Dr. J's Blog of ELT Praxis

I've been in the field of education (teaching & learning) since I was a preschooler at the age of four. For most of this time, I have been a student. It's only been in the last 18 years that I've been in the role of a teacher and 4 years that I've been in an administrative role that supports teachers. So I've seen teachers in many contexts from different perspectives, and my favorite teachers have been and still are English and foreign language teachers (social studies teachers come a close second). It seemed such a fun job when I was a student, and for the most part it turned out to be a fun job as a teacher. However, the pay is quite modest and even low for foreign language teachers who can get a full-time gig. I know why I and my friend-teachers do it, but why do others do it? I have my assumptions, so I read Why We Work to confirm my assumptions and to learn something new. I didn't expect the author to describe my line of work that much, but he did...

I am fascinated by science and the future, and that's what got me reading Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence . by Jerry Kaplan (Yale University Press, 2015). On page 151, I came across the paragraph above, and the first sentence is written in a way to confirm the fears of many teachers, especially technophobic teachers. In the second sentence, Kaplan casually connects the terrifying notion of being replaced with the flipped classroom. Instructional designers and administrators now prefer to call this flipped learning, which has become an industry of its own. See https://flippedlearning.org/ . Flipped Learning  Yes, please visit https://flippedlearning.org/ ! As of this writing (web designers love to redesign the sites every 6 months or so), "academic subjects" is at the center of the main menu. Guess what is the first academic subject listed? English/ELA. For old school English language teachers, ELA refers to En...