Reading and Writing with My Students is the name of my Reading and Writing Workshop for EFL teachers.
When I was told, at my first job interview, that I had to teach Reading and Writing to a group of teenagers, I thought I would never do it. My students were all boys at an all-boy school. Therefore, keeping those kids at their desks reading in English and writing both fiction and non-fiction seemed impossible to me.
It was then that I, desperately, started to look for help. And it wss then that I came across with Nancy Atwell's IN THE MIDDLE. I learned a lot about reading and writing myself; and I learned a lot about teaching reading and writing. The problem was that Nancy's ideas seemed to work well among native speakers, so I had to adapt Nancy's ideas before adopting them.
As time went by, I did; and my reading and writing workshops, in time, changed the way I saw teaching EFL! So, even though Ms Atwell never heard about this, she was a lot of inspiration to me.
Meet Nancy Atwell
Cheers,
Gonzalo :-)
Hi Gonzalo,
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting that your class filled up with all boys. I’m sure you now get familiar with teaching and writing with the help of Nancy Atwell's IN THE MIDDLE. I wonder what did you do first to adapt Nancy's ideas in teaching these skills?
PS. Are there all-girl schools in your country? :-)
Best,
Hi Gonzalo,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that teaching Reading and Writing may be very difficult, especially if you have to teach teenagers. In our country modern teens are not really interested in reading and they are not used to writing a lot nowadays, since all of them have mobiles and Internet and their writing is restricted to sms and e-mails. What about your country?
I think teaching teens is probably the most difficult task in comparison with other group ages. We, teachers, should be the most creative and enthusiastic! So you did a great job!!
I have never heard of Nancy Atwell's In the Middle, but I am very interested now. I'll try to find the book and get familiar with her work. Thank you for information!
Hiya,
ReplyDeleteSame-sex schools are not popular nowadays, but there are still a couple of them (private and very expensive!)
Same thing as regards reading and writing with adolescents; however, I transformed the workshops in spaces to learn and express feelings, fears, hopes ... and kids loved it!
Cheers,
Gon:-)