My name is Jan. Student of "Faculty of education" Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia.
I am studying E.L. and literature and Slovak language and literature. I started it 'cause I was interested in both languages and mainly literature as such.
I love many American writers, especially Brautigan, Bukowski, Vonnegut etc.
I came across the English since I was a little child and my father used to play old smuggled Yugoslavian LP's with Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and other stuff of that kind. I really loved that music and I still do. So after some basics of E.L. at school, and with help of my dictionary I started looking up for what is it all about... for the meaning of those words and that brought me to English language as such...
I started to teach English three years ago. I am giving some private lessons for children. Last year I got a part time job as a substitute teacher at the local primary school (from 1st. graders to 4th. graders- beginners in therms of English learning) It was a great experience, because there you can clearly see the progress of your learners and you get that feeling that you are doing "something". Something meaningful, relevant.
Profession of teacher in our country is not very lucrative. And recent events are showing that it is going to be even worse. So I do not know what is it going to be after I finish my studies. But I am going to find, or to do "SOMETHING" as I always does.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Hello everyone
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hello jan
ReplyDeletenow that the semester is almost over i have had time to figure out how to find you and reply to your question (i'm the baseball caps and sandals guy).
there is a possibility that you will never read this but as Kurt Vonnegut once said: there is something very liberating about writing something with no intent of ever letting anyone read it (brutally paraphrased).
it depends on the age of the child that you want to make interested in reading. my son is nearly two and he loves reading, we have always read to him and he just understands that it is something that you do. he learns a lot of words from his books and sometimes he even memorizes pieces of the books.
if you are starting with an older kid try giving them something short and fun first, (but it has to have chapters) the habit is what we are trying to form first, and the sense of accomplishment that a kid gets from finishing a chapter book is also very important. once the habit is formed and the child learns that they like to read content will follow.
you mentioned some great music (and some great authors) in your post. one thing that motivated me to read was learning that Jim Morrison read incessantly, and that the music of Tom Waits was greatly influenced by the works of the beat writers (namely ginsberg, and burroughs).
i'm sorry that this reply was so delayed but if you would like to keep in touch and make a like-minded friend i started a facebook group (i hope that you have facebook in your country) here are the links
http://www.facebook.com/groups/139942359448367/
it is called
the rough writers (Gephardt's Fall 2145)
and if that doesn't work (which it might not because i don't really know what i'm doing) you are more than welcome to email me directly at
strigiformes@yahoo.com
you mentioned advertisements, i just renewed my subscription to adbusters magazine which is dedicated to reclaiming the parts of our mind and culture that have been dulled by constant media nonsense.
i hope to hear from you.
-tim ford
Hello there,
ReplyDeletefirs of all, sorry for delayed message, we are also finishing our semester and there's a lot of studying for tests.
But anyway nice to hear from you too. Of course we have facebook. I will check the group you sent me right now.
And now to the point. Never thought about what you said - this 'chapter effect'. Seems like great idea to me. To create a certain kind of satisfaction, the feeling that by finishing the chapter he/she have managed something. It looks like to be very simple but effective. Really it sounds great to me. But it also evokes something else that seems to be a cause of problems.
Do you also have an index of compulsory literature in your schools (I mean the elementary and secondary schools)? Because we have it in our curricula. Nowadays very reduced since I was in that age. And yet even in some cases there is no way how 'to make', 'to force' your students to read a single page. That's because those books are boring, even they are aimed for readers of that age. But those books.. they are 'out' and nowadays kids can't relate to them. But teacher still have to cover them because those are books from index of compulsory literature. And if there is some superintendent who comes to your class and asks if certain books were red you have to show that they were. Of course you can tell him/her anything or you can mark to teacher's documents that your students red the book and the reality may be different. But this is too stressful for me as a teacher to risk the fact that I will read with my students something else than what I was supposed to read. You know I wouldn't mind to read Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings with my students instead of hundred year old book for children by some Slovak writer. But would they then even come across it? I mean when we are talking about some 'fresh' cultural awareness. Because I think that multiculturalism and open mind is a great thing. But it is possible only if you have knowledge and notion about who you are (so you can offer something too and not to only receive, or copy).
Well, that's it. Thanks for your reply and I hope we could stay in touch to exchange some ideas. As I said I'll check that facebook group. And I hope to hear from you too.
By
Jan H.