Category: Weekly Lessons

Structured weekly English lessons, reflections, stories, and study prompts from Teacher Joseph.

958 Weekly Lesson Audio: Remembrance Sunday

Weekly Lesson: Remembrance Sunday. For study until 17th of November 2024 Subject : Remembrance Sunday Audio : On usual social media platforms Remembrance Sunday In the month of November, on the Sunday closest to the 11 th , Remembrance Sunday takes place.

For study until 17th of November 2024

Subject: Remembrance Sunday

Audio: On usual social media platforms

Remembrance Sunday

In the month of November, on the Sunday closest to the 11th, Remembrance Sunday takes place. The day is supposed to commemorate the War Dead across the Commonwealth and British territories but for younger generations it is often perceived as incredibly dull.  Since it is a historic ceremony involving the dead, it has been enshrined in our communities as being very important, reminding us that democracy is not an automatic right, it is something which was fought for at a great price with a loss of life.  Our Leaders gather at War Memorials up and down the country and lay flowers, remembering all those who have died. In these days where we celebrate diversity and peace, ceremonies like this can seem a bit icky.  In fact for most of us the ickiness of the day sits in direct contrast with modern living.

The ceremony represents the face of Britain as it was in 1919 when the first took place on Armistice Day in 1919. Over time it has been expanded to include the Second World War and other conflicts in the World.  Little has changed in the ceremony since 1919, the three faces of the Government  all come together. The Monarchy, the Church and the Military all parade through the streets, looking like a reminder of days gone by.  Despite the Government telling us that Britain is now multicultural and politically correct, the ceremony itself is embarrassingly “white”.

When I was a little boy, in the 1980s, there were still people around who remembered the First World War known as World War One and Remembrance Sunday seemed much more important than it is today. World War One still encroaches on our lives today as well; If you work for a company here, you may be asked on certain days to observe a two minute silence to remember the War Dead on anniversaries of World War One.  If I had a penny for every time I have been asked to respect a two minute silence to remember the war, I would be a very rich man by now.

I stopped commemorating  Remembrance Sunday some years ago, I really dislike the two minute silence part at 11am where we are told we have to “shut up” for two minutes to remember those who died in the Wars. That may have worked some years ago but these days trying to get anyone to focus on something for 2 minutes is not likely to happen.

I find the whole thing rather fake,  I mean billions are spent on having ceremonies remembering the Glorious Dead from the old British Empire, why not just look at stopping war. Would that not be a better idea or forget about the ceremony and give the money to a charity instead? 

Then there’s the Royal commentary about the King and Queen who are of course leading the ceremony in London dressed in black wearing poppies on their jackets. A poppy is a little flower that you can see everyone wearing the week before the ceremony it is a little paper flower which is bright red and sometimes has a bit of green at the back. It is used as a symbol of remembering our War Dead.

Apparently this year our Queen has a chest infection so she cannot attend.  It is a very sombre affair,  my Grandmother used to say our Royals all look like horses with their rather protruding teeth and many people here refer to them as “horsey” – meaning they have horse features. I can imagine them nibbling on the flowers rather than laying them at the cenotaph.

 It’s hard to escape, every news channel in the UK has live coverage from London showing our Royals arriving looking more like they are going to the Oscars rather than the Cenotaph.

“And today the Queen is wearing the pearls gifted to her from the Sultan of Oman… and the king’s coat was last seen worn at his Mother’s funeral…”. It is the epitome of boredom, kitsch and a ceremony which feels wrong in so many ways. It really is just icky.

Last year I forgot about the ceremony and tried to listen to radio on my phone at 11.01am. Getting no sound I immediately uninstalled the app, still heard nothing and blamed my Bluetooth buds. Just before giving up and threatening to reset the whole phone, I heard a trumpet and realised it marked the end of the two minute silence, my equipment was fine and started playing. I rolled my eyes, picked up my cat and went to the other room to watch Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote, solve another murder. It seemed the only way I could escape the boredom of the day.

