The Extraordinary and the Ordinary in the Language

I’m doing a Course on Understanding English dictionaries from Macmillan and Coventry University at Futurelearn.com (Link: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/understanding-dictionaries) now. And as I was reading sections on the history of Oxford English Dictonary (OED) compilation, I came across this peculair fact of the choices the readers made while searching for the words to send to the OED editors:

One risk related to this practice is that readers tend to gather such citations with a bias towards uncommon usages.

This reminded me of how often the learners of English pay attetion to some extraodinary, bizzare, or unexpected words and meanings to the detriment of commonly used words and meanings which are much more crucial for the successful learning of a language, especially at the early stages of learning.

However, this bias doesn’t seem surpring to me at all, considering the fact that it’s in the nature of our attention to notice and focus on something that stands out of our daily routine.

This makes me think that teachers and learners alike while having fun with surprising or extravagant aspects of the language, should in fact train themselves to notice the ordinary, the usual, and the inconspicous, thus making at times truly astonishing discoveries.

 

Quote on Learning and Teaching (#4): The power of knowing rules

Here is another quote on learning and, certainly, to some extent, on teaching.

The following words are commonly attributed to Pablo Picasso:

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist”

How does this refer to learning languages? Directly!

Picasso’s words are probably the best summary of what I continuously say to my students: learn the rules first, don’t assume that people will understand you anyway, and once you’ve mastered the rules, you will feel confident in using and understanding the language. Because if you don’t know the rules you don’t know how the meaning of an utterance changes if you deviate from the standard way of saying it.

Without knowing the rules you won’t appreciate the play on words and on meaning; you won’t be able to play with the language yourself and won’t feel the joy and excitement of expressing yourself in all the subtlety in thought and meaning. Not knowing the rules of the language only leads to restraint, confusion and awkwardness.

So freedom comes only after you have laid a solid foundation of the well learnt rules.

In other words, if you know the rules you know how to break them and you clearly understand the consequences.

And here is a confirmation of this approach to learning from another renowned artist of the 20th century, Salvador Dali, who once said referring to numerous cubist experimentalists of his time:

“Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you.”

I believe the two revolutionary artists – Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali – knew so well the freedom and power the knowledge of the rules can give! You are only free when you know what you are doing.

I personally fully abide by this approach.

How about you?

#learning #quotesonlearning #learninglanguages #quote #pablopicasso #salvadordali #elt #learningstrategies #learnerautonomy

 

The element of surprise, or what makes the world go round and round, and round again. (Mosaics series, #2)

#myltmosaics

With this blog post I would like to share what activity I did with my 10-year old student.

But before that, I’d like to note that I do not claim to be any original or ground-breaking in what I do in my lessons. I’m perfectly aware that the lesson and activity ideas that come to my mind might be downright trite and age-old. All I want to do by writing about those ideas is to share my teaching experience and my observations of what worked out and what did not and why. I cherish the hope that these snippets of teaching practice will be of some value for other teachers who like to reflect on their own teaching and who are interested in what their colleagues are doing and what solutions they come up in various teaching and learning settings all over the world.

So here I go.

Today I’d like to share the way I adjusted a course book activity to my teaching purposes and to my learner’s needs.

What did we have?

A. We had a dialogue in the English World Level 3 course book for primary learners.

The course book tasks accompanying the dialogue were:

1. To talk about the picture (with that students are expected to activate the language they already know in order to describe things they see in the picture and get ready for listening and reading tasks);

2. To listen (here the students sort of check up their understanding of what they saw in the picture and are introduced to a model conversation in which they abundantly use the grammar structures they learnt before);

3. To listen and read (here students try to imitate the intonation and pronunciation patterns);

4. To listen and say (here students repeat after the speaker without looking at the text, again imitating the intonation and pronunciation);

5. To talk about the story (here students retell the dialogue paraphrasing the original text but also using the words and expressions from the text);

6. Finally, “Now you!” (which I understand as a call for acting out the dialogue).

That was the task we had.

