(no subject)
Apr. 26th, 2008 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyBest thing about being an English teacher is all the stuff I can buy and justify to myself as 'resources'. DVDs of Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Bend It Like Beckham and Billy Elliott, at the moment, for a year 9 media project leading to a debate on gender. Admittedly The Long Goodbye and a Philip Auster trilogy were completely self-indulgent... XD
It's totally something I emphasised in my supporting statement for this job application, though - the fact that I try to find and use resources that are both relevant and interesting, stuff that the pupils will really enjoy working with. Like when I taught foreshadowing using Eddie Izzard, for example. If I can be enthusiastic about how I'm teaching them the kids generally pick up on that as well, which generally makes for lessons that they're much more willing to engage with.
There's also the whole stagnant nature of the English Department I've been working in. They do what works and what has always worked, and that seems a shame. A lot of English teachers, it seems, are relatively unfamiliar with technology and new media and such, which just means that students see the subject as completely irrelevant to their lives. I have to an individual presentation as part of my course, so I've decided to do it on alternative notions of literacy and different ways that it can be taught - for example, I had one severely dyslexic kid who was put at a disadvantage when doing the short story project, but when I talked it through with him I was able to draw out comparisons to the literacy necessary to interpret a film and got him working on a storyboard. His story wasn't perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than what he initially proposed.
...anyway. Enough ramble from me, I have to go put clothes on and toddle off to the post office. And then I have the world and its dog of work to do, so. Catch ya later!
It's totally something I emphasised in my supporting statement for this job application, though - the fact that I try to find and use resources that are both relevant and interesting, stuff that the pupils will really enjoy working with. Like when I taught foreshadowing using Eddie Izzard, for example. If I can be enthusiastic about how I'm teaching them the kids generally pick up on that as well, which generally makes for lessons that they're much more willing to engage with.
There's also the whole stagnant nature of the English Department I've been working in. They do what works and what has always worked, and that seems a shame. A lot of English teachers, it seems, are relatively unfamiliar with technology and new media and such, which just means that students see the subject as completely irrelevant to their lives. I have to an individual presentation as part of my course, so I've decided to do it on alternative notions of literacy and different ways that it can be taught - for example, I had one severely dyslexic kid who was put at a disadvantage when doing the short story project, but when I talked it through with him I was able to draw out comparisons to the literacy necessary to interpret a film and got him working on a storyboard. His story wasn't perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than what he initially proposed.
...anyway. Enough ramble from me, I have to go put clothes on and toddle off to the post office. And then I have the world and its dog of work to do, so. Catch ya later!
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Date: 2008-04-26 09:57 am (UTC)Man, I wish you were my teacher, now.
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Date: 2008-04-26 02:33 pm (UTC)(Mostly my English teachers were okay, but my 10th grade English teacher traumatized the class with comma splices. She would always yell at us for having comma splices in our papers, but she never actually told us what the hell a comma splice is. So we lived in terror of commas in general. She was also incredibly boring all-around and retired the year after I had her.)
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Date: 2008-04-26 03:17 pm (UTC)<3<3<3
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Date: 2008-04-26 03:25 pm (UTC)Good for you - shake it up a bit. Reaching the kids who are struggling is just about the most important thing a teacher can do.
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Date: 2008-04-28 01:39 am (UTC)Also, you should totally read this book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freedom-Writers-Diary-Teacher-Themselves/dp/0767924908/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209346655&sr=8-1)!
Yay for relevance in teaching English!