Earlier this year it got quite exciting, in my local newspaper there was an enquiry from volunteers who look after  a War Cemetery in the Netherlands seeking contact with relatives of people buried there. The name was one of my Mother’s cousins and I was able to pass photos and give a short biography of the man. The Dutch guy who wanted the info was really excited and clearly thought we were going to be best friends forever and share a love for researching  the lives of young men who died tragically.  From my point of view it was interesting to know where Tommy was buried but I never knew him, he died during the war.  I only  knew that it wasn’t exactly a hero’s death, he was stealing chickens from the enemy camp during World War Two and sadly a bomb dropped while he was there.  Maybe I will drop into to the cemetery the next time I am in the Netherlands but there’s more chance of me being in the supermarket buying chicken  rather than remembering Tommy this year. As much as I love family history, I never expected to be the last man standing with photos and biographies. I  am only in my fifties after all, still very young.

Anyway, after this ceremony, my attention will be turning to Christmas cards another eccentrically British tradition and I’ll be looking at my Christmas card list to see who I got a card from last year and who is worthy of a card this year. If I don’t get a card two years in a row  from someone, then the person is removed from my list.

 This may be a far cry from Remembrance Sunday but equally important in my opinion.

952 Weekly Lesson Audio – Guy Fawkes Night

Weekly Lesson: Guy Fawkes Night. For study until 10th of November 2024 Subject : Guy Fawkes Night Audio : On usual social media platforms.

For study until 10th of November 2024

Subject: Guy Fawkes Night

Audio: On usual social media platforms.

Continue reading “952 Weekly Lesson Audio – Guy Fawkes Night”

Weekly Lesson: Halloween

Weekly Lesson: Halloween. For study until 3rd of November 2024 Subject : Halloween Audio : On usual social media platforms.

For study until 3rd of November 2024

Subject: Halloween

Audio: On usual social media platforms.

It is Halloween and as usual my town has a parade which takes place on the closest weekend. Usually artists create a monster which looks like its hanging over the town hall, but as everything has gone digital, there isn’t actually anything to see unless you attend the event where monsters are beamed on to the walls of the town hall after it gets dark. It is kind of sad that there aren’t any installed monuments to visit anymore during the day. As movie makers say “It’s all in the can”.

I went to the town centre and was upset that there was really nothing to see. Preparations were well underway, complete with loudspeakers. They were loud enough to wake the dead if you excuse the pun. I don’t mind a bit of Kelly Clarkson but I take exception to Celine Dion. My opinion of her is so bad that I remove myself from conversations about her by saying:

“Oh, Celine Dion? My cat really, really doesn’t like her” – it seems the only way I can avoid being rude about her voice. The third person is really useful sometimes.

By preparations, I mean the roads were sealed off and large projectors were placed around the centre. The parade at night is nice to see but has too many people to make it in any way enjoyable.

When I was a kid, Halloween was one night in the year when we dressed up, carved turnips and painted pictures of witches. It didn’t extend to weeks of celebrations with horror movies about psychotic killers, there wasn’t a Halloween brand and any sense of fun associated with it was Disney style and harmless like the movie Hocus Pocus. There were always objections to it though particularly from Churches which still had a lot of influence in the 70s and 80s but most of us saw it as harmless fun. It didn’t extend beyond putting a sheet over your head and shouting “booo”. I think its popularity was because it was a shared experience and time honoured. My father carving the turnip, my mother making cookies and my grandparents buying sweets. These days the kids just go to the supermarket and stuff their faces full of whatever they can buy.

In more recent years as Religion seems to have dwindled, Halloween has become not only a brand but a much bigger celebration than Christmas. Houses with decorated windows, lights, pumpkins, scarecrows without heads and covered in blood which make them look putrid.

A group of kids turned up at my place last night looking for sweets and shouting “trick or treat”. The phrase “trick or treat” is a new phenomenon which we borrowed from America but it does represent what kids do on that night. They visit neighbours and ask for sweets. We don’t actually respond by choosing an option like “trick” we just give them sweets and then they leave.  In my case I use my video doorbell, see the costumes and just ignore them. Maybe I am a hard hearted Skype English Teacher but I prefer to be on Skype talking to people about how frightening learning English can be rather than talking to kids about how frightening they look.

A lot of people don’t like Halloween because of its darker connotations. I do know that 31st October has always been associated with the dead and it is a night when the dead and the living supposedly can meet each other. It is kind of like the Day of the Dead in Mexico but we don’t leave gifts on graves for the dead, in fact we don’t even think of them. British people are not sentimental in that way, at least not on Halloween and we are far too mean to leave alcohol for dead people on their graves.

