An Expert You Admire

There are lots of interesting people related to my field of Applied Linguists and Teaching English as a Foreign Language. The first one who really had any lasting effect on my Teaching was a man called David Nunan. He's an Australian who has worked in lots of different countries and today he is one of the most respected English language teaching experts on a world level.

I first heard about him in the year 2000. I was involved in a course that was supervised by an Australian University here in Santiago. One of the visiting professors referred to Nunan's work and I decided to investigate.

I admire Nunan because he actually started out as a teacher and therefore he knows all the in and outs of teaching. Additionally, he has written some excellent books on teaching that are really accessible to teachers and not just academics. My favourite book by him is Language Teaching Methodology, which is the first one that I read. However, he has also written really good books on Task-based Learning, and Learner-Centred Teaching and Learning. A lot of the things that he writes about are very practical and I guess he is the person who has most influenced my teaching over the last ten years or so. Nunan introduced me to a lot of new ideas about what is to teach without forgetting that the learner is the most important element of the equation.

Write about an expert you admire.
Say:
Who it is,
What their area of expertise is,
How you heard about this person,
Why you admire him or her
What effect they have had on your studies.

Mention anything else you thing is important. Write a comment on your teacher's blog and on the blogs of at least 3 classmates.

My Favourite Piece of Technology

My favourite piece of technology is my macbook. I got it in February 2011 at an Airport duty-free shop in New Zealand (I'd been on holiday visiting my brother who lives in Paekakariki near Wellington). At first I thought it was a bit extravagant to buy it because I have a PC but my wife encouraged me to get it. She always tells me that I should spoil myself every now and then.
I use it for making music and videos. The only 2 programmes I use are Garageband, for mixing audio, and imovie, for editing video. I often combine the two programmes and publish my creations on my Vimeo page.
I use the macbook about once a month during term-time because I don't have much free time. If I start creating something I can easily spend 8 hours a day working on it so I need to have all my other work done before I can dedicate time to this hobby.
I guess I like the macbook because it is so easy to use. I managed to create a song the first time I used the mac without even having to read the instructions. If you know a little about audio or video then the programmes are very logical to use.
Life would be very strange without my macbook. I could still do the same things on my PC with other programmes but the mac just feels like a more sophisticated and classy machine. I think I would take longer to compose and create on a different machine. The model I have has been discontinued now but I hope to use it for a number of years as I don't need a more powerful machine ....... yet!

Write about your favourite piece of Technology.
Say:
What it is,
When you got it,
What you use it for,
How often you use it,
Why you like it,
What life would be like without it.
Write at least 200 words. Leave a comment on your teacher's blog and a comment on the blogs of at least 3 classmates.