The Tartan Epsilon made an
appearance once again at the TESOL (Teachers
of Other Languages) Macedonia-Thrace
Conference - this year celebrating its 25th
Jubilee. I thought you might be interested in seeing how our topic came
into being.
It all began with a Facebook
posting of a fellow-EFL teacher who was going through a burn-out phase. Her brave
post had Angeliki and I in long telephone conversations, discussing issues
teachers face. The food analogy cropped up – I’m a great Master Chef fan of
both the Greek and British series – and it went from there.
Below is the abstract we submitted for consideration to the Board.
Proposal for 2018 Abstract TEFL: Fast Food or Gourmet Gastronomy? Food
for Thought!
Abstract : Increasingly we rely on ready-made food and learning packages. Our workshop considers Fast food and Gourmet
food outlets, and their correspondence with teaching establishments.
We look at our profession in comparative
terms, considering actual policies, practices, perceptions which create
problems. Finally, in our very own Bake-Off, we work to produce solutions to
our perceived obstacles, creating recipes for gourmet teaching.
Some time
later we were delighted to receive this response:
Dear Colleagues, The board of TESOL Macedonia-Thrace,
Northern Greece has the pleasure of informing you that your presentation has
been accepted by the conference organising committee. Thank you for your time
and your effort.
Now the topic is still a bit
... er.... half-baked so we have to work on our presentation materials.
Below you see the second task on our participants’ hand-out.
Fast
Food or Gourmet Gastronomy? Food for Thought J. Macphail, A. Apostolidou
A2
Perceptions, Practices and Problems in our
profession
รจ Match
FF with GG items
Fast Food
1. Heating/rehashing,
same old - routine lesson; Tuesday: grammar
2. Prepackaged
goods - course-book used regardless and unquestioningly
3. Bums-on-seats
– listen to parents, knee-jerk reaction, no overall policy, chance punters
4. Exam fodder, blinkered approach,
‘finish’ English, competitive
Gourmet
a) Pursuing a goal for development,
all-round competence, continual progress. If for career, highly motivated,
specific needs, communicative purposes, personal
b) C/book may
be basic ingredient but with value-added creativity
c) Creating
something unique: respond to occasion, inspiration, variety
d) Form a
queue, dears! Good name, quality service
- attracts business
(Answers : 1.
c 2.b 3.d 4a)
We
prepare more detailed notes for ourselves to refer to while presenting, noting
the input stages, who’s presenting and the power-point projections.
FF&GG
Presenter Notes
Stages: A Prof. Analogies; B Issues
Identified; C Cuisine Choices D Ingredients E Cook up
Posters-> issue+cuisine+ingredients->assemble solution; F Digest/ discuss
A PROFESSIONAL
ANALOGIES: JOAN (start with
auctioneer analogy)
A1 Contrast
FF&GG ( on PP)
In the workshop, participants first select an Issue relevant to their teaching context which places the quality
of teaching/learning on the Fast Food end of the spectrum. Next our Cuisine Choices offer aspects from the professional
literature that relate to the issue, whether student, parent or environment based.
These aspects will inform how the issue is to be dealt with.
To help in this process, we provide a menu of potential Ingredients which can help deal with
the issue.
Angeliki rises at 5 a.m. on Saturday, catching the early flight to
Thessaloniki, and we put the final touches on the workshop cards where our ‘chefs’
will cook up their Recipe to ensure
Gourmet professional service is being offered.
Despite the cold and sleet, we arrive at the venue and enjoy the warmth of our TESOL community – some others from Athens, as well as from Italy, Turkey and Bulgaria.
It’s time for our gig and the beauty of our session design
is that after our initial input, we leave the chefs to work in groups to
concoct their recipes. Below we see them hard at work then, having completed the
task, they share their ideas.
There were lots of interesting sessions and, at the end of a long day, we
were all very happy to have some nibbles and a glass of wine to celebrate TESOL
Macedonia-Thrace’s Jubilee celebration. Sincere thanks go to all the committee members
who made the conference possible. And we welcome in the newly-elected Board who
will very shortly begin the undertaking of organizing their conference in
spring 2019!