B. But we also had the particular learner 🙂

A 10-year-old energetic, creative and restless girl. ❤️ She is also a very process-oriented person, loving acting and moving around. It’s not easy if yet possible to entice her to do the tasks she doesn’t want to do even with little prizes or badges. She is immune to gamification 🙂 So there was no any easy or elaborate way I could make her follow the tasks designed by the course book authors.

C. And we had the teacher’s intention to have the learner repeat the dialogue a number of times to internalize the ready-made speaking patterns.

So, the task to solve looked like that:

A (dialogue) + B (learner) + C (repetition) = ?

🧐 What would the solution (D) be like?

D. Well, taking into account that an element of surprise and fun makes people perform the same task numerous times, I decided I needed to do something creative with the dialogue at hand.

Let me have a little digression from the story thread here and quote an eloquent description of an element of surprise. In his book “Hooked”, Nir Eyal speaks about the difference of predictable and unpredictable (variable) rewards, which vividly shows what it feels like when there is an element of surprise in everyday tasks we habitually do:

“The unsurprising response of your fridge light turning on when you open the door doesn’t drive you to keep opening it again and again. However, add some variability to the mix – suppose a different treat magically appears in your fridge every time you open it – and voilà, intrigue is created.”

Obviously, we’ve heard a lot that we, teachers, should do exactly the same thing: bring in an element of surprise into our lessons and classroom activities. So that’s what I did.

[Pic: My development of the course book dialogue]

1. I copied and printed out a page with the dialogue from the book.

2. Covered some words in the dialogue with squares of different colours:

💚 green colour for adjectives;

💙 blue of two shades for places (for the number of different places mentioned in the dialogue);

💛 yellow for objects;

❤️ and red for exclamations.

2. I cut several blank pieces of paper of the colours I assigned for the parts of the dialogue (see above);

3. Together with my learner we came up with different adjectives, places, objects and exclamations and wrote them down on the pieces of paper of the corresponding colour.

4. And then we took turns in reading out the dialogue pausing at coloured squares to pick up cards with words of the appropriate colour and insert them in the dialogue.

Every time each of us read the dialogue with randomly picked words, it was a different funny story. My girl laughed a lot and eagerly took her turns to read the dialogue again and again.

✅ My teaching purpose was achieved!

✅ My learner was happy to be doing what she enjoyed!

✅ The course book task was done!

Well, maybe not exactly the way it was meant by its authors. Well, maybe we were not practicing speaking as such but mostly reading instead, though I should say, the more we repeated the dialogue the less my student looked at the text.

It was also a good opportunity to introduce some new vocabulary and expressions. For example, for places this could be “a cave”, “a castle”, “a lighthouse”, “a bear’s den” or “a cosmodrome”. For adjectives, this could be “tedious”, “scary”, “sparkling” or any other of so many adjectives you might find appropriate to teach your student. For expressions, I chose to teach two new expressions “No way!” and “Not for toffee!” in addition to expressions from the course book.

As I said you can offer your students new words for them to choose from, but it would be good to let students to come up with their own words too. This way they will feel more strongly about the activity as they themselves made some little investment in it leading to the increased sense of learner autonomy.

So this is how I adjusted a course book activity to make it a bit more enjoyable and useful for my learner.

And I’m really happy to say that after long summer holidays, when I saw my student again, she asked me enthusiastically if we were going to do the same activity with other dialogues in her course book. For me, this was the best confirmation of my little teaching success. Could there be any better approval than this? 😊👍

#teaching #learning #learnerautonomy #learningstrategies #elt #efl #learningtolearn #learning2learn #teachingmethodology #languageteaching #languagelearning #primaryschool #younglearners #eltmosaics

 

Quote on Learning and Teaching (#3)

Here I continue sharing quotes on teaching which I come across in various sources.

