Summer 2016

This has been a fascinating year and end of Summer. During the Summer holidays I spent the first 2 weeks of July taking a course in Ireland, learning among Irish teachers interested in the Learn Together’s Ethical education framework-learning about equality in Irish schools.

And, I have just arrived from Toledo, Spain, after spending a few days taking part in a gathering about alternative education. Among some speakers and guests I had the chance to meet Michael Newman, former teacher in Summer hill and Peter and Christel Hartkamp (Pedagogy of trust) from Holland. During this time I had the chance to take part in debates and discussions with many people and families (about 450 people coming from many part of Europe) about the problems and possible solutions to our current challenges in education in Europe. If i had to choose one aspect of the gathering i would definitely say that the highlight of the gathering was to meet Home educated kids living in Spain- who were taking part in discussions and able to speak and understand more than 3 languages fluently and showing a clear vision of their own future. A joy!

Looking back, my work during this academic year has been very challenging. I had very young learners facing greater school pressures and loaded with home work. Also, GCSEs students having unreasonable amount of hassle from their schools that seemed to be blaming the student for not performing well- not so much their own teaching! But the tuition itself has been steady with brilliant projects along side tests and exams, and as predicted everyone got their desired grades at the end. So so proud and so so tired of these exams and tests. The odd thing is that I seem to have some kind of talent to support teens dealing with tests, and all learners seem to gain their marks. 

As an example, this year one of my tutees was getting marks inside the D-E bounderies. In January there was an email from the school teacher to the parents warning that the learner was not performing well and not taking part actively in school. This email made things worst for the student. I asked the parents for permission to approach the school asking for a revision of the papers and I proved that the school made a mistake when correcting the papers. During an school in-house test in April, the same learner gained a really high mark A*. This tutee was taking tuition fully online for one hour a week via webex and there was a vast amount of work on the google doc we shared that really helped with some of the preparation. Also, we skyped with a guest from Spain and the learner lead an interview in real time via Skype. In May I increased tuition during half-term to cover work that was not covered by the school (i will include samples of work in the coming blog entry).

During the Summer term I usually have more time and spend time designing resources for TES, I created the following resources, some for self-direct learning, that are currently for sale: Gustos y sabores  and Spanish Literacy monosyllables 

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Finally, for some time now I have been developing an increasing interest in democratic methodologies, home education, ethical education and digital literacies.  Blended learning and helping learners building international links has always been central to my work. In the past, and as part of a distance-learning Masters degree in association with the Universidad de León,in 2005 I carried out a research project using a democratic approach called Community Language Learning. In this approach there is no syllabus or textbook to follow. It is the learners themselves who determine the content by means of meaningful conversations. It incorporates translation, transcription and recording techniques.

During this coming year I intend to use some of these ideas, taking the learner’s voice as central and as equal partner.