 The original idea back in the 17th century is that if we dress up as ghosts, no one will know who is alive and who is dead,  offering some kind of protection on the night. Here in the UK we also have a number of people who are pagan or wiccan. Halloween for them is a religious observance akin to Christmas  and they are also becoming fashionable.  Halloween has long been associated with magic and as a child I do remember seeing things like dead chickens on graves and more recently farmers keeping their horses locked up on the night for fear that someone will cut off their tails, there has been a few police reports about that and on local media.  So it is clear that in the countryside there are people around practicing some kind of magic on that night but nobody knows who they are or why.

I did feel a little bit disturbed when I was in the supermarket and the assistant was dressed as an old hag. As her face was hidden, I couldn’t see who she was or her facial expressions and that made me a bit uncomfortable. But it’s no worse I suppose than dressing up as Santa Claus or people wearing covid masks.

My feelings towards Halloween are rather ambivalent, I don’t like the costumes but I suppose there’s no real harm.  

I had a discussion with my neighbour about this:

“Are you all set for Halloween?” He muttered wryly.

“What do you mean all set?” I asked, trying to disarm his vain attempt at humour,

“I mean do you have the sweets ready?” was his next attempt at small talk.

“Um, no…… I don’t.. I don’t really…..” but by that point he had walked off, reminding me again that this was only small talk and I shouldn’t be thinking about answering well.

Strangely he had the same conversation with me at Christmas time, its just their way of making conversation about nothing but when they don’t get the answers they want the conversation simply dies. It does make me wonder though what makes other people excited and how they lead their lives. I had a pang of sadness that  I might be  missing out on something, spending most of my days online. I mean there could be elephants dressed as witches living next door all the year round and I likely wouldn’t notice.

The clocks change by one hour around the same time as Halloween, I use the American proverb to remind me which way they change:

Spring Forward ( In Spring they go forward).

Fall Back (In Autumn they go back, Autum is the British word for Fall).

Once a big deal, now that’s automated as well. I wonder if people in the future will even realise these things take place?

Weekly Lesson: The TV Licence

Weekly Lesson: The TV Licence. For study until 27th of October 2024 Subject : The Television Licence Audio : On usual social media platforms.

For study until 27th of October 2024

Subject: The Television Licence

Audio: On usual social media platforms.

The Television Licence

It was one of those days where I was grateful for technology. After hearing someone knocking at my door, I opened the doorbell video app on my phone and saw two men standing there.

“Oh” I thought…..either they are trying to sell me a broadband deal for better Wifi or, they are religious. I had to make a snap decision whether to actually open the door, so I thought it best just to ask them who they are, using my phone. After all, last time I was lumbered with a heater, toaster and washing machine (see my lesson from two weeks ago) from the Charity givers.

“Can I help?” I asked, while staring at the app and the mic on my phone.

“Yes, it is TV Licence Enforcement, we need to see your licence”.

“Oh, OK”

I walked to the door, trying to gather my thoughts on the way, I opened it to see an ID pushed into my face.

“Its about your TV Licence sir”, one of them blurted out. “We just checked with the Post Office, it has expired”.

I remembered how serious this can be. If you own a TV in the UK then you need to also have a licence. It costs around £200 each year.  When you buy a TV, you also need to give your name and address and the shop is legally obliged to tell the Enforcement Officers. You also need one if you have BBC Iplayer on your phone or computer. It’s terribly organised and definitely very British to enforce it in this way.

“I have a licence” – in fact I pay quarterly” I replied,  “ you took forty pounds just yesterday from my bank account”. I chuckled. They clearly didn’t see the funny side of my words. Of course they wanted to see the paper, so I invited them in.

“Sooooo, that’s the TV?” they said as they entered my living room. They were obviously still in suspicion mode. I did my best not to give a sarcastic remark.  By this point I was trying desperately to find my licence. I remembered it was electronic so I was scrolling through my phone trying to find it. It seemed like a lifetime had passed,

“If this was Ancient Egypt you would have found it by now” – one of them said sarcastically.

As I was standing at the window scrolling on my phone, I saw their truck  outside, it kind of looked like a camper van or little caravan with a huge metal bit on the roof but their trucks always look uglier and more grey than any holiday truck.