Naturally, your opinion on these quotes is very much welcome!

* John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998) was an American historian and professor.

#teaching #quotesonteaching #learning #elt

 

Teach, learn, teach. (Mosaics series, #1)

What do most teachers unconsciously do?

I’m sure you do it too 😉

I do it too!:)

Whenever I read, listen or watch something, I almost always think how I can use “this material” in my lessons.

This habit sometimes puts a smile on my face and I think to myself: “Can’t I just read a book or watch a movie for mere pleasure and entertainment without necessarily connecting it to my job?”

This habit of keeping our eyes and minds open for teaching and learning opportunities undoubtedly makes us better teachers. And something is telling me that it’s our restless and creative nature that compels us to search for more, to do more and to give more to our students.

So here I go again picking up ideas from sources unrelated to teaching languages.

The other day, as I was reading a book on developing habit-forming products, I came across two interesting thoughts which had nothing to do with teaching but which, as I immediately thought, might be used in our teaching practice.

The first thought:

“The first place for the entrepreneur or designer to look for new opportunities is in the mirror. […] Instead of asking “what problem should I solve? ask “what problem do I wish someone else would solve for me?”

(Hooked by Nir Eyal)

The second thought:

“As you go about your day, ask yourself why you do or do not do certain things and how those tasks could be made easier or more rewarding.” (Hooked by Nir Eyal)

So here, entrepreneurs are advised to look at their own everyday experiences through the eyes of their customers to see what problems in their lives the entrepreneurs themselves want to be resolved.

What does this advice have to do with us, teachers? Everything!

We, too, need to look into the mirror for opportunities.

[Be a learner]

What would it be like if we were our own students? As we prepare another lesson to teach, why not to stop and think about it as if we were the students to attend and learn those lessons? Would we like the lessons? Would they be relavant and engaging to us? What value would we take from them?

And of course, as the time-tested advice has it: teachers should become learners from time to time; they should try to master a new skill or a new language (the latter option is of particular importance for language teachers, I think) to remind themselves what it is like to be a learner.

As we are learning something new, we start to reflect on our learning experience and see what problems we’d like to get resolved or made “easier or more rewarding” for us by our teachers or learning materials and how this could be done.

It’s refreshing, I think, to look at what we do in our classrooms and revise the things we do through the eyes and aspirations of our learners. Is what we do exactly what serves our students best? Do our classroom activities and tasks really meet the needs of our learners? Is that what they really need? Does it really help them to reach their learning goals? Is it truly effective and relevant? Is it fun, after all?:)

[Me learning French under a tree]

Now, as I’m learning French, I see clearly where I would need the help from a teacher; where I can get along on my own; how I want to be motivated; and what I need to keep me going.

I will write about these observations of mine in several posts later. But for now, I’m really curious about your experiences as a learning teacher:)

Namely,

• What was the latest skill you were mastering?
• What insights did you get as a teacher from your learning experience?
• How did you apply those insights in your teaching practice?

Please, do share your experiences because we all will learn from them!

Next post in this series is due on September, 23. Don’t miss it:)

#learning #learningtolearn #learning2learn #learningstratogies #languagelearning #teaching #teachingmethodology #languageteaching #elt

 

My new blogging series (Wow!)

I was woken up by the birdsong very early in the morning today. I live in a megapolis where the rarity of these sweet sounds make them so surprising and so precious. That’s why they slipped so easily through my dreams and straight into my consciousness, awaking it up with the thought, “Is it really the birdsong that I’m hearing?”. And it indeed was.

Instead of going back to sleep, I stood up and went onto my balcony to see what was going on in the world in this early hour only to get stunned by the ethereal beauty of an early warm September morning. (“Warm” is a crucial epithet here considering the latitude of my home megapolis 😊).

