The most romantic landscape in Ireland, Wilde said

to BYOD or to BYOB, that is the question - Thursday 11th July

Today we have dealt with two very important issues in language learning: vocabulary activities and how to deal with special learning differences in Language Learning.

When it comes to vocabulary, my teaching approach veers to the null as I tend to assign vocabulary activities as homework and just check the lesson afterward if the exercises was carried out well.

When we want to introduce new items of vocabulary we should follow the 5 principles below to make sure these items may easily pass from the short term memory into the long term one, that is they may linger in the learner's brain for more than 30 seconds and become part of their vocabulary. ;) btw, a new word must be repeated 7 times at least before it's memorised.

Vocabulary practice is mandatory to give learners a chance to make language their own, and to acquire the items of language to master them fully. Learning is not a linear process, it's rather spiralling and organic. Teachers can control what is taught but can't guarantee what is learnt.
Recycling, which is neglected in coursebooks, is a technique to remember and transfer the item from short-term into long-term memory. It can be easily incorporated in any context and gives students a sense of confidence and progression, a sense of achievement.
There are a lot of techniques and activities to recycle language: categorising and grouping, controlled practice activities of target language in form of self assessment or progress test/check; language boxes and wordlists; revisiting language through both listening or reading texts; reviewing items through skills practice activities as discussions, writing, paragraph completion or through narrow reading.
The aim of a vocabulary task should be to raise expectation in the learners and to raise their curiosity, this is why teachers should make them hungry. Students should feel the need for the word and this need shouldn't be satisfied by the teacher's translation but they should be guided through strategies to guess the meaning: chop the word, guess it from the context, relate it to their own language.
A very important step of vocabulary acquisition is personalise and activate: once the word is used to elicit a personal response or to refer to the student's own life and culture, it becomes relevant to the student and is therefore memorised. Teachers should then encourage students to re-use the words in different contexts, to use them for real (it's easier in an English-speaking country, though), to practice with gapped sentences/activities the students may produce and share, to use them in discussions.
Other activities that might help learners remember the new items are rhyming associations, mind-mapping, simply linking the unknown to the known.

Vocabox is a good idea to review and recycle vocabulary and fill up some minutes at the end of the lesson. It's fully flexible as it can be used for any game or categorising activity, for a hot seat session too. A bank of words, a treasure teachers might want to introduce in their lessons and daily routine. To fully understand the Vocabox rationale, please refer to my tutor Johanna Stirling's website.

Read article on how to improve Vocabulary and how students could learn the language we teach them.

INTO the Irish Culture - Wednesday 10th July

Last night my two colleagues and I attended the Tunes in the Church concert and went to a pub for some more music. Today I have decided to treat myself with the unique experience of walking through Galway with a qualified cultural historian as a guide, Jonathan.

"Humanity" Dick loved animals and fought for animal rights :)

This tour has moved very much away from the beaten track and meandered back streets and lesser known locations including several theatre spaces. Starting from Tigh Neachtains on Quay St, one of the oldest houses in Galway owned by Richard Martin MP, we have visited Galway first theatre space on Kirwans Lane. Here the leading Irish nationalist and father of the Irish republicanism Wolfe Tone used to give vent to his artistic flare and skills by acting. He had moved to Galway to be the tutor of “Humanity” Dick Martin, the owner of the pub above and here he could start his acting career, which consisted in two performances only before turning to politics 😊

When we left the theatre we headed to the Spanish Arch and Wolfe Tone Bridge, next to the Galway City Museum. I had thought the Spanish Arch to be named after the very important business Galway had with Spain, Jonathan said that there were none. All the trades Galway used to have was with France and the biggest and most powerful families (the 14 tribes) were trading wine with the North of France. The Spanish Arch was a reinforced part of the city walls that was meant to make the Spanish Armada’s way into Ireland impossible. It was in fact where 8 cannons were placed waiting to fire if they saw any galleon approaching. The Spanish ships never landed in Galway on ground of this and sailed by to be met by foul weather and defeat, as we all know.

We then have visited the outside of Galway Arts Centre: home of Lady Augusta Gregory, an aristocratic lady who discovered the Irish language and toured the countryside with the poet W.B. Yeats to collect stories in Irish language and of the Irish folklore. She founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and she sparked the Irish Revival which was meant, by Yeats and Synge, to be the Celtic Twilight – the start of a new era – which Joyce renamed the Celtic Toilet hahaha.

After meeting Yeats and Augusta, we have popped in the front door of the house belonging to a woman who was bound to become the lifetime companion of an Irish rarity: James Joyce. Nora Barnacle lived in Galway for 17 years and here she was supposed to have met the Michael Joyce mentions in The Dead. He is buried at the local cemetery of Rahoon, was in love with Nora and died for her sake. The funny thing is that Joyce met Nora in Dublin, while she was stepping out of the hotel where she was working as a chambermaid. Jonathan underlines that this meeting is at the centre of the Irish history and literature as the place where they met is a crossroads of all the Irish must-read writers; the hotel was surrounded by Wilde’s father’s house. Beckett’s family’s offices and Yeats’s house too.

We have finally visited the other two institutions of Galway: the Irish National Language Theatre: an taibhdhearc and the home of the Druid Theatre Company, where also Martin McDonagh worked at the beginning of his career in 1996 with the Leenane Tragedy that launched him to Broadway and to his filming career, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri included.

