Dr. J's Blog of ELT Praxis

Last week, I quickly finished Rita Carter's book that inspired the previous post.  Although I found the first half of the book informative and inspiring, I was disappointed in the second half, which functioned more like a self-help book of getting in touch with your other personalities.  As an advocate of the skeptical movement, this half of the book rubbed me the wrong way.  It reminded me of plotting my astrological star chart, which I used to do in my undergraduate years.  Granted, there is much more science behind Carter's guidance than astrology.  However, she urged her readers about the fuzziness in implementing and interpreting personality tests like the Big Five Personality Traits (OCEAN) Test in the first half of the book. I suspended my disbelief and took the test here  for each of the roles I play in my life from father to PhD candidate to friend.  Most of this exercise confirmed what I already believed, but I learned that I could not pin ...

I'm nearing the end of my winter break as a PhD candidate.  Winter and summer breaks provide me a little time to pick up a book to read something other than my field and research interests.  Sometimes these books are too close to my research interesta, and this leisure time turns into work.  Other times these books are not too close but close enough to inspire other research interests, and this is one of those times. I am reading Multiplicity: The New Science of Personality, Identity, and the Self by Rita Carter .  Not only am I learning about myself, which I enjoy learning most about, but I am learning how ideas from this book can be applied to second language education.  The strongest linking idea that comes to mind is bicultural identity that some experience when they learn/acquire another language.  Since my research area is more on teacher education, I am thinking about how teachers develop a personality (best?) suited for their classroom.  I p...