To lengthen the spell of the moment, I decided to make myself a cup of fragrant true black coffee in my Italian moka pot, which I long abandoned for my being too lazy to wash it after use. ☕️

And then, after having enjoyed this wonderful blend of refreshing morning breeze and balmy coffee, I felt I had the power “to do more and to be more”. 💪

So it was only natural to think of something creative. 🧚‍♀️

This is how I decided to start a new blogging series I had conceived of long time ago.

In my wardrobe I keep a big bag packed with bits and slips of paper with my random thoughts, ideas, tips, reflections and brief descriptions of my teaching experience. I’ve been filling it up, hoping that one day I will systematize these scribbles into a more academic-looking articles. But as the bag began to swell I can to realize how unrealistic my noble ambition was. In such circumstances, there were only to options left: either to recycle this huge heap of paper or to try and share it with others.

I chose the second option, coming up with a neat solution: I won’t be systematizing all those bits and pieces, I’ll just put them on my blog as they are, random, messy and spontaneous.

[The image source: Google]

The image of this blogging series came to me almost instantaneously: these random pieces of notes look very much like a stained-glass window: lots of peculiar patterns, lots of lovely colours and curious plots. However, using the English word “stained-glass” in the name of my blogging series turned out to be a bit problematic for two reasons: first, a compound noun looked awkward in the name; second, the word “stained” has also some negative connotations. And though I really liked the image of the stained-glass, and the play of coloured light it generates, I had to abandon this word.

After some reflection, came a replacement. The word that seem only natural and truly the most appropriate in the context of creating, writing and sharing. The word was “mosaic”.

[The image source: Google]

The word mosaic is thought to originate from the ancient Greek “mousa” which means a muse. Isn’t it beautiful to give a writing project a name with such an airy and inspiring meaning?

Besides, mosaics sometimes look like a stained-glass work: it only doesn’t let the light through. 😉

So here comes my new blogging series:

“My Mosaics of Learning and Teaching” or “My L&T mosaics”.

Under this title and hashtag (#myltmosaics) I will be posting some random thoughts and ideas on my general and language learning and teaching experience which together will hopefully make a lovely mosaic pattern. 💎

The very first blog post in this series will be out on 9 September 2018.

#learning #learningtolearn #learning2learn #learningstratogies #languagelearning #teaching #teachingmethodology #languageteaching#elt

 

Quotes on Teaching

Here is a quote from Tim Murphey on learner autonomy and self-instruction:

“I believe most young people are responsible only when they are given the freedom to develop responsibility” (Tim Murphey, 1990, Teaching One to One, Longman)

This quote immediately struck home as I read it. Haven’t we ever told our students or haven’t our parents and teachers ever told us at some point of educational or upbringing process that now it’s time to be responsible for your own studying, decisions and life while they have rarely or ever given us the chance of self-expression, independent work, decision-making and problem-solving or taught us how to do it? Sometimes it very easy to overlook the moment, when trying to do our best, we become too overbearing raising kids and teaching students. So there is no point in expecting your kinds or students to become independent learners and personalities if you haven’t taught them to be so. That’s why we need to incorporate self-instruction, self-study and creativity enhancing activities into our teaching and upbrining.

After stating his belief on students’ responsibility in learning, Tim Murphey goes on to expand his idea:

“Practice in making their own pedagogical decisions is necessary if we ultimately want them to become efficient learners, independent of merely required learning. When students realise that finally they are in control of what and how they learn, they become many times over more powerful in teaching themselves than the schools with which they begin. Then when they do choose to study in a school, with a 1/1 teacher, with a computer or library, or simply by themselves, it is because they have found it to be the best configuration for them to learn in at the time, not simply because there is only one choice available.” (Murphey, 1990)

Slowly but steadily we need to guide our children and learners towards becoming more indepentent in making their decisions concerning their study, work, friendships or life. However, we should always remember that there will always be learners who will readily embrace the opportunities we provide them with and there will always be those who would be reluctant to take responsibility. So, as Tim Murphey recommends, we “should be prepared to lead as much as necessary, but it is worth periodically seeing if they [learners] can take on more and more responsibility.” (Murpehy, 1990)

 

 

 

Quotes in teaching and about teaching

I just thought it would be great to start collecting quotes on teaching.

