Building a for/against IELTS task-2 essay

• group members each write a one-sided essay for or against set topic
• publish in forum or similar ¿resources too?
• read others' responses + comment (Ss to identify value to them in this)
• select essay of opposing view / select two essays of opposing views
• work in pairs/alone to combine essays using for/against structure
• pair-members generate their own conclusion to the new essay
• and make interior adjustments to their text as necessary
  
  

metaphor & Paul Ricoeur

The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language by Paul Ricoeur
Got this in response to the Ricoeur's colours lesson seed that I came across in last years scheme of work for the IELTS group. Fascinating stuff, and has a feel of having been carefully edited to maximise reader-friendliness: the presentation of arguments and ideas is coherently presented - something I'm grateful for.
How or why the people mentioned in the book began to write in such detail about the issues they covered is just beyond my ken, and perhaps much of it goes above my head. If asked to explain what I was reading I'd often be at a bit of a loss, and as to how it's relevant to my situation as a language teacher, well at times this might seem contentious despite the obvious connection.
It is really interesting though to follow along somebody else's opening up of the ways that language is seen to operate through this historical examination of the analysis of  metaphor, and I'm enjoying steadily chipping away at the text in odd, free moments that come up during the week.
The original aim was to skip through the book in time for planning next week's IELTS session, using the colours<>personal metaphor idea, but this just ain't going to happen ;-) Maybe after the summer I'll be in a better position to pick up on what my idea was in this respect.

June already

The certFE course continues, the assignment pile slowly diminishes - IELTS has finished until the autumn - in dire need of the holiday in July when we'll head out to Germany for five weeks - lesson planning is really hard to get excited about now - just want the course to be over and done now and to get on with other stuff.

What would that lesson look like?

A newly qualified EFL teacher took over an IELTS class last year which included a conversation class. The first few efforts they flung at it were pretty dire, following a predictable format and mode of delivery. Equally predictable was that the class quickly got fed up with it all. So, for the rest of the term the teacher tried to vary their source material. Things improved a bit, but it was still a pretty bumpy ride for all concerned.

From this though, came the recognition that as a teacher one can generate only so many different types of lesson. Many teaching books out there seem to follow set patterns, whether of content, or of layout, or of presentation mode. It seems clear that there is a mindset at large here, one that understands a recognizable pattern as being a good thing. But good for who?

As creatures of habit, we can find familiarity to be a thing of comfort, arousing feelings of safety, of warmth and of well-being. As students in a classroom these psychological elements can foster a productive learning environment, the proviso being of course, that the familiar relationships involved are positive ones. Clearly in the example above, the students were living out the opposite state, one of familiarity breeding contempt.

And so developed the idea of teachers planning a lesson as if by someone other than themselves, of taking on the persona of Einstein, of Plato, of Joan of Arc. Or that the lesson be inspired by something that fires their imagination, lending structure, suggesting presentation strategies. Now what would that lesson look like?