Those Sharp Words

I would suggest that what is actually rude in academia to assume that your reader is such a bad academic that they cannot take a bit of robust dialogue.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AjWk5

#academicsky #feedback #PeerReview

I think people often focus more on politeness strategies such as trying to avoid being rude, including an obsession with the wording of criticism. More positivity would be good!

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AepiH

#PositivePoliteness #NegativePoliteness #CultureShock

#CELTA, for the uninitiated, is a teaching boot camp originally designed to take people who have never taught before, let alone taught a language, and get them classroom ready as English teachers in four weeks.

Read more about what this has to do with peer rewiew 👉 https://lttr.ai/AdPZv

I have almost reached the point where I just stand there when things fall on the floor and look pointedly at someone until they pick it up...

Late career: invests in a rolling chair.

Mid career: squats next to students so no unusual part of the body actually touches the floor. Occasionally discreetly parks bum on the edge of a table. Otherwise, teaches standing up, and prowls.

This has led me to formulate a three step career development ladder for teachers, thus...

Early career: sits on tables cross legged and / or kneels on floor regardless of the danger of falling off (twice) or discombobulating the students.

After a pause from face to face teacher training, yesterday I was demonstrating squatting to talk to students, rather than looming over them, and jolly well nearly could not get up again.

#efl #teachereducation #cpd

Smiling at people when you are greeting them, saying goodbye, giving instructions, giving feedback, selling them something, etc, etc, etc, etc is a way of showing that you consider them worthy.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AepiG

#PositivePoliteness #NegativePoliteness #CultureShock

However, can I remember any similar suitable stories to Alfred and the cakes to serve as interesting examples or this sket of thing? From anywhere in the world?

No.

Help?

#academicsky #historysky #educationsky #history #clil

History is about what we think about it not just what happened, and in any case the story itself is old and was written for a purpose.

Plus, my test subjects could do with some light relief and this allows story telling practice.

So we remember I am idly contemplating a CLILy history project around the nature of king/queenship (othernsnesareavailable)?

I've got to Alfred and I was going to ignore the story of the burnt cakes for being frivolous and not actually true.

Then I realised this is the wrong approach.

Can I remember any other popular, pointed stories similar to Alfred and the burnt cakes about any other monarch,(otherdesignationsareavailable), anywhere in the world?

No.

Help?

#historiansky #academicsky #educationsky #history #clil

Because obviously this story is itself quite old and has a meaning.

Plus, my test subjects could do with a bit of light relief and practice of story telling, so I want them to come up with their own allegorical monarch related story.

Structure:

The nature of... / what is...?

Case studies, including how we know, and the issues of knowing

Change drivers and consequences

The significance of...

Currently...

Very much NOT in that order, by the way.

(Peasants, working class, aristocrats, slavery, middle class).

Ha! No, I have it. Make it people framed.

The nature of the aristocracy / gentry / upper class (or similar); the nature of the middle class (or similar); the nature of the working class (or similar. God I'm so British); the nature of peasantry; the nature of slavery.

The nature of technology, the nature of religion, the nature of...

Good. I shall likely retire before I run out of new modules here.

However, I don't want to get too fixated on Great Men (and One or Two Women), so I'm wondering how to bring everyone else into it.

Aside from making module 2 about the nature of revolution...

#academicsky #historysky #educationsky

I also thought we could have fun with side quests like, differing portrayals of monarchs in Shakespeare, popular culture, and so on and so forth.

We can then bounce out into leadership models more generally, political and otherwise, and, obviously, other ways of organising societies, communities and so on.

Nobody wants me to ask AI, do they?

(I am aware other avenues of research exist).

I'm probably going to have a solid sprinkling of British monarchs, because reasons, but very happy for recommendations for others as well, especially those outside Europe.

#historysky #academicsky #educationsky

So far I have hastily identified 'feudal monarchy', 'absolutist monarchy' and 'constitutional monarchy' as three different types to have a look at, but this is where some help from #historysky, #academicsky and #educationsky would come in handy to expand further.

Plus, it lends itself to deep dives into case study patches and, let's face it, there's a lot of entertainment value in the lives and personalities of any number of kings, queens and other types of monarchs.

Exploring the nature of monarchy is the theme.

This allows a lot of overview, let's get a feel for the timeline, and allows us to look at the changing nature of concepts and institutions over time, and the forces that drive that.

My first academic love was history. I have a degree in it, and somewhere in the middle of my EFL career I trained as a history teacher.

Finally this morning an idea for how to combine the two has popped into my head (yes, I am aware CLIL exists).

#historysky #educationsky #academicsky

In ascending order (non corpus based, pure idiolect):

A/ one
A couple of
A few
Some
A number of
Quite a few
A large number of
Lots of
A huge number of
A stonking great number of

That course, I usually see the development of evaluative writing (and thinking) as something to be encouraged over time rather than a stick to beat people with from the start.

However, if it comes to it...

I think the answer is going to be to raise the standards expected myself, at least on my courses.

That criteria about 'evaluation' not just 'description' is one which I could much more rigorously enforce.

If you can't do that with AI, or need to actually read and adjust its attempts, well...