The tour has lead us through the story of how a generation of radicals and writers created modern Ireland. Through a mixture of literature history and ideas Jonathan has made me understand the birth of modern Ireland and how Irish revolutionary theatre changed the world.

Truly a walking tour with a difference! Truth is stranger than fiction and Irish fiction sounds odd enough and quite indistinguishable from factual local history, anecdotes and lots of laughs!

PS one of the oddest stories Jonathan told us was about the window...yep, that window shane had mentioned to be related to the Lynch family...yep, that window I wrote about on Monday...It's all made up: no Lynch, no mayor, no son, no lover, no crime, just a window...which was build in the late 19th century to be the perfect tourist trap for those tourists flocking to Galway for some time off longing to hear stories of life and death and punishment. ha ha ha I had also believed the story of the word "Lynch".

But Jonathan made up for it with the origin of the word boycott, which is truly from a man living around that time in Galway (or near Galway...). this time the story is 100% true.

Yes, you can - end of the story!!!

It’s not a teacher’s job to motivate students,

It is a teacher’s job not to demotivate them.

Today’s lesson is about C21 skills and especially on motivation. When it comes to my English language learning journey, it is not difficult to identify what or who motivated me: a teacher, my passion for music, my intrinsic drive to learn more and to get to know more, my passion for travelling and getting along in any situation.

What does really motivate students? Is it something they have inside? Their wish to improve, a choice, pride or satisfaction? Is it a reward or the fear of some sort of punishment? 

One of the top-rank elements is the teacher’s own motivation and enthusiasm (the only way to do a great work is to love what you do), then comes a sense of encouragement from the teacher and her/his genuine involvement in class management and group relationships, a supportive and safe atmosphere and encouragement in autonomy and valuable participation.

The challenge is maintaining this enthusiasm, though.

Some strategies to generate motivated and self-driven learners that were shared are:

• Make them curious and feel engaged in what you are doing
• Challenge them and avoid the obvious (johanna says “avoid celebrities” as in our attempt to be current we may not avoid the pitfalls of their disappearing too quickly; these celebrities should be shunned in favour of more human interest stories from sport or crime or stories of achievements, which might be a more potent force)
• Give learners more of a voice within the classroom and let them use their tech skills and imagination (incorporate what they can do very well, they are digital natives after all)
• Get a shared learning experience by relinquishing control where possible
• Use memes, theu are great fun :)

To tell you the truth, what motivated me this morning is this sky...  

Once in Galway - Monday 8th July

La mattina di Galway arriva presto, così come la luce fa fatica ad andarsene alle porte della notte.
Questa mattina è piovosa ma l'accoglienza alla Bridge Mills Language School ha il sapore di un te caldo e di un cappuccino fumante.
Patrick, il direttore, ci racconta di come questo edificio dai muri spessi sia stato un mulino per la farina fino agli anni 50, quando, dopo centinaia di anni di duro e onesto lavoro, è stato lasciato in disuso. All'interno della scuola si possono ancora vedere le pale e le pulegge che facevano andare la macina, che ora è visibile nel retro del ristorante al piano terra.

La mattina corre veloce nelle attività di presentazione dei partecipanti del corso: Ute, Isabel, Margit tutte colleghe austriache, Jana dalla Repubblica Ceca e Maria dalla Spagna, Marietta dalla Bulgaria, Stefan.
Nel pomeriggio Shane ci porta in giro per Galway, questa città dalle mille tribù in riva all'oceano atlantico. Una città rilassata con musica per le strade e performer ad ogni angolo, una città dai mille colori e dai tanti fiori, fiorente alla fine del medioevo per i commerci con la spagna. Shane ci racconta che anche Cristoforo Colombo fece una visita da queste parti, la chiesa di Saint Nicholas ne porta le tracce, qui venne a pregare in uno dei suoi viaggi, molto prima di diventare Il Colombo che conosciamo. Una città dai tanti pub con i nomi in gaelico. Una città un tempo governata dai Lynch, discretamente famosi per la loro giustizia sommaria. Il padre del sindaco, infatti, uccise il figlio reo di aver commesso un grave delitto ma impunito per la sua posizione. Siamo in pieno Medioevo ma la finestra da cui il giovane fu scaraventato è l'unica cosa che rimane di un antichissimo palazzo in una via secondaria. In tutte le lingue europee il termine con cui si designa comunemente l'esecuzione sommaria, da parte della folla, di delinquenti colti in flagrante o d'individui comunque ritenuti colpevoli deriva dall'anglosassone. La legge di Lynch si applica anche a ogni forma di procedura sommaria, fuori della legalità, con cui in paesi non ancora strettamente regolati dal diritto o in periodi di anarchia gruppi di cittadini condannano e giustiziano. Di tali forme private o semiprivate di amministrazione della giustizia penale abbiamo numerosi esempî anche nella storia europea...ma forse è solo una coincidenza che derivi proprio da questo Lynch...o no?

Dimenticavo...uno dei simboli irlandesi nasce a Galway e prende il nome dal quartiere di sud-ovest Claddagh: Claddagh Ring, simbolo di amore amicizia e lealtà, ma anche della madrepatria per gli emigranti della Great Famine.