'3 Cheers, For Radar Ears'
Hi there!
I am a language artist! English is the language I paint with. Why do I paint?
Since using language for everyday things involves imagery, most of all in speech, for native speakers of English, OR ANY language:-
The simile: your ears are as Big as an Elephant's! (No, really?!);
The metaphor: the fog lay down on the hill as still as a ghostly, skulking wolf (Spooky, huh?)
I have been teaching English, and French, for over 25 years. I enjoy it so much, as I have a very strong desire to spark the imaginations of the students I teach.
Language learning should always be a lot of fun- it IS a lot of fun, EVEN if you have a test to do, there's always a game, a quiz, a puzzle or a piece of artistic writing that can be tried, to make it LESS of a task, and MORE of a fun challenge.
How about writing a song? A rap? A poem? A story? A cartoon? Make a video, a film? A podcast? Does anyone tell you it can’t be done? If they do, they’re CRAZY.
I always spend time encouraging students, helping them to realize, we can achieve a lot, if we DON'T WORRY. So, students can gain a lot of confidence with this good feeling.
I am a writer, writing poetry, short story and I am writing a Young Adult Fantasy novel. That's why language is so interesting for me, and I love imparting that love of language to my students.
I have been a tutor of English AND French, for 13 years. I visit the students' homes, normally, here in Scotland, but have started to use Zoom to do online tutorials, due, of course, to the recent Public Health Emergency, the pandemic, around the whole world.
We need NOT be afraid of this. It WILL pass.
In classrooms, I had the wonderful luxury of a Smartboard, or sometimes a Promethean board- electronic, interactive, online and magical classroom teaching and learning, via an electronic Smart Pen. How much fun was that? A LOT.
Kids could come out and TEACH the class, when their groups had decided HOW best to learn the language we were engaged with- that was one fun way of learning.
So, I might be older, but new technology fascinates me, as I know it will make LEARNING EASIER. Who wants to bust their guts learning grammar??
I know I hated learning often by ROTE, in French. It can help, sometimes, just to learn things off by heart, but there are too many other ways to learn, to ignore them.
I will use Powerpoints, Microsoft Word Documents, Excel spreadsheets (you never know!) Internet links, video, Podcast links, newspaper articles, news flashes or news podcasts/ videos, recorded pieces of audio, interactive whiteboards (Zoom has these), PEOPLE LIVE on video, speaking English, anything, at all, to make learning English language STICK in your minds like GLUE.
Why '3 Cheers, For Radar Ears'?!
Listening very carefully to speech, in any language, will REALLY help you to speak that language well. I would get friends in Hong Kong (1998-2006), as well as Chinese teachers and students, to repeat things in Cantonese, again and again, to LISTEN to exactly how they said words, then I would repeat and repeat.
Cantonese is the hardest language I ever learned- I can't write Chinese, or read it very well. I CAN speak quite well, in the language of Guangdong (English : Canton) and Hong Kong. I have, obviously, fluent French:
On ne peut pas enseigner le francais, sauf si l'on en parle courrament.
I have some basic Mandarin. I have some German and Spanish, some of my wife's language, Tagalog (Filipino)- I just need to go live there, to pick it up better.
How did I do it? : 3 Cheers, For Radar Ears!
So, if I have learned how to speak, read and write in other languages, guess what? I know the KNACK, the ways that help you do it.
Just let me show you. I swear it will be good fun :)
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