Why would I, though?

Aren’t people sick and tired with tons of quotes on Social Media? Frankly speaking, I’m one of such a weary person. I now skip the quotes whenever they pop up in my news feed.

Though it wasn’t the same until recently. In fact, reading quotes was once my main material for reading. First of all, because I didn’t have longer time for more thoughtful reading. And second of all, I found them really informative and educational: These witty bits of wisdom would cast beams of light onto new sides of life or would let me look at my experience from a new perspective, sometimes bringing irony and grains of sarcasm into the way I treated my own existence. It was a fun and unintrusive way of analyzing my life, so to say, on the go.

The attractiveness of quotes lies in the their uncanny accuracy in capturing the quintessence of things. But sometimes, it’s their arousing controversy that makes you pause and re-condiser your own ideas and believes. That’s why quotes are good conversation starters and are widely used in teaching, especially in language teaching.

All these considerations and also the fact that I sometimes read books on teaching, I thought it would be a good idea to collect some gems of wisdom about teaching as I come across them.

So here I go with the first quote:

Let praise be a feeling, not a judgement. (Tim Murthey, Teaching One-to-One, 1988)

I loved this idea! In fact, it can be applied not only to the teaching context but to a broader number of life situations. And how good it would be to constantly remind yourself to be more genuine and sincere in expressing your emotions!

I’ll be posting other quotes as separate blog posts but they all will be easily accessible under “Quotes on Teaching” category.

Is there a quote on teaching that you particularly like?

 

Teacher is a DJ

Does any job include so many roles as a teacher’s job?

Have a look at this ingenious image of 20 possible teacher roles made by Stacy Bonino for BusyTeacher.org:

How many roles have you played in your teaching career?

Can you think of any other roles?

***

As for me, when I look back at my almost ten years of teaching practice I can say that I’ve played a considerable number of roles from the above list. I never chose in advance which role to play in the next lesson. Very often it wasn’t even my conscious choice in the lesson: I just responded to a given situation in the best (in my opinion) possible and appropriate way.

Naturally, some roles I like more than others.

Apparently, I play some roles better than others.

And, honestly speaking, I sometimes don’t feel like playing any of these roles at all.

As for other roles, I can say for sure that there are much more teacher roles than those listed in the above image. At least there is one I really enjoy performing. And as you have already guessed by the title of this blogpost, this is the role of a DJ.

Yes, Teacher is a DJ, too 🙂

***

If you know Jason R. Levine (@FluencyMC), I’m sure you will agree with me that Jason is the most brilliant example of a teacher being a DJ. He is inimitable in his ability to mix rap rhythms with English language items making English learning so fun and energetic!

If you don’t know Jason yet, it’s time to get aquainted with his superb music vidoes for English language learners. Here is one of my favourites: http://youtu.be/iOqlPXvnG34

Got hooked? 🙂 Check out tons of other Jason’s videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/collolearn

***

As you may know well, music can be an incredibly effective way in teaching a language. I’m sure, you have already tried this or that way to incorporate music into your lessons. However, here is a simple guidence for you on how to music and songs in ESL lesson:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4493586_use-songs-music-esl-lessons.html

And here you will find a huge list (50 points!!!) on various ways music and songs can be exploited in the classroom. Surprisingly, music can be used for discipline matters!

http://fr.slideshare.net/ddeubel/50-ways-to-use-music-in-the-english-language-classroom-18755901

***

My favourite way to use music in my lessons, which actually inspired me to write this blogpost, is to use music or songs as the background while students are doing some tasks.

