I have been off work since the end of August. I decided to support my husband, who has had a delicate surgery and wanted to be there for him. I don’t regret it, but sometimes I struggle with not being productive and not using the time efficiently. I need to finish my NQT year ( I have completed ¾ of it), and I feel I need to make the most of this time off work to continue my professional development. Having so much time in my hands is a blessing and a course if I don’t set goals. Hence I signed up for different CPDs and flamenco dance and singing classes. You will probably wonder, “What does Flamenco have to do with CPD?”. You are probably right but I would like to open a parenthesis about this.
The way flamenco classes are structured has many similarities with learning a second language. We learn communication functions where a series of steps are chunks of language that express different things, for instance, highlighting something that the singer says, starting a conversation with the musicians, or calling them back for singing. Like in any other language, Flamenco has an endless variety of vocabulary to express the same concept, depending on our proficiency.
Let’s go back to the point of “using time efficiently”. I have decided to write a short post every day about my CPD courses and my readings on learning a second language and how to teach it, following a neuroscientific approach. My goal, which is also a promise to myself, is to summarise my notes and enrich them with other readings.
I have decided that the pedagogy I am going to adopt for my teaching is the one of Gianfranco Conti and Steve Smith, which I will refer to as Extensive Processing Instructions (E.P.I).
Happy Knowledge 