miércoles, 23 de enero de 2013

And a Merry 2013 to you all

by Liam Bourret-Nyffeler

From a cursory glance at the blog statistics and a few comments made by personal acquaintances, we have more than zero followers. So, it's time to kick things off again for the new year.

If you have come here from the new shiny website, welcome one and all.

This blog was envisioned as a means to ramble semi-aimlessly about the things we love here: Language, teaching and our students.

The original intention was to update weekly, but with everything else in life piling on top of itself like a traffic jam this will become a monthly effort. In terms of language, the updates concerned will deal with certain things that you can see in the English language itself. Perhaps a funny coincidence with another language, or something philosophical.

The next month is set to update on the ongoing gamification (I'm gong to stick with this spelling from now on) of the school. This is something that sees more TV time these days but if your not familiar with the concept there are a couple of blog entries from earlier that you can read. Those deal with my first attempt at motivating students through points systems that focused on giving more autonomy to the students by allowing them to earn point through work to then spend them on special rewards such as making posters, or watching a movie.
I have made huge leaps in finding out what works and what quickly gets overly complex so don't worry if you find the previous updates get too bogged down in detail. I've been giving talks

If there's enough interest I'll put up something newer.

Lastly, the hope is that students who wish to write poetry or a story have a space to get their material out there.

My hope is also that other members of staff add something too. So with a little luck, we'll have another writer here on the blog.

Best wishes to you all for 2013