I have decided to start this blog with a quote that a Facebook friend recently shared with me: firstly because I wholeheartedly agree with it and therefore it can help the reader ‘read’ me and decide whether I might be the kind of person they want to engage with.  Secondly, I think it fits nicely within the context of ‘learning’ and therefore, by extension, ‘learning materials’, i.e. TE714, the module I am writing this blog for.

“This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play”

Alan W. Watts

Like Watts I am fascinated by Eastern philosophy and believe that being ‘engaged’ means to be fully present in the moment. This is how I try to go through life and this is how I have attempted to approach my MA course at Brighton uni (I am a part-time student of MA TESOL with ICT in my second and hopefully final year).

As a teacher I would be thrilled to see this level of engagement in my students! Sadly that is, of course, very rarely the case. However, I believe that by leading by example and by creating interesting activities and using engaging materials I can maybe, hopefully, bring about conditions in the classroom that make my students temporarily forget they are there to ‘work’ (that seems to be most students’ interpretation of ‘learning’). And that they, at least occasionally, find themselves having fun in a lesson, with learning just happening almost accidentally.