The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

I visited Joanna's blog. I like the fact that like me, she priorities motherhood. She also values the impact of reflection and wants to really help her learners.  

Effective language teaching per se requires that the language be deconstructed before its reconstruction as a unified whole. Through this process the learner of the language is able to concentrate on studying the intricacies of the isolated part to the level of mastery. Exemplary competence of the parts is implicitly mastery of the sum of its parts, the whole.


Having looked at listening and speaking in the previous week, this week’s readings turned our attention to reading and writing while the websites offered adopt a multi-skills approach. Technology-enhanced lesson plans punctuated the week with its requisite application of newly acquired knowledge. Of course, it is this, the reflective journal that will finally, analyse, evaluate, and create a record for the future retrospection.

Focusing on the negative has become such an ingrained habit that from all the tasks that needed to be completed this week, the project task that focused on “issues” that technology could improve was the least challenging to complete. Admittedly, I could not help but consider the solutions simultaneously, so there must be hope for me yet.

While the readings contributed to my developed understanding of the role of technology in language teaching, I must confess that it deepened my sadness for the ‘third-worldliness’ of this, my country. At the risk of sounding even more morose than I might have sounded before, I realised that all these fantastic ideas are just that, fantastic ideas! I began to wonder if my attempts to complete the required tasks were attempts to fit the proverbial ‘square cube into the round hole’. It raised the question of whether what I was attempting to do to support the Ambassadors was in any way even remotely connected to Computer Assisted Language Learning!

But perhaps I over-analyse?

The lesson dispelled any qualms I had about the right fit; it was certainly a technology-enhanced lesson plan. The topic I focused on reminded me of the benefits of a multi-skills approach when teaching a second language (or a first language for that matter). Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

Nevertheless, who was it who said, “Words, are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality.”?