Once it is up and running, the subjective classroom is a busy place in which everybody is invited to contribute actively. The focus is on developing skills applied to meaningful content. Individual contributions are essential to the construction of what goes on, and people participate once they understand their voice matters. This is by no means simple for people more familiar with a more directive, objective classroom, but helping them change their perspective, even partially, is a mutually enriching process.

Façons d’apprendre et dissonances scolaires Oui, au commencement était le verbe. Et dans mon cas personnel, le verbe était anglophone. Les adultes nous reprenaient s’ils nous entendaient dire ou nous voyaient écrire I done it au lieu de I did it, mais c’était pour nous obliger à bien parler, à bien écrire. Tout au long […]

Intralingual translation – Students vs Chat GBT When we think of translation in language teaching, it is typically interlingual translation; that is to say, translation between students’ mother tongue and the foreign language they are learning. In France, where I teach English, this sort of translation is rarely used in a language lesson apart from […]

Learning how to begin a story When we start a story, we send out a signal to indicate our presence, get people’s attention, and invite them to connect to something different which is about to start. Once upon a time – or its equivalent – is a widely accepted signal for starting a story. But a […]

Learning to accept being the focus of attention The posts in this section of the blog are about The Subjective Classroom. Students and observers have often said that they find me calm as a teacher. If this is true, then it was by no means a given. I recently ran a short public speaking workshop […]