‘The N factor’: spreading equality in your workplace – by Sarah Priestley

~ GemmaELT ~ Leave a comment

After watching Silvana Richardson’s IATEFL 2016 plenary ‘ The native factor, the haves and have-nots’ this April I immediately asked myself what I could do to raise awareness of some of the issues …

Source: ‘The N factor’: spreading equality in your workplace – by Sarah Priestley

Am I who you think I am?

~ GemmaELT ~ 7 Comments

I don’t generally talk politics but am fed up of all this talk about European migrants.

My mum was an Italian migrant who, at the age of 7, moved to the UKage where she later met my dad. They had me in the UK, my brother and sister in Italy. Does that make me more British than my siblings? Am I allowed to consider myself British?

My great – grandmother on my mother’s side was Italo-American having been born there after her parents went to New York on a ship at the end of the 1800s. What exactly does that make my mum?

My nan on my dad’s side was Irish. Either Tipperary born or the daughter of Irish migrants so… is my dad really English? I mean either way, Pop married a migrant ‘s daughter .

I used to be very proud- I still am but maybe less so now- of my English roots (yes, I’m talking specifically of those roots. My general British roots I’m still Ok with!). I’m extremely embarrassed by all the comments I’ve been reading, and hearing, recently.

I though Italy was bad when it came to commenting on, critisizing, treating non-EU citizens badly- obviously only those who look ‘foreign’ (?!?!) because if you’re Australian, well that’s not a problem.

This week my adult EL students wanted to talk about Brexit. I didn’t. So we have been talking about identity , what it means to them and who they are.  We watched Hetain Patel talk about identity.

Who are we?

Who am I?

Who are you to decide who stays and who goes?

Do It Yourself (& not just on Tuesdays!)

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Hoping to start this soon!

Shut Up & Write Tuesdays

Here at Shut Up & Write Tuesdays we love it when the folks who make up our little community take an idea and run with it. At the moment we’re particularly enamoured with #diysuwt, the hashtag that folks are using to organise their own shut up & write sessions on Twitter.

If you like the Shut Up & Write Tuesdays model, but can’t make it to our sessions or prefer to write on other days, then #diysuwt is for you! Our lovely @SUWTUK host Louca-Mai Brady has put together the following tips, to help you get the hang of it…

  • Use the hashtag to notify others that you are going to be writing, to see if they want to join you, and to let them know when you are starting, finishing, and taking a break
  • Use the Pomodoro format to write in blocks of 25minutes, with a 5minute break between…

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Whose English is it, anyway?

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Great plenary (watched it with Periscope)

Laura Patsko

This weekend I had the great pleasure of attending the second ever Innovate ELT conference in Barcelona, Spain, organised and hosted by ELT Jam and Oxford TEFL – and the great pleasure and honour of opening the main day of the conference by giving the first of three mini-plenaries.

Here’s a video of my 10-minute talk:

(If you can’t see the video embedded in this post, just copy and paste this link into your browser: http://youtu.be/b7_QbFVOQz8)

I enlisted the help of a kind fellow conference-goer/presenter (thanks Chris Farrell!) to broadcast this plenary live using Periscope, which is hugely user-friendly and convenient, but which unfortunately means the video occasionally skips and the sound quality isn’t fantastic. So I’m including here my full script, if you can’t (or just prefer not to) watch the video:

..

Good morning! I’m going to start the day by asking you a question and…

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600 Seconds That Will Eviscerate Ten Minute Takeaways

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So…  I didn’t write this blogpost. I was sharing @michaelgriffin‘s as I think he makes some interesting, and extremely relevant, points. The thing is I haven’t quite sussed out how to manage the blog and I’m not one to read instructions!

 

 

Allow me to confess:  I am not so sure all sessions at ELT conferences need to have a practical takeaway for the audience. I realize this might qualify as #ELTheresy but that is what is on my mind …

Source: 600 Seconds That Will Eviscerate Ten Minute Takeaways

First post: Hello!

~ GemmaELT ~ Leave a comment

Hello and welcome!

I was so excited with the idea of setting up a blog that I  didn’t really stop and think what to write about. Oh dear.  I’ve already added the link to my Twitter account so there’s no going back.

Well that’s it for now… I’ll be back as soon as I have something clever to write about.

Gemma^^