WHEN SHOULD YOU SEND YOUR CHILD ABROAD TO LEARN ENGLISH? (AND WHY?)

Today’s post is my reaction to the new article “‘The Experiential Learning of English’: Discourses of Catalan Families on Teenage Educational Mobility Abroad” (originally published in Catalan as “‘L’aprenentatge vital de l’anglès’: els discursos de famílies catalanes sobre la mobilitat educativa adolescent a l’estranger”; Treballs de Sociolingüística Catalana 34 (2024): 13-29). The authors are my […]

 ¿CUÁNDO DEBERÍAS ENVIAR A TU HIJO AL EXTRANJERO PARA APRENDER INGLÉS? (¿Y POR QUÉ?)

La entrada de hoy es mi reacción al nuevo artículo “‘The Experiential Learning of English’: Discourses of Catalan Families on Teenage Educational Mobility Abroad” (publicado originalmente en catalán como “‘L’aprenentatge vital de l’anglès’: els discursos de les famílies catalanes sobre la mobilitat educativa adolescent a l’estranger”; Treballs de Sociolingüística Catalana 34 (2024): 13-29). Las autoras […]

 FROM MICHIKO KAKUTANI TO EMILY MAY: OF DETHRONED QUEENS

I was going to write about my increasingly worrying addiction to GoodReads. In the end, though, this has become a post about the deprofessionalization of book reviewing, based on a consideration of the very diverse influence of reviewers Michiko Kakutani and Emily May, the former a stalwart of The New York Times and the latter […]

DE MICHIKO KAKUTANI A EMILY MAY: SOBRE REINAS DESTRONADAS

Iba a escribir hoy sobre mi cada vez más preocupante adicción a GoodReads. Al final, sin embargo, este post se ha convertido en un mini-ensayo sobre la desprofesionalización de la crítica de libros, basado en una consideración de la influencia tan diversa de las críticas Michiko Kakutani y Emily May, la primera un baluarte de […]

ON MY NEW SUBJECT CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE IN ENGLISH: AN EXPERIMENT

When we started working on the new 2021 syllabus, my Literature colleagues and I came to the conclusion that our students have too little contact with the contemporary world. Our undergrads take in the first year an Introduction to English Literature, which basically covers the British and Irish 20th century, beginning with James Joyce’s “The […]

GOODBYE VICTORIANS, SEE YOU LATER!!

Memory is a funny thing. I have been digging into my CV to prepare this post and what I have found does not quite match my recollections. I was under the impression that I have been teaching Victorian Literature every year since I was hired in 1991, except the year that I spent in Scotland […]

¡¡ADIÓS VICTORIANOS, HASTA LUEGO!!

La memoria es una cosa curiosa. He estado indagando en mi CV para preparar esta entrada y lo que he encontrado no acaba de coincidir con mis recuerdos. Tenía la impresión de que he estado enseñando Literatura Victoriana todos los años desde que me contrataron en 1991, excepto el año que pasé en Escocia (¡hace […]