Category: motivation

motivation, my story, professional development32 Comments

Just Say Yes

James Taylor

About a year ago, I made a decision. It was the kind of decision that people have made careers out of, especially the writer Danny Wallace who coincidentally was at my university at the same time as me. Since he studied Journalism and became a writer and I studied Media, specifically television, and became a teacher of English as a foreign language, I’m going to assume that his days at the University of Westminster were rather more productive than mine. Continue reading “Just Say Yes”

Learner Diaries, motivation19 Comments

Learner Diaries: Getting to Know You

James Taylor

Last week one of the students in my Portuguese class invited everyone around for dinner and not just any dinner, but my favourite Brazilian dish, moqueca de peixe. Unfortunately, I don’t have a great rapport with the other students in my class. This is because they are all a little more advanced than me and we don’t really talk to each other in class as most of our conversations are through the filter of our teacher. However, they seem like nice people and I can never resist that particular recipe. Furthermore, it was a very generous invitation and it would have been churlish of me not to go without a good reason, so I went.

Fish and shrimp moqueca - Day66
Moqueca de piexe, courtesy of Carla Arena (@carlaarena).

Continue reading “Learner Diaries: Getting to Know You”

motivation15 Comments

How Would You Teach Carlos Tevez?

James Taylor

  For you non-football fans, Carlos Tevez is an Argentinian footballer who currently plays for Manchester City in England. He has lived in the UK since September 2006, playing for West Ham and Manchester United before he joined their bitter city rivals. He has never seemed entirely settled in the country, and now his family are living back in Argentina, including his two daughters. He often talks about leaving to be closer to them. On May 19th @MundoAlbicelest tweeted the following: I couldn’t help but imagine what Tevez has been like in the classroom. What kind of learning experiences has … Continue reading How Would You Teach Carlos Tevez?

motivation2 Comments

From Morrissey to Marmite – Why You Need To Help Your Students Find Their Passion

James Taylor
Morrissey, the British singer best known as the singer of the Smiths, is one of those decisive characters that is ever loved or hated in roughly equal measure. We have a phrase for that in British English, the Marmite effect, named after the particularly pungent yeast-based spread that seems to divide the public in two. This is something that Marmite themselves haven’t been afraid to exploit, as you can see below: