Worthiness

Not a word that leaps out at one – sort of concertina’d in the middle and rather blurry vowel sounds.

I’m so tired of it – not the word, the concept. I’m not sure if it is because of some prevailing zeitgeist that we – and when I say that, I probably mean ‘I’ – are (am) plagued with true-life stories of people who have overcome thousands of odds, worked all the hours God gives, pushed on through the seemingly never-ending and deeply frustrating and debilitating hardships to arrive at some place that makes them feel triumphal and the rest of us blessed and privileged to be inhabiting the same planet. And there are the worthy-celebrants who say it all for us – take the very words out of our mouths: “Isn’t she MARvellous!”, “What an inspiration!”, “If only everyone had that attitude!”, “You have restored my faith in whatever!” Ringing applause and awe-struck looks abounding as groveling and robe-touching threaten to subsume the new luminary. Tra-la and so on ad nausea – m.

I remember, many years ago back in the days when I taught English Literature in a high school, going to one of those ghastly “team-building-get-the-most-out-of-your-staff-and-optimise- their- futures-and -their -job- satisfaction- by -making- them- play- daft- games- and- use- a- lot- of- coloured- markers- to -draw -their- “ideal- self” events. The jolliness and energy and back-slappery and bonhomie was unnerving, to say the least. Then we all rallied around making SMART objectives and cheering each other on, being very, very positive and very,very motivated and very, very bright-eyed rowdy zealots. The net result of this, or so we were told by our by now heavily-perspiring, but still messianic leader, was that we would be Happy and Enthusiastic and Energetic and Fun-filled and Productive and, ergo, much more Useful Members of Society – in other words, WORTHY!

I don’t want to go out there and proselytise about my struggle and my life and how, since shaking off negativity and pessimism and attacking the world with joy and hallelujahs has turned me into a happily grinning maniac. I don’t want to work all the hours God gives, I don’t want to shake my fist at Fate and defy all the odds, I don’t want to attack everything that comes my way with vim, vigour and unstoppable exuberance. I’m about sick of hearing that I can go as far as my imagination allows; that if I can dream it I can BE it, that I need to aim higher and dream bigger and that the only limits are those I myself impose. I want limits, I want circumscription and boundaries. I just want to put in an honest day’s work, go home to my little house, enjoy my music and my telly and my soup and do some sewing when the mood strikes and visit friends and go to bed early and be happy in my own company.

Stop with making me feel guilty because I’m not out there making a difference, changing the world and generally being an all-round, high-achieving, wickedy wicked worthy person. Contentment may not have the same eclat or resounding ring of approval, but it is as worthy of pursuit and as necessary to cling to – if not more so – as the clamour and chase and the forever elusive goal of bigger, better, more and more.

Mindset

I have been faced this week with a quandary – well I am faced with many quandaries most of the time, but this is the top one for this week.

I have been rambling around the blogosphere reading up about the idea of fixed and growth mindsets: I need to find out about these because they are important for foreign language learners apparently. If you have fixed mindset and believe that you don’t have a “gift” for languages, your approach to learning languages will be coloured by that belief. If you have a growth mindset, you will believe that with conscientious application and training, you will be able to acquire and control a foreign language.

But what about the person who totally believes in their ability to learn and control a foreign language, but they’re wrong? I have student this week who is convinced that he is a terrific student and that he has mastered the language. He isn’t and hasn’t. And no amount of telling him makes the blindest bit of difference. He double-checks everything he is told; he continues to make fundamental errors like saying “big-small” as one word; his stock phrase is “no problem” when there clearly is a big problem and he still thinks that “2 o’clock” means “two hours”. No amount of correction, subtle, direct or otherwise has occasioned any change or even any attempt at changing, fixing or even acknowledging the error.

How does one go about dealing with a fixed mindset that says, “I’m a terrific language learner and a very competent English speaker”? Is it maybe me that’s the problem?

OK, so where was I….?

The business of English or the English of business? English is my business, or my business is English: not sure that those two are different, but they are in my head. More and more I really believe that the two are very strange bedfellows. English is so very much a part of whom I am, and business is so very very much not any part of me at all. I understand why it consumes some people and I have got a hold on the basics – profit, loss, supply, demand, bottom line etc. etc. but it moves me not. It has no soul, no identity, no feelings, no character, no life. So trying to combine it with English which is so expressive, so full of emotion, vibrant, dynamic and very much alive is always going to be an uneasy matching. For me anyway.

