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
Alexandra
ELT Diary 