatical structures. The teacher prepares text examples that need to be studied. The teacher reads it. The students just listen. No pens allowed. Next the students lift up their pens. Notes must be taken. By forming small groups, students can work together to reconstruct the text example using their knowledge, notes and teamwork. Afterwards reflection comes as students compare their various versions. With respect to my Grade 4 class, they tried this task twice and each time, they sailed the rough seas. Grade 4 are very capable sailors when the going gets tough. For extra experience, add a Powerpoint presentation whereby the words (and phrases) that you feel need noting pop up as you read it. It can reinforce student ability. After students become familiar with the dictogloss methods, take away the option of teamwork. First try paired working and then ask the students to work solo. This can also promote confidence.
“Fate goes ever as fate must.” – Beowulf, Seamus Heaney
As students move through schooling they will encounter different registers with full expectation to engage them accordingly. The use of nominal groups to enhance and even make complex text can be explained and shown to be more than useful. The dictogloss is there to be used as a tool, but not for exactitude. How many things change through new interpretation and retelling? Language and writing, like speaking can all be about exploration. As teachers we are captains of ships and we must wake our hypnopompic students with a sparge of word play. Our fuliginous fluffy funambulist of a feline with a wonderful temperament must exercise its vibrissae to avoid any pother as it balances on the tenebrous tightrope of life. With that, I end my braggadocio writing.
“Fate will unwind as it must!” – Beowulf, Burton Raffel
Are they immortal? Do they feel their movements? Shaped in time, carved by ice, snow and rain, to name but a few of nature’s shaping tools. Winds blow over them, sometimes finding ways deep into the soul of the mass, but often unmoving little more than loose ground.
Rains, earthquakes, feet passing over, whether herd or bird, a plethora of life creeping and digging into it. What does a mountain sense? Does it see the land and valleys below? Can it feel the altitude changes of plants like we feel the differences between socks, shorts and a woolen jumper?
From the lowlands to the tips, diversity grows and taints every inch with colour and variety. Crags, crevices, crests, cracks, boulders, rocks, ledges and all spectacle of materials decorate the mountain. Waterfalls and streams bathe the light that shines brightly down between the gaps in the clouds.
Flowers give the wings of bees and butterflies places to compete for beauty. The banks of trees stretch from thicket to wood to forest. Some ancient. Some not. Insects occupy every level and avoid the preying spiders that jump, spin webs and roan the floor. Chasms of rock beneath overhanging shelves house fluttering sounds within. The darkness of the mountain’s belly home to frightful delightful shapes and shadows. Oh, majestic mountain, what is it that you know?
Penned, when trekking, during a break at Muse village, Nepal, 11th January, 2017.
AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC - ACTON28.BLOG 