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Songsmith Mary Gauthier storytelling under the Southern Cross
I don't normally do Christmas songs, having sung one too many carols as a youngster. I see them as decorative and unifying, but in the background. Yet it is Christmas again, and they're back. To continue my Songsmiths series, I'd like to share with you "Christmas in Paradise", a song by Mary Gauthier (pronounced go-shay, s'il vous plaît). Enjoy an alternative Christmas with Mary!
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Songsmith Steve Marriott exploring tenderness with Humble Pie
I only had one Humble Pie record in my collection. It was the single "Black Coffee", which I'd seen them perform on The Old Grey Whistle Test. The singer, Steve Marriott, was in great voice. Then I did something which happens so rarely now : I flipped it over to see what they put on the B-side. I was expecting another soulful rock tune and I got "Say No More", a song which stopped me in my tracks with its tenderness and desperation. This song opens the Songsmiths series about tunes which continue to play on our inner juke box.
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Benjamin Zephaniah, outspoken word artist
Benjamin Zepahaniah, British Carribean dub poet, actor, recipient of no fewer than 16 honorary doctorates, professor of poetry and creative writing, left us yesterday. Already gone, but his work lives on. He encouraged people to read and he made people listen. Here's one of his poems, Talking Turkeys, ready for use in the Subjective Classroom. Bon appétit!
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Dublin Lad Learns Morse
Ken Kenny, our Dad, was many things in his lifetime, and among them was Marine Radio Officer in the Merchant Navy. He could always be coaxed into talking about the years he spent at sea. He loved telling people about this period because it took him and his listeners on a journey to places we'd all heard of, but that he'd been to, and come away with a story, or sometimes several. Here's one of those stories. A chance to explore the world of a Merchant Marine Radio Officer.
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Saying it in your own words
To use or not to use ChatGBT : that is the question for a connected world to answer. Here is a report from the Subjective Classroom which looks at precisely this, but in a way that turns the tables on the usual interaction with the AI robot. This report gives you Marvin Gaye, Roman Jakobson and ChatGBT all in the same text. Huh? Yes, that is what you read, and there are more surprises waiting for you. Welcome to intralingual translation in the age of artificial intelligence with "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" as the original soundtrack.
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Tackle and scrum – learning to play rugby
How do people learn to play rugby? In my case, it was at school in England with John Davies, scrum half with London Welsh, who was also the PE teacher at my school. My learner's tale takes the form of two poems - both also available in audio versions.
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Rock At The Oval 30th September 1972
Rock at The Oval?! I rejoiced when I discovered that the 1972 Readers' Poll Winners Concert for my favourite weekly music paper Melody Maker would be rocking The Oval Cricket Ground in South London on September 30th with Focus, Genesis, Jack Bruce, Wishbone Ash, Emerson Lake and Palmer. Memories of a great day out and a historic concert.
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The John Martyn & Danny Thompson Moment
At Reading Festival in 1973, I saw John Martyn play live with Danny Thompson. The music came from a place I didn't know existed. I was seeing Martyn play his acoustic guitar but I was hearing sounds that didn't match. The music from the guitar came in waves, an alien language with more than one voice speaking at once. Only two musicians on stage but they sounded like more. And John's voice was anything but ordinary, like someone emerging from deep sleep, a prolonged period in zero gravity or a night on the razzle. Let me try and tell you the story.
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Smoke Signals in the classroom
Storytelling in the language classroom is a powerful tool. But what happens if nobody wants to listen? Or if, at least, that's how it feels? The problem is often not with the story. It's about the smoke signal you're sending out : people can't see the signal, all they can see is the smoke. Here are some ways to change that.
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Slow down, teacher, enjoy the journey
As a beginning teacher, I regularly had uncomfortable moments in class when I suddenly realised that everyone was listening to me. I could command people's attention in such moments, but was slightly overwhelmed by being the focus. I didn't exactly panic. However, I did feel myself reel a little as a rush of energy caused a slight dizziness to the head, coupled with a sense of a sudden stuffiness in the room. It was like being caught in a traffic jam of my own making. The flow was gone. All I could do was pull over to the side of the road for a moment and let the flow pick…