“Nice cat” one of the men said. My cat hissed and walked away. I really wish I could have done the same.

“Not friendly is he?” he chortled.

“Oh he hates everyone, its not personal, don’t worry” – I quipped.

“Here is the licence” – I showed it to them on my phone and they looked confused.

“Is this not apartment number one? They asked squinting their eyes.

“No, this is apartment two”  I responded, realising what had happened.

“Well, sorry we got the wrong apartment” they admitted, as they both headed to the door.

“Well there’s no one living next door” I chirped again, the guy left some weeks ago, I know because I have some stuff here for him.

“Oh there is someone there  – we can see what channel they are watching” he said as he looked down at his Ipad walking towards the apartment opposite.

It is indeed typical in a country like ours that they would develop technology to ensure you have a TV licence. Its hardly the be all and end all of everything but we love solid rules and enforcing them.

Just at that moment a Priest entered my apartment block and as I live on the ground level, he saw me first. “Did you call for the Last Rites to be administered?”

“Eh… no……” I uttered

“Um, I know it was someone in this block but I don’t know who….” He replied

“Well it wasn’t me…” I said uncomfortably, hoping that he wouldn’t ask me about Church attendance. Everyone knows the  Parish Priest and I was rather hoping that he had forgotten I existed.

He glanced at his notebook..”my my….sorry It’s apartment two on the next level…”

“I don’t suppose you need them anyway…? I could swing by later….?” – he chortled “Remember you don’t have to be dying to get the Last Rites”.

“No, no no….  I’m in great health….” I said, convincing myself that it was true, shook my head and backed away as he walked up the stairs. I got a bit flabbergasted. Do I look like I need the Last Rites? The barber always gives me OAP rates and I never correct him but I am still a long way away from aged 60. My day couldn’t really get any more surreal.

I watched as the TV Enforcement officers knocked on the door opposite, of course there was no reply. So they stood there and I  closed the door and opened the video app again. After a few moments they started calling through the letterbox (These people meant business and I had forgotten just how much power they have). They can choose to simply give you a penalty or if you agree to trot down the post office and buy a licence immediately, they will overlook the fact that you had a TV without one. You can buy it online as well.

There was indeed someone inside, I could hear a difficult conversation. It sounded like there was a guy insisting he didn’t have a TV.  My app caught a clear picture of him, it looked like a scene from a 1967 hippie movie, my neighbour was wearing a kaftan, love beads and sandals. He kind of looked like Barry White but not as entertaining. The TV licence enforcement officers weren’t getting in and I could hear the conversation was getting uncomfortable. Finally they reached a compromise and the two men left, looking happy. A thought came to my mind that they were earning commission.

My video doorbell hadn’t picked up anything from that apartment in weeks, so it was really strange that the man living there hadn’t left in weeks. By the looks of him it looked like he hadn’t left since 1967!

The moral of the story is, get a TV licence if you own a TV and live in the UK. They will find you if you don’t.

Weekly Lesson: Mindsets for Language Learning

Weekly Lesson: Mindsets for Language Learning. For study until 20th of October 2024 Subject : Mindsets for Language Learning Audio : On usual social media platforms.

For study until 20th of October 2024

Subject: Mindsets for Language Learning

Audio: On usual social media platforms.

I had been studying Dutch for three months when a very predictable situation raised its ugly head. It happens over and over in language learning situations and I was in some ways expecting it. It is the nature of the beast when it comes to learning  or to put it plainly, the dark side of the human mind.

It all started when the students started to organize their own Zoom and Whatsapp groups to practice, there was nothing wrong with practicing with others but I knew the stage was being  set for something. I wasn’t the teacher in this class  but I sensed the great  machine of negativity and mental assassination was ready to be switched  on and already  subtle signs had started to appear. I knew that something was rotten in the state of Denmark. To put it another way, trouble was brewing.

Sure enough, during the practice time on zoom, I could see one student who seemed a bit uneasy, chatting more in English than in Dutch, a sure sign that a difficult English conversation was about to take place.

“I really like our teacher” she remarked “but things move a bit quick, she doesn’t really give me a lot of time for questions”. I could see her name was Samantha from the bottom of the Zoom screen.

