Tag Archives: helping

Assisting

January 9, 2015Uncategorizedefl, elt, esl, esol, fables, helping, lessons, rewards, self-help, stories, tefl, tesl, tesolnathanghall

Image courtesy of lolaleeloo2

When I was a kid, my sister bought me a copy of Aesop’s Fables and I immediately fell in love with it. I had heard some of the stories before, but this was a gold mine! Even at a young age I was able to see how these short, simple stories could teach life lessons in a easily digestible way.

As I grew older, I came to appreciate cultural fables from around the world, but I also started to notice that some of these stories were teaching ideals that I don’t agree with. The obvious one’s are related to stereotypes, but there are others that teach messages of revenge, judgement, and intolerance hidden beneath the surface. Continue reading Assisting →

Reviewing

May 14, 2014Uncategorizedefl, elt, esl, esol, helping, questions, reflections, tefl, tesolnathanghall

Image courtesy of CameliaTWU

One year. On May 17, 2013, I started this blog as a way of creating a separate space for me to reflect on what I was doing, learning, and thinking about as an ELT instructor and educator. What I didn’t expect was that anyone would actually read it. Seventy(!) posts later, here I am wondering what it is I have accomplished over this time. Did I really learn anything? Did I actually help anyone else along the way? Is it what I expected it would be or has it evolved into something different? Am I better for having taken the time to write these posts or could my time have been better served elsewhere? Lastly, if I was to close the virtual door on this site, would anyone actually care? Would I care? So many questions. Continue reading Reviewing →

Sharing

October 7, 2013Uncategorizedelt, eltchat, esl, esol, giving, helping, PD, sharing, tesl, tesolnathanghall

Image courtesy of Ben Grey

I grew up in a small town in Canada before moving to the ‘big city’ of Calgary when I was 14. One major difference I noticed right away was the disparity between the haves and have nots. Sure, there was rich and poor in the town I had grown up in, but I don’t remember seeing it displayed in such a noticeable way as I did in Calgary.

For the most part, my parents never made any remarks about a person’s wealth, but there was this one friend of my parents who had a lot of money and owned property in various places including a cabin in Montana. She drove a nice car, but nothing flashy. She didn’t act rich, but she certainly was. One day, she was over at our place and the topic of skiing came up. She mentioned that she had this place in Montana and that she was more than happy to have people stay there for free any time we wanted. It wasn’t one of those ‘I’ll make the offer so that I can show you how much money I have’ type of statements, it was a genuine ‘what’s mine is yours’ sort of thing. After she left, my parents remarked that it wasn’t good or bad to be rich, it is what you do with what you have that makes the difference.

Another story comes from an offbeat British fellow named Jamie McDonald who is currently running across Canada to raise money for various hospitals for sick children. He doesn’t have a support team or even a real plan other than to get across Canada before his visa runs out! He is a genuinely nice guy who would give someone the shirt off his back if need be. Don’t take my word for it, read his posts on Twitter and Facebook and you will see that he doesn’t have much, but he is giving all that he can to help others.

I am starting to realize how important it is that we share with others what we have in terms of our experience and expertise. Continue reading Sharing →

Understanding

September 20, 2013Uncategorizedefl, elt, esl, helping, judging, respect, teaching, tefl, tesl, tesolnathanghall

Image courtesy of Ben Dalton

I have mentioned in previous posts that I have only two rules in my classroom: have fun and respect one another. At the beginning of each term, I have my students work out what that means based on various topics including cell phone use in the classroom, attendance, and cultures. From that, we build a code of classroom conduct that each of us, including myself, need to follow. It works well and it tells my students I respect them as a person and I hope that they would do the same for me.

A week ago, I came across this news article of a teacher in Mexico who confronted her students about some nasty things that had been tweeted about the teacher by one of the students. I won’t get into details, but the teacher used the classroom to address the issue in a very direct way. The comments on the CNN news article show a number of people in support of the teacher saying, “She is the authority in her classroom,” and “Humiliation is needed in schools, much more of it”. The whole event, from student to teacher to administration to the general public’s reaction has made me feel sad. I don’t think the issue here is ‘putting someone in their place’. I think the real issue is how we view one another as human beings.

After reading the article and watching the video, I started to think about each person or group of people affected by this event and I started to see how complex this issue is and how difficult it is to ‘place blame’ (not that I think we should). I decided to break it down in a sort of chronological order as things progressed. Continue reading Understanding →