Thank you for the comments on the site and our future.
I learn by writing. I can’t string a thought together using spoken words that isn’t out of bounds in a few minutes – that’s my right brain dominant personality in action – and so this written discussion is very important to me. This taking stock is important, and I feel that the more comments we get, the better decisions we can make about how to best use this space.
I like Diane’s idea of maybe turning the forum into a crisis spot for anyone. Just that. Are the other categories currently on the forum adding or detracting from our focus? Just have a kind of “I need an answer now!” kind of thing over there on the forum. Ideas on that?
Back to the Core Values idea, which are at the heart of our moving forward. You see, they are addressed to how to work largely with the 70%+ of students we have who are unmotivated (certainly not through any fault of their own but due to the way they have been trained in schools about what learning is).
So taken in that light, and taking a good long look at the ideas we have created here together over the years, we realize that many of the ideas have nothing to do with how people learn a language when they want to and a lot to do with getting trapped kids to learn. There is a difference.
We must not lose sight of that fact. I never really thought about it until this discussion, and it is a big realization from me. This site is devoted to helping teachers who have a clientele that doesn’t want their services, and in that sense it makes even more valuable those things in the Core Values/Big Ideas list, which (jGR is an example) directly addresses this odd situation we find ourselves in professionally.
Furthermore, this site deals with helping teachers who have bosses who largely don’t understand what they do. That is another huge thing we do, as per what Melissa Snider said this morning here about keeping administrators happy. I mean, why should we struggle trying to do our jobs if we are just going to piss someone off who happens to be the person who holds keys to our financial security in a financially dangerous profession?
So I feel better now, with that new insight about what this site is for, and I would address the group to look upon how we can proceed in that light. How much new stuff can we invent that is only going to pull us away from the gold mine of ideas that we already have, ideas that are proven to help us deal with that odd combination of a few kids who want to learn and the many who don’t? At one point, as per Jim’s comment this morning about this site’s case of acronymitis, do we lose focus and become ineffective in dealing with our clientele and our bosses?
In that light, our group is really unique! Our needs are unique! We are trying to figure out how to use the brilliant ideas of a Carl Jung figure, Stephen Krashen, both much maligned in their careers but seen in later years and in Jung’s case after he was gone and Krashen with each passing day as absolutely brilliant. We are language teachers who use a much attacked way of teaching to teach people how to learn a language and who are employers who for the most part don’t understand what we do.
So what is the best way to use this site to respond to those needs?