“She’s under a lot of pressure, I commented, “she’s only been given one hour a week to teach us, she is under as much pressure as we are, besides, we are supposed to learn at home and come prepared” I quipped.

“I suppose, but she could at least let us speak more…” she responded. Heads started to nod, I could see a mindset developing.

“She is good… but…” she continued.

I could see in my mind’s eye a vortex opening before us, ready to devour us one by one but I doubted Tom Cruise was going to appear and save all of us, he was too busy making Mission Impossible movies.

 This wasn’t the first time I’ve sat in these kinds of circles and it isn’t something teacher training really prepares you for. Besides, in this class I was a student, I should’ve learnt to shut up.

“Sharon’s Dutch is very good, I mean its ok for her because she knows the stuff already, I don’t even know why she’s in our class” continued Samantha truculently as she mouthed off about another student.

“I just get the feeling she doesn’t like me” came another voice  from the room, more heads started to nod as I watched the vortex in my mind’s eye expanding, remembering that these kinds of conversations are deadly in language learning circles.

“My friend had our teacher last year, she says that she is very good but really strict and by the book” someone else chimed in. The argument started to build and I realised that I had to get the class mindset back if we were ever going to learn anything.

“You know the Dutch are very direct, it’s a cultural thing, no one is to blame for that – we just aren’t used to it, besides its only a stereotype based on accent and ways of speaking. It has nothing to do with liking you or disliking you” I reasoned.

“Well I still don’t like her” piped up another student.

In every language learning class there is always one person who has too much fluency for the class they are in and another who knows next to nothing. This immediately gets people’s backs up and creates a culture of blame when people compare themselves to each other and feel they are not learning. If these students had been kids, it would have been brushed off as one student being more intelligent than the other but when everyone is the class is mature, there is always a level of discomfort. In the minds of adults in these kinds of situations someone has to be blamed and I could see that just like a sliding puzzle everything was beginning to slip into place. Someone had to be blamed for what was regarded as a lack of progress, and in this meeting, attention was turning to the teacher.  In my career as a teacher, I had seen heads roll for this, I was well aware of the dangers of mesmerism in the classroom, opinions  can travel faster than any virus and there is no one really to blame exactly, except some bad ideas which are misplaced and personalised to make us feel better about learning.

“Well lets start by going over what we’ve learnt so far from the class” I replied, trying to get into a position of leading the class away from negativity.

Samantha at that point made an excuse that she had forgotten an appointment, and then vanished. Although I was glad to see the back of her, it was too late, she had already left her mark on all of us. Nobody in the class wanted to practice and it led into a mindset which was not ready to practice or learn. As for Samantha, well the whole point of the practice session was that she and others could participate but she eventually left the group and the course citing that “she wasn’t getting anywhere” although I doubt she realised the legacy she had left on everyone else.

I am always really fascinated by these experiences in language learning, especially how a group of well mannered students can become tribal and end up looking like they are in  a scene from the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding, tearing people to shreds given half the chance. Although the actual learning part is very individual, there are often cultures which are created by individual mindsets in places of language learning and they can become very difficult to break if left unchecked.

I stopped attending the practice group because it was a breeding ground for arrogance. At one stage they even agreed amongst themselves to try and talk to the School Head Teacher about their “problem with the teacher” who promised to investigate.

By the end of the course, there were only a handful of us left and we, including the teacher, were all left scratching our heads wondering what had happened. Worse than that, a culture has been created and future students no doubt had their comments “My friend Samantha studied here and she said…” and the culture is enabled again and the whole thing is repeated.

The key in any class is always in finding unity with others in learning, without that there is nothing. It becomes like a kingdom divided against itself. This happens not only with language students but also with teaching staff, teams in offices and wherever people are asked to work together. The way to deal with this is not to attack the person who voices it but to realise it is an opinion which is on the scene and it needs to be disarmed before it causes panic. The person and their opinion must be separated. It is important not to label the person bad and shun them, but to see the only thing at work here is a fake opinion.

My advice to any learner or team member who wants to succeed, guard your thoughts well, not only about learning but about any thoughts or opinions which are developing in the classroom. Avoid discussions about personalities and focus as much as you can on unity. If your learning is slow, have a look at what’s going on around you and make sure your mind is not caught up in any negativity. If you have a problem with the teacher, voice it immediately with the teacher  and don’t let it fester.