Environmental English #10-Coursebook Footprint/
First Advertisment
You just don’t have to Kill Trees to get your point across.
What’s on the Agenda for this week?
· Coursebook Footprint
· First Advertisment……
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Summer is here and some are gone and some are staying around for a while. That’s always the way it is. Some leave happy and some leave sad. Whatever situation you are in, go with peace and love in your hearts and love your students unconditionally. Oh yeah, My Mantra (one of many), try not to kill too many trees.
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Coursebook Footprint
What footprint does our coursebook leave? I am printing with permission of a posting by Robert Haines.
"How big do I want my coursebook footprint to be?"
Let's run with the analogy, shall we...
The extent to which a language learning course is comprised of a linear syllabus, interspersed by easily quantifiable tests, all based on the contents of coursebook pages, in whatever order, determines the coursebook footprint we leave behind as we move through our educational ecosphere.
Grammar McNuggets, traditionally extracted from published coursebooks, leave a deep footprint (not to mention their *carbon footprint*), less desirable to sustainable learning communities that thrive on conversation-driven, emergent grammar, an organic compound with a substantially lower coursebook footprint (and considerably less CO2 output). We can reduce the risk of severe failure in the cycle of 'agricultural' (i.e., organic) learning that has sustained communities for centuries when we decrease our reliance on the industrial model of education so prevalent among current 'best' practices.
While technology has a role to play in safeguarding our learning environment for future for language learners, it will ultimately come down to the grassroots efforts of teachers and students, individually and collectively, drawing upon naturally occurring resources such as conversation stemming from curiosity about ourselves and the world around us.
We can reduce our dependency on 'foreign' resources by keeping language learning local as we consider the global implications of our actions.
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Wanna FREE Cat…..
This comes to us from Sarah who has this wonderful cat to give away for free. Her words, exactly…
"No cat is ordinary". Boots is simply sweet for a wild wadi boy cat. Boots is also,regal and gentle and loves to play chase the mouse...LOL! Surprise, surprise.
He is spayed, dewormed, shot and clean...a perfect Tom now! more LOL. (My comment: Guys don’t do that to other Guys. It’s always the women that spay males. It’s the Guys code.” Leave each other alone)
If you have any other questions, please e-mail Sara- his kind and very generous keeper.
You don’t have to kill the trees to see the Forest.
