Personal ramblings

The band had a gig last night at the Tickton Grange hotel near Beverley. A few sound and playing hiccups, but the crowd liked it and danced. We've been playign together occasionally for about 10 years now (myself on the drums, Steve Rouse on bass and vocals, Richard Carew on guitar and vocals and Richard Sowerby on lead guitar). Because we only do occasional gigs we enjoy them all the more.

Steve teaches locally at Harrogate Ladies' College, Richard Carew is a C of E priest who works for Archbishop John Sentamu in York, whilst Richard Sowerby is doing a doctorate at Oxford on the subject of angels in medieval literature. Someone's got to do it!

Last night's set list included:

Alright Now
Stuck in the Middle
Sultans of Swing
Fields of Gold
A Hard Day's Night + Paperback Writer
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Smoke on the Water
A Status Quo medley
Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting
American Pie
Hey Jude

Stayed overnight at the hotel, had a leisurely breakfast with our friends the Sowerbys, then took a drive to Bridlington, by the sea. I don't recall having been there before. Usual faded glory of British coastal resorts, but some good beaches, interesting shops among the urban confusion and old-fashioned amusements hoping to get some pre-season income.

*****

We are working our way through the excellent The Wire at the moment. Maybe not quite up there with The West Wing, but remarkably realistic and well-scripted.
Also njoying the Six Nations rugby this year, what with England rediscovering their self-belief and the French playing with some flair too.

Comments

What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought. ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a language).

The 2026 GCSE subject content is published!

Two DfE documents were published today. The first was the response to the consultation about the proposed new GCSE (originally due in October 2021) and the second is the subject content document which, ultimately, is of most interest to MFL teachers in England. Here is the link to the document. We are talking about an exam to be done from 2026 (current Y7s). There is always a tendency for sceptical teachers to think that consultations are a bit of a sham and that the DfE will just go ahead and do what they want when it comes to exam reform. In this case, the responses to the original proposals were mixed, and most certainly hostile as far as exam boards and professional associations representing the MFL community, universities, head teachers and awarding bodies are concerned. What has emerged does reveal some significant changes which take account of a number of criticisms levelled at the proposals. As I read it, the most important changes relate to vocabulary and the issue of topics

La retraite à 60 ans

Suite à mon post récent sur les acquis sociaux..... L'âge légal de la retraite est une chose. Je voudrais bien savoir à quel âge les gens prennent leur retraite en pratique - l'âge réel de la retraite, si vous voulez. J'ai entendu prétendre qu'il y a peu de différence à cet égard entre la France et le Royaume-Uni. Manifestation à Marseille en 2008 pour le maintien de la retraite à 60 ans © AFP/Michel Gangne Six Français sur dix sont d’accord avec le PS qui défend la retraite à 60 ans (BVA) Cécile Quéguiner Plus de la moitié des Français jugent que le gouvernement a " tort de vouloir aller vite dans la réforme " et estiment que le PS a " raison de défendre l’âge légal de départ en retraite à 60 ans ". Résultat d’un sondage BVA/Absoluce pour Les Échos et France Info , paru ce matin. Une majorité de Français (58%) estiment que la position du Parti socialiste , qui défend le maintien de l’âge légal de départ à la retraite à 60 ans,

Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

Search This Blog