Using MOOCs in EAP teaching

In teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at Griffith College Dublin over the past nine months, I've made regular use of certain EAP-related MOOCs to supplement, enliven and enrich classes/lessons. The website FutureLearn.com is an excellent source of such courses in various aspects of EAP and TESOL, and it also has courses on such subjects as conducting research, reading and interpreting novels, IETLS exam preparation and writing academic essays (for non-native speakers of English) in the English language. The MOOC materials and methods are varied and engaging, including video clips and quizzes. One of their best MOOCs for my EAP classes was the Open University MOOC on futurelearn.com entitled 'Listening and Presenting', which proved very helpful to students in preparing presentations. 

Novels of Penelope Lively

This is just a very quick post to report my most recent reading activity - I've been happily discovering and enjoying some of the writings of British author Penelope Lively, and, having first read and really enjoyed her novel The Photograph (2003), I'm now engrossed in her 1987 Man Booker Prize-winning Moon Tiger. As soon as I finish this excellent book - already ranking as one of my favourite novels ever - I look forward to reading the other works of this brilliant writer. Reviews to follow on this blog, of Lively's writings, in due course. 

Reading material

Currently reading and enjoying Philip Pullman's The Book of Dust Volume One: La Belle Sauvage. Also Amélie Nothomb's Le Fait du Prince, having previously read a couple of Ishiguro's novels. More to follow on the novels I've been enjoying in recent months.

Further warblings on Verne's and Struthers' 'A Winter's Sojourn In The Ice'

In my last post of November 2017 I was writing about the above Verne novella which is now being republished, in serialized form, in the Newsletter Extraordinary Journeys of the North American Jules Verne Society. In their most recent winter edition of this journal, the first few chapters of William Struthers' rendering into English of this Verne adventure have been published, accompanied by an essay I wrote by way of introduction to this novella. I gave a brief synopsis of the plot in my last post to this blog, and my introductory essay in the above journal concludes that the translation is highly accurate and complete. I would recommend this Verne story highly to aficionados of this French author.