Creative writing and lockdown. Therapy to boot?

Creative writing and lockdown. Therapy to boot?

Writing as freedom, as an outlet, as a release, as a means of setting our imagination loose… These were just some of the ways students conceptualised the writing that they did during last semester’s creative writing course. The course ran for three weeks on campus and then nine weeks online due to lockdown and every…

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Why bother with blogging?

Why bother with blogging?

Because it’s fun and it enhances language learning. Today begins the second-year undergraduate remote blogging course for the third year running. I started the ball rolling by posting a message in the forum welcoming students and asking the following question: why develop a blogging course for students enrolled in English? The short answer was because…

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Masked, bimodal and distance teaching

Masked, bimodal and distance teaching

Radio silence since September! Did I lose my voice? What happened? Well here’s what happened. I fumbled my way, masked and panting through September. Quite often breathless and sometimes even dizzy as I rushed from classroom to classroom.  I became expert at mad gesticulating to make up for mumbling in a foreign language. Only muffled…

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Puck and Mid Summer Moltings

Puck and Mid Summer Moltings

It is the summer after the great lockdown and hot down here in the south of France. As usual at this time of year I am assailed by mental and physical torpor. But maybe even more so than usual.  Lockdown or getting older, I wonder. Something oily wavers at the distant edges of my mind.…

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