The studies are about to start and I am so very confused… which methods to choose, which coursebooks to use, which topics to cover… Every year it is the same and the closer it gets to the beginning the more unprepared I feel despite piles of handouts, worksheets, tons of videos and folders of recordings.
This year seems harder than all the previous ones. I believe I got to the point when a teacher understands that they know nothing! The principle of «knowing more equals not knowing even more» becomes tangible as soon as one starts reading through hundreds of pages of newly-discovered and old-but-renovated approaches.
Today I spent hours putting down the advantages and disadvantages of Dogme, TPRS, Case Method, CLIL, PBL. I have even watched some «power» language classes, looked through materials celebrating «efortless» language learning, which I am not going to advertise here since I am pretty sceptical about the idea. I got so enthusiastic that I completely forgot about my initial goal and instead of getting practical ideas I moved to reading through endless theories of «progressive» teaching. Now it’s almost midnight and I will have a lot of time to proceed this information to come up with some unexpectedly brilliant idea tomorrow. Let it be an idea for a new course, or for a way of blending different approaches, or for a new approach! Hoping for the best, I’m going to have a long conversation about all the above with the pillow now… Good night!
