I subscribe to way too many Facebook groups. I need to stop it actually, they’ve become like women’s magazines. But worse. You keep seeing the same things come up over and over again, but instead of ignoring them you can actually have a say, which is giving yourself the delusion of helpfulness, but actually the smartest person in the room of Facebook groups is not … Continue reading Educational advice – from Facebook?
New year, new chances, old problems. The perennial one of scheduling library time. I kind of started commenting on people’s posts and questions on FaceBook and then decided it merited a blog post on its own. There is also a whole discussion on libraries and librarians going at the IBO level where priorities, recognition, roles, responsibilities etc. are also being hashed out. But coming from … Continue reading Scheduling – priorities and dissonance
I received an email last night from someone who had read my blog on Building a LOTE collection in an international school and she quite rightly pointed out that it’s a relatively easy thing for a librarian thing to do. Here is her question: I am a school librarian in an IB candidate school. We are trying to find strategies to promote mother tongues within the school. … Continue reading L1 and the role of the school
With view to the fact that our school is celebrating uniting nations week in October, this year we’re trying to add a literary bent to the proceedings. There are a number of steps to this, which are easy or complicated, depending on how “ready” your collection is. A little while back, I created resource lists on Destiny, and a visual search button for “read around … Continue reading Read around the World
As a teacher-librarian who still has one foot deeply immersed in academia I spend a considerable time wondering if the things we do are the “right” things. And that’s before I’ve opened any social media related to the profession where people are posting articles about the wrongs of everything from levelled reading to literature circles, reading competitions, to accelerated reading programs, to not ‘over’ encouraging … Continue reading A short tale of grit and resilience
Deep into my readings on this topic and it’s not making me feel particularly cheerful. The statistics are appalling. On the one hand one should be glad that there are enough people who care enough to keep count. On the other, it doesn’t appear that the counting leads to any measurable improvement. Here are the statistics from 2002 to 2014 from Cooperative Children’s Book Center School … Continue reading Diversity and "multicultural" literature
I’m always somewhat surprised at how many parents assume that the school will take care of all aspects of their children’s education. Perhaps I’ve been around the block (or world) too long to take anything for granted, or maybe I care too much or have made too many mistakes along the way. Or it could be that I’m at the point where a “little knowledge … Continue reading Taking ownership and control over language learning
In the last few weeks I’ve been lucky to attend the lectures of three specialists in the field of language, bilingualism and mother tongue. Before I forget the salient points of their presentations I thought I’d write it up and do a little compare and contrast and provide some links for further investigation and thought. Does this have much / anything to do with the … Continue reading A linguistic trio …
Virginia Rojas Before I embark on my summary, here are a couple of links written by other people quoting her, from Patana, the Telegraph, and some very useful myth busting on language (worth a read). Rojas commenced her talk by going through the common myths on children and language (see myth busting above). She then explained the 5 types of bilinguals (for more you can read this summary) … Continue reading A linguistic trio – Part 1 – Rojas
Crisfield (Blog) Like Rojas, Crisfield began by dispelling some of the common “mummy myths” around language, particularly that it was easier to learn for children – she said something that every parent with older children will have personal experience of – “no it’s still hard, but they’re just too small to complain”. Although they are more phonetically sensitive and therefore more likely to speak other languages … Continue reading A linguistic Trio – part 2 Crisfield