In fact, it wasn’t my idea. I borrowed it from my teacher of English at Oxford House College in London. At first, I was surprised when she put on some music after giving us a task to work on in pairs. It was so unusual as I had never seen any teacher in my school or university use music this way. But I promptly realized how great this idea is!

First of all, music takes tension away! It helps students to relax but at the same time to focus on the activity. (Don’t you listen to music while doing something else? For example, just right now, while I’m typing this post I’m listening to the music of which I’ll speak a bit later 🙂 )

Secondly, music creates some noise which makes students feel less shy to speak. Otherwise, students sometimes feel embarrassed when they hear their voices echoing in the quite room.

Finally, music or songs can create a specific mood which best suits the task or part of the lesson. In fact, this is when our skills as DJs come into play! 🙂 And this is what I particularly like! 🙂

I really love looking through the music playlist on my iPhone and choosing the right music to play. Everything matters: the type of the task, the part of the lesson (the beginning, the middle, or the end), what mood I would like to put my students in, whether or not a music piece has some lyrics, and finally, the music itself (it’s rhythm, tempo, tune etc).

I think that music you put on in class as the background should be light and easy and should have little lyrics. But at the same time it must be sonorous and catchy. Such music will not dominate the classroom or pull students’ attention to itself but will create a lively and pleasant atmosphere in the class.

So I believe it’s highly useful to make a music playlist on your mobile device which would consist of music of different types and genres. Using only one and the same piece of music is a bit boring. So a varied playlist is a guarantee that your lessons will become more surprising and tuneful, and you, in turn, will become a better DJ! 🙂

Below are some of the example music pieces I use as the background:

1. Isao Tomita “The Sea Named Solaris” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqPSFv6ZUac
2. Ewan Dobson “Time 2” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXqPYte8tvc
3. Frank Duval ‘Solitude” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbzAa8V6xyg
4. Pink Floyd “Terminal Frost” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNWsQXYSsJQ
5. Pink Floyd “Learning to Fly” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCB_INs2E24
6. Enya “May it be” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_upDME6MwPY
7. Enya “Orinoco Flow” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTrk4X9ACtw
8. Kate Bush “Bertie” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBRJeD2Y1nY
9. Yann Tiersen “La Valse d’Amelie” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0c6cpscjb0
10. Lindsey Stirling “Crystallize” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHjpOzsQ9YI
11. The Glitch Mob “Drive It Like You Stole It” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kON_KRmFRKk
12. DJ Smash “Moscow Never Sleeps” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDm3GdDKt2w
13. Eric Prydz “Call on me” (surely, I never show the video 🙂 ) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQSYo_pC-QA
14. Uniting Nations “Out of Touch” (also, the video is never shown 🙂 ) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Xz8aLuD7Y
15. Urban Cookie Collective “The Key The Secret” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt91rG311OM
16. Michael Zager Band “Let’s All Chant” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-VlM_alVkY
17. HBO Boxing Original Theme Song – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSlDpLql1Hc
18. Dropkick Murphys “I’m shipping to Boston” (yes, even this, even though it’s loud and has too much lyrics 😉 ) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSlDpLql1Hc
19. The Prodigy “No Good. Start the Dance” (yes, sometimes even this 🙂 ) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svJvT6ruolA
20. And the crowing track on my playlist is surely my favourite – Yelle “Comme Un Enfant” (CENOB1TE Remix) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT_M91s0lrk

Well, of course, this list is no way exhaustive! Moreover, it’s being renewed all the time: some tracks come, some go. But you are kindly invited to treat yourselves to the tracks on my playlist! 🙂 I hope you will like some 🙂

And to round off this blogpost, here is the short musical movie I was listening to while writing this blogpost. It’s called God is a DJ, but so are teachers 🙂

Enjoy! 🙂

 

On Blogging

First of all, I would like to thank Sirja and Zenya for their inspiring posts on blogging. After reading them I couldn’t but take up the challenge, too. In fact, I wanted to write about blogging a long while ago but kept on postponing for the reasons I’m going to discuss in this post. But now with renewed energy and motivation and all doubts set aside, here I am with the story of my blogging.

