Ordinal numbers

[Richmond]

On 03/07/14 23:46, Paul Hibbert wrote:
> On 2014-07-03, at 12:44 PM, Richmond <richmondmathewson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Now I had a choice of things to say at that moment:
>>
>> 1. "Because I'm a slob who didn't think about that problem." [possibly the only reasons I didn't use this
>> one was that it was a bit early in the morning for honesty, and, as a Bulgarian learning English she
>> doesn't know the word 'slob']
>>
>> 2. "Because I didn't think you would go beyond 'third'"
>>
>> Neither of which are frankly satisfactory.
> But isn't a teacher's default answer; "Because you need to learn to walk before you can run."?
>
> Paul
>
>

That has never, ever struck me as a satisfactory answer to a child who 
is not some
moronic ant in a grinding-mill of a school.

While my school is a language school (English as a Foreign Language) 
thoughtful parents send their
children to me because, instead of just force-feeding the children 
undigested factoids, I force
then to think. Every summer I go 'extreme' and use one of the best tools 
I know to get kids thinking: Livecode.

Now, when a kid begins to think ahead of a lesson I have a straight choice:

1. Squash them there and then; turning them into jolly little factory 
workers.

2. Encouraging their initiative.

Well, as a large part of my own education was blighted by Mr Gradgrind's 
latter day relatives,
I have no intention of repeating their disgusting suppression of 
intelligence on my pupils.

-----------------

I have always thought of myself as a repressed educational t*rr*rist: 
longing to blow up schools!

[Hey; let's see if this message bounces because of the "T" word: perhaps 
I'll bung a couple of stars
in there to confuse the bots.]

Obviously that is unrealistic and would cause even more suffering than 
those schools cause already.

So, my "revolution" is to teach children English in a different way to 
what they get in both their schools
and the other EFL schools that are seriously big business hereabouts. I 
get children coming to me
every year after 3-4 years in one of the EFL "tanks"; they have all 
sorts of fancy diplomas.

Usually the reason why parents bring their kids to me, as that after 3-4 
years in a tank they go on holiday to England, Greece or Turkey: at 
which point the penny drops: although kiddo has the proper
way to form the Past Perfect Continuous Passive inside his/her head: 
they are incapable of asking the way to the bus station, ordering a 
glass of lemonade, or complaining in the hotel that there is no hot water.

So; just as my Great Grandfather, Tom Elkington, was a horse-whisperer 
in Norfolk; I have to do
something "different" with those children. So; 3-4 levels of heavy 
communicative approach and process
writing; followed by upper level English coupled with the "Joy" of For . 
. . Next loops does wonders.

------------------------------

When my "champion" went home and built a data-base sort of program in 
Livecode for her Granddad to
keep track of the backgammon league he runs in his small town, I knew 
that something really good
was happening: especially when it turned out that Granddad was a retired 
programmer who blew his mind that his 12 year old grand-daughter could 
do that after 6 hours of instruction.

Richmond.