by Steve Peters
The Away Day at CELFS this year, at its heart, was an exploration of how each of us can enhance well-being for ourselves, our colleagues and our students. This included a look at creating opportunities for Cognitive Breathing Space (CBS). The fact that this phrase could represent a variety of practices and meanings for individuals is apparent in the conversation maps and recordings created and collected during the event. On the Ashton Court Estate it took the form of a walk and talk activity with subsequent reflective conversation mapping. Thanks to Donna MacLean who suggested the focus for the away day and introduced the away day planning team to the concept of CBS for the day. (more…)
In my Part One blog I confessed to my shifting position from a somewhat narrow-minded “English only in the classroom” policy to a more flexible approach to the use of L1 in the classroom. This was partly based on the idea that emergent bilinguals and multilinguals naturally use translanguaging strategies in their real lives – therefore, I asked why we shouldn’t occasionally harness this outside literacy practice into our pedagogy when appropriate and possible to do so.