“Queen’s in Queen’s University Belfast takes an apostrophe before the s. Making a mistake in the institution’s name is not acceptable”. That’s the headline in the specialist Teaching newspaper. They do exist, I now know this. OK, its not really anything to do with teaching in primary school, but I have a presentation to do in 2 days, I can’t spend half that time deciding on a subject. Skills learnt in my old life suddenly become very relevant – taking the headline totally out of context and using it to my own ends. I have a concept for my presentation “Does Grammar Matter” – a presentation about the level that grammar should be taught to in primary school.
For the first time, seeds of doubt enter my mind. I know nothing about grammar, to be honest, I wasn’t even sure how to spell it (oh God, I’m going to have to write things on a blackboard, and last time I looked these things don’t come equipped with spell checkers). How can I possibly put a presentation together about it. More fundamentally, what makes me think I’m suitable to teach it! I’ve got a feeling the course is going to be far more intense than I had originally thought.
However, the search skills from my old life serve me well. Very quickly I find out what grammar is required to be taught in the national curriculum, and quite soon after I find a whole body of research on the value of teaching grammar. Who’d have thought. (If anyone’s interested, the research tends to indicate that it really doesn’t matter very much at all).
I now have my subject matter. It doesn’t take me long to turn this into a presentation. Par it down to the 5 minute limit, do all the good stuff about presentations – introduction, overview, summary, audience interaction, etc. I add the college’s logo to the slides, apply some basic slide transition effects (I have the feeling being too flash would be frowned upon) and am feeling pretty good about the whole thing. How many other applicants are old hands at this stuff, and know what makes a presentation work. All those skills I learnt in my previous life now seem very applicable, at least in getting on the course, I’ve yet to see how applicable they are when you’re standing in front of 30 six year olds.
To be continued …
