Great people

It was great meeting you all again. Every single person that I've met has made a difference in my life, and some are very special to me.

The end of another great adventure

If we never meet again

(Selah)

Soon we'll come to the end of life's journey

And perhaps we'll never meet anymore

Till we gather in heaven's bright city

Far away on that beautiful shore

If we never meet again this side of heaven

As we struggle through this world and its strife

There's another meeting place somewhere in heaven

By the beautiful river of life

Where the charming roses bloom forever

And separations come no more

If we never meet again this side of heaven

I will meet you on that beautiful shore

At least I tried

Now I know why her attitude really hurt me. It hurt because I cared about her and because I opened myself to her. And yet, she did not care at all, she did not appreciate it. It is not that I do not care about her anymore but I am not going to give something to someone that is not willing to accept it. It is a pity because I thought she was different, but at least now I can say that I know how she really is.

Opening yourself to someone can be risky because not always the other person appreciates your friendship. However, if you never try, you will never know.

Which teaching technique is ideal in ELT?

One of the presentations in our Trends and Issues of TESOL class was on the Ideal Teaching Technique. We saw some factors that we need to consider when deciding which teaching technique is ideal in English Language Teaching, but we did not focus exactly on the ideal teaching technique itself. In my opinion, the ideal teaching technique is the one that aims to the Communicative Language Teaching Approach (CLT). According to Brown (2001), CLT techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of the language for meaningful purpose. I like the ‘authentic’ and ‘functional’ part of his definition. Generally, a student enrolls in an English class to be able to communicate outside the classroom, which means authentic learning. If we use real-life situations as part of the teaching techniques, the students will feel that they are learning to communicate, and not only learning rules and the forms of the language. Communication means more than only speaking or writing, therefore my ideal technique would involve integration of skills and grammar teaching (in a lesser extent) following the CLT.

Brown, D. H. (2001). Teaching by Principles: an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. (2^nd ed.) New York: Pearson Longman.