Here’s the thing. I have to do two talks in short succession next week – one is at a huge convention of business-y type people in Germany and the other is to a smaller group of teacher-y trainer-y type people in London. The talks couldn’t be more different – they have to be. One addresses the business of business – competitive edge, globalised, increasingly connected, highly demanding international business arena; the urgent need to present a confident, accomplished, sophisticated image to the world by having your English under control otherwise those big competitive bogey men, China and India, will be ahead of the game, English-wise. The other is far less aggressive. It deals with the person at the heart of all this: the complex, pressured, tired, anxious and possibly fearful Business English learner, whose most urgent need is to be accepted, encouraged, praised and guided towards a place where s/he feels comfortable speaking in English.

I know which talk I’m looking forward to more…….

On Second Thoughts……

You know, I’m a child of the 60s. That doesn’t mean I’m Che Guevara or Germaine Greer or even Mark Douglas-Hume. But during those years, my consciousness was raised about certain things; certain important things. And speaking of Mark Douglas Hume, I was also at the University of the Witwatersrand and flew about on the coat tails of people like him. I sat in for protest concerts and supported Peter Hain and rallied around Helen Suzman. Now that might sound all very pretentiously grand and make me out to be some kind of safe, middle-class banner-waver (It was scary, okay. I was snarled at by a savage police dog during a demonstration once and nearly wet myself). But it taught me that governments and so-called “authorities” can be and often are dead wrong. It also taught me about standing up for what I believe in and standing up and being counted and the value of the smallest – and even the least important – individual rights. And so, bravely cowering under a pseudonym, which I hope will kick in sometime shortly, I shall continue with Candy’Stripe.

For them as cares…

……I am no longer going to be blogging from this blog. Big Brother is everywhere and this sort of just makes his job easier….

So long Candy’Stripe. It’s been good.

Those who can, do; those who can’t……

I remember hearing this fairly regularly as I was growing up and as I come from a long line of teachers of various sorts: music, elocution (snorts elegantly up sleeve), art and the usual school-type ranging from Reception to University lecturer, I’m surprised I wasn’t possessed of a vague, but persistent feeling that my family were somehow failed something elses.  The fact that I can’t play a note, or produce anything but rather edgy stickmen and the very obvious fact that my “How now brown cow?” vowels are as flat they ever were always seemed to indicate some inadequacy in me. I know from other people and their stellar results after having been taught by these members of my family that my mother and my aunts were good teachers. And that seemed to me to be the point rather than them having failed in another arena.

Why am I talking about this?…..Oh yes, I taught this morning for the first time in what seems like decades. Sometime back I lost my mojo somewhere: I avoid the classroom, any kind of activity where people look at me, or expect anything from me and all and everything to do with pursuing an identified and required “outcome” or “goal”.

But today I had to take the bit between my teeth and get back on the horse – so to speak. I enjoyed it. Nay, I thoroughly enjoyed it. My blood ran warm in my veins, my brain sprang into life, my words flowed with precision and ease. I knew where I was going, what to do next, which things to deal with and how to approach them. The group was enthusiastic, focussed, vocal, jolly and appreciative.

Why then don’t I do it more often? Is it fear? Stage-fright, if you will? Does that make me a failed actress who took up teaching because of the captive audience? I cannot rightly say, but mojo or no, I’m going to get into the classroom more. For the moment it will be for my sake, but as the nerves unwind, I trust one day it’ll be for the students’ sake again.

 

How Much is Too Much?

I’m wondering if I’m just old-fashioned, or being overly precious, or just plain nasty, but I have never, nor will I ever share personal details with my students. And that includes phone numbers, email addresses, postal adresses and Facebook befriending. I have cancelled my Twitter account because I don’t like being “followed” by ex-students and I’m not really keen on the fact that they can read my blogs: hence the rather arcane nom de plume.

I know that in this day and age it is almost impossible to remain incognito, but I personally feel that as a teacher, it behoves me to exercise some sort of discretion and maintain a professional distance from students. Handing out phone numbers and email addresses, airily “friending” all and everyone on Facebook and inviting them to share in every aspect of one’s online life is a very slippery slope. I have tried in vain to impress this upon the teachers who work at the centre, but they hear me not. I don’t swop private phone numbers with my doctor, or my dentist, or my lawyer. I wouldn’t dream of asking them to “friend” me on Facebook and following them on Twitter would be the mark of a very sad person.

I have just convinced myself – old-fashioned it may be, but I’m standing my ground: keep your relationship with your students professional – do not allow them into your personal life and don’t expect to be asked into theirs; if you are, politely decline.