Pathway 3 Unit 4 Reading 2

Stupefied, or the throes of Functional Stupidity at Work

A great article that sums up the tragedy very nicely.
https://aeon.co/essays/you-don-t-have-to-be-stupid-to-work-here-but-it-helps

Teaching with Video

I stumbled upon a post which is I feel is highly inspiring. This is by

Rachael Roberts

Teacher, teacher trainer and ELT materials writer

http://elt-resourceful.com/2014/10/23/youve-got-to-have-a-dream-a-free-downloadable-lesson/ 

You’ve got to have a dream: a free downloadable lesson

Photo Credit: Arya Ziai via Compfight cc

A free downloadable lesson, based around a Russian advertising video for shampoo. Despite what is aims to sell, the video is actually quite inspiring, with the story of a girl who succeeds against the odds through pure grit and determination. Students start by watching the video and trying to guess what it is trying to advertise (so don’t tell them!). They then try to reconstruct the story in pairs, watching the video again to check their ideas.  The lesson then goes on to focus on a range of linkers used to give reasons or results, make contrasts and show when something happened.  Students then work with some vocabulary to describe personality, and then put it all together by writing the story of the video, using the linkers and the vocabulary where appropriate. Finally, there are some quotes about success for them to discuss.

The lesson would be suitable from B1 upwards.

You're not too dark!

"Don't worry mate, you're not too dark to.. (a little guessing on your part eh?) to find a job." This was what a previous work colleague told me in a reassuring tone. His matter-of-fact attitude left me in the lurch. This was not exactly the kind of support I was expecting. How does my skin colour -something I did not choose or set as an objective to achieve, feature as my unique selling point? This was another absurdity of the job market which eclipses many others in the inanity of its premises. People may wish to argue me down with talk about meritocracy and how it guides choices of recruitment and retention; to you. dear HR Platos, I say, tongue in cheek, "don't worry mates, you're white enough to afford saying such bull droppings -painful euphemism!" 
I have dealt with HR people all my professional life. It has been often a prosaic tale of unwarranted mistrust. A typical member of this mildly maleficent clan is a below-average Everyman with a fail-proof, play-it-safe strategy: (White): Looks-Passport-Salary. (Not White): Experience-Education-Attitude

I find the above illustration stunning: no intersection, no overlap, no duplication. These are two different processes for God's sake! Isn't the recruitment objective supposed to be the same? These HR people started to earn my admiration: How could they juggle the different demands of a colour-coded staffing strategy?  

while you are away
my heart comes undone
slowly unravels
in a ball of yarn
the devil collects it
with a grin
our love
in a ball of yarn

he'll never return it

so when you come back
we'll have to make new love

La Vita di Adele - Clip - I Follow Rivers

In a serious relationship with this scene :}

airtightinteractive.com, what a great idea!

airtightinteractive.com displays search results visually as in the shot below:

If you are a teacher, you'll immediately appreciate the relevance of this tool for brainstorming ideas, which is by far the most difficult stage in any writing lesson. Teaching students how to generate ideas is a perennial source of agony for teachers: how to make sure students' knowledge and experience match the requirements of a given piece of writing? Age and cultural background do not lend much help here; similarly, exposure to mass media seems to leave students blank and untouched. All of this usually boils down to a casual "we don't have ideas." What happens next is episode after episode of betraying the course objectives, where the teacher sinks into a teach-answer-teach loop: instruction-no reaction/call for help-modelling of answer-instruction etc. It's a tale of helplessness disguised as a-matter-of-fact teaching routine which seems to satisfy students, poor vessels to be filled to the brim with facts, to quote Dickens in Hard Times. 
Let's keep literature at bay or we will be dragged into the existential Why I am teaching writing at all?

airtightinteractive.com presents an interesting tool that might alleviate this existential angst.This is called a related_tag_browser, a sophisticated geeky  term that means an application that collects search data and presents it visually. Interestingly enough, the results appear as if organised in a typical graphic organizer which teachers commonly use to brainstorm ideas. What's more, in the centre of the diagram you can find pictures of the key words pasted at the perimeter. There is only one problem, which I guess you have already found: where can the student step in?