I should admit, and you can actually see it from the number of the posts on my blog, that I don’t write much. So you may ask me, Why I blog? What blogging means to me? Why I keep writing every time and then? And what stops me from writing more?

I started my blog about two years ago and, at first, I thought it was just cool to have a blog of my own. But once I started writing I immediately realized that a blog is a great opportunity to make my voice heard. Through my blog, I can share my teaching experience with other teachers and I can tell them what actually I’m doing and what is happening in my classroom.

But in a while, when the first euphoria dispersed, I started writing less and less, and, finally, I found myself in the grip of doubts. I was plagued with questions like these:

1. Who do I write my posts for?
2. Aren’t my posts just nothing but stating the obvious?
3. Where can I take the material that would be informative, useful and fresh for my readers?
4. Isn’t blogging just self-admiration and boasting?
5. Why does it feel so embarrassing to tell others about my new blog post? Isn’t it some sort of self-advertising?
6. Why are there so few people who like or comment on my blog posts?
7. Am I doing it wrong? If yes, what should I change? The content? The style?
8. Why do I actually feel reluctant about writing a new blog post? Why does it feel so overwhelming and frustrating?

Well, I still don’t have answers to most of these questions, but recently I found out what was actually blocking me from writing. I started noticing that nagging feeling I got whenever I thought of writing a new blog post. The task seemed to me arduous and offputting. It was clear: it wasn’t the lack of ideas that was stopping me. (In fact, I’ve got a bag fully packed with notes with ideas for blogposts.) It was something else that averted me from writing.

After some reflection, I came to realize that it was the amount of time and energy I spent on writing a single post. Indeed, it took me no less then five hours to complete a post, and it always felt as if I was laboriously cutting it in stone like a sculptor chipping off bits of granite. Not surprising, that the whole task looked monstrous, and the sheer thought of it drained all energy and motivation out of me.

So I decided I needed to do something with the way I write posts. I needed to optimize the process. I usually write posts this way: I think the ideas through, I write and rewrite a draft on paper and then I type it on computer and copy it onto the blog. I like writing down my ideas on paper. This old-fashioned way stimulates my creativity and thinking abilities best of all. A blank page inspires me to reflect and create while I feel totally blank in front of a blank computer screen. (Talk of different types of blank! 🙂 ) So this part of writing is no problem to me. But it all changes when it comes to typing the draft on the computer. What a tediuos, mind-numbing and time-consuming task it is! And this is the real huge granite stumbling block on my way to writing more! Gosh! How much I hate it!

Eureka!

So it became clear to me: I needed to do something about typing drafts on the computer. And all of the sudden, the solution came to me like a flash of lightning!

Speech-to-text apps!!!

I can just dictate my drafts to the computer instead of painstakingly typing them! And then copy-paste the text onto my blog, proof-read it, edit it and – voilà! – the post is ready! 🙂

So this is exactly what I did when I was writing the previous blog post! It was all fun reading my text aloud and practicing English pronunciation on the way.

I used the Dragon Dictation app for iPhone. I dictated bits of text to it, edited them in the app and then copy-pasted them into Google Doc app where I did proof-reading and some additional editing. After that, I copy-pasted the ready-made draft into the WordPress app and hit the publish button! So simple and easy!

However, I have to admit that the WordPress app isn’t very convenient for editing texts. So it’s still better to insert media and edit the layout of the post on the webpage.

But nevertheless, the process of actual writing of a blog post has become much easier and more pleasant to me. So I hope that this optimization will result in more post on my blog this year!

And look, January hasn’t finished yet, and I’ve already got two posts on my blog which amounts to two thirds of last year’s total number of posts. That’s an achievement for me! Whooohooo!!! 🙂