My ruminations from the world of Dip Ed

…because I don’t get any more spam. Consequently, I had to remember to search for the blog, then sign in to it. Anyway, I was really, really, really, jack of the spam, so that’s a good thing.

Today, after some virtuous procrastination*, I’m back on the ESL essay - I want to make some headway there. The only pain is that I’ve hit the dippy-dopey part of Brown’s textbook, in which he describes different aspects of the ESL classroom, lesson etc in very general terms. I’m very familiar with the ESL classroom and don’t need to be told to make it interesting, or that our job as teachers is to help students challenge any oppressive structures they may encounter in society or elsewhere in their lives.  I’m all for people not being oppressed, but the vague, predigested nature of Brown’s comments on this get on my wick. Am I supposed to help students overthrow the ANZUS treaty? Perhaps I should be helping the Chinese ones overcome censorship and state brutality, in which case I could really really use some help from Brown on how to do this. Perhaps I could just make a little announcement in each class about the forms of oppression faced in each country…..do China on Monday, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Vietnam on Wednesday and so on until I’d covered all of them. The only problem with that is that I’d probably be unemployed by Thursday at the latest, which I’d find oppressive.

I had enough of this lazy, thoughtless crap earlier on in the Dip Ed. I’m a lefty myself and am alive to the various forms of oppression operating (sexism, racism, the United States, government as practiced by China, Rupert Murdoch….to name but a few), but the lazy way it’s dished out annoys me.  Grrr - Brown can and has done better.  Anyway, now back to study,

yours wearing the lucky headband of studiousness,

Floyd

Right now, I’m wearing my Yushima Tenjin headband. I’ve discovered that it says ‘I will smash through the entrance examination’ - not entirely apt, but I don’t think they make an “I will smash throught the Diploma of Education at Univestiy of New England Armidale’ headband. Anyway, in the interests of smashing through, I’ve registered to a de-spamming service called ‘API Key’ - we’ll see if that gets me anywhere.  My next action is to look at the ESL assignment and make a rough plan, so my reading starts going somewhere - at the moment it’s too vague.

If I can post a headband wearing pic from the ASUS eeepc, I’ll do so.
in non diped news, I’m reading The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens and good stuff they are too. The jokes are corny and slowly set up, but very funny, besides which the book’s so old, I think it might be the first time those jokes were made

resisting ’sexchoolonline’ (which sounds like kind of fun), getting ready for work and thinking about a day of study tomorrow. Plan: drive down to the Brighton Library with my books and laptop, work equally on TESOL and Special Ed, bonus, treat self to coffee before the library opens and pick up a Shakespeare CD (Brighton library has all Shakespeare plays on CD).

So that’s it - how’s your long weekend looking?

S till on my Ennis/Pindar frenzy; just finished ’streets of Laredo’ which is corny as hell, but fun and beautifully illustrated. Odeswise, Pindar is the usual mix of well-written sucking up to his sponsors and concise versions of myths

grggh because:

a) there are two noisy teenagers studying together near me in the library - shut up or go and get a room, is my feeling. It’s too bad we don’t have love hotels in this country

b) I’m way later than I wanted to be because I was charging up my lovely asus eee.

c)I’ve really had enough of the s

well, other than that, it’s a triumph! I’m here, I’ve got the books and I can use the wireless thanks to the nice librarian called Libby

I’m in japan, about to go home and I’ve gotten a surprising amount done, given all the various distractions and things I must do…reading an esl textbook and as ever amazed by how much we don’t know about esl
so home soon. I really want to fix this spam problem

I’m going to do some study!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the spam - I’ll fire off another ‘please help me de spam the comments section’ mail after this. Enough is enough!

can’t get into the Special Education material - I don’t mean that I don’t like it, I mean I can’t find the bloody stuff on the CDROM or online.  Everyone else is posting thoughtful swotty comments about Brian or Lea’s casestudies and I’m not.  Aaargh - so will contact the teacher asap to fix this.

Good new_ I’m back at work teaching IELTS for four days. Bad news: I’m back at work and have less time for study. I’m still with the exercise frenzy - the plan is to lose 2 kilos in the next five weeks.