Say "Thanks" even if you don't mean it

Abstract

           Imagine people stop saying “thanks” to each other. Some of them could give up doing what they do for a missing casual “please” or “Thanks”. People normally like compliments, and the word “Thanks” is the cheapest of all means of support. We don’t necessarily need prizes, rewards or expensive gifts to thank someone. Wise people know the magical effect of the word so they never forget to offer it to people around them even those who just step aside to let them pass in the hallway. Many things would be lost just for want of a little kind word even if it is void of sincerity. Life experiences show that for want of a simple “please” or “Thank you”, many great plans were abandoned unfinished, and many other promising projects were aborted. Therefore, “Thanks” or any sort of complimenting words can make a big difference. The digital learners should learn to say “Thanks” even if they don’t mean it. They should know that it practically costs nothing to sow gratitude and to be polite. This is the constant lesson they will keep taking throughout their existence.

It costs practically nothing to say “Please” & “Thanks”

The Constant Lesson for Digital Learners

Hybrid lessons and Independent learning, The Tacit Relationship

- INTRODUCTION

            Distance education is gaining ground over conventional teaching and learning settings and methods. However, not all schools and learners have access to this luxury. It is still out of reach for the majority of schools and learners around the world. Therefore as a preparatory step, hybrid education is to be initialised in terms of blending traditional and online teaching for students to get more than enough of their needs. Generally, teachers plan their lesson for face-to-face casual classroom setting, but they can also plan it for online pursuit. Learners will be able to take the lesson and practice it at home via the web long before they can discuss it in class.

            Releasing the lesson from the traditional classroom rigidity is one of the best options to help students learn in their own pace, and learn to solve problems critically to eventually become independent learners. They have time enough to study before coming to class for discussion and deeper understanding of the course. This relationship between being independent as a learner and hybrid learning is tight but not evident.

            This paper is not meant to explain how a hybrid lesson works or can be planned in detail, nor is it meant to show how to implement flipped classroom model. This paper just tries to emphasize the importance of hybrid learning within the constant fast change that is widening the gap between old teaching methods and modern learning settings and tools. If we don’t conquer technology now and exploit it for the efficiency of education, it will simply ruin the future of our (addicted to mobile devices) kids.

- METHODOLOGIES

- HYBRID COURSES

- FLIPPED CLASSROOM

- CONCLUSION

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Incorporating Root Cause Analysis (RCA) in Technical and Vocational Education

Introduction

        The journey for learning has always been arduous, but when adequate means are available, it becomes less burdensome. By adequate means I mean everything which makes learning purposeful and fruitful. For the digital students, learning has become at their disposition thanks to the multitude of resources and the easiness of accessing them. However, for the millennial learners who rely greatly on search engines to answer all their questions, learning is getting more complicated and more risky at the same time because they are predisposed to accept any answer provided even though their question was not the exact one they want to ask. They need special cognitive skills to evaluate before accepting the provided answer.

          The necessary skills to cope with real life nowadays have become great in number and diverse in type, but also hard in adjustment. Unfortunately those skills are not yet taught at school. As it has become ludicrous that school delivers information which doesn’t help the learners build an emotionally, physically, intellectually and financially balanced personality, real life skills have to be integrated in school syllabi. This is no longer a suggestion; it has become an obligation. For scientific and technical streams, teaching English as a foreign language requires a blender material which must entice the students to activate and make use of their long term memory and to use their thinking abilities appropriately as real life skills. In real life, they will surely have to deal with situations that need vigorous investigation and be faced with problems which need long lasting original solutions.

          Obviously, in the past few years, young people didn’t use to face the same problems as youth have to face today because life is getting more complicated. Subsequently, nobody can imagine the harshness of problems in the future. They will certainly be more complicated according to the complexity of their professional, emotional, marital, financial, social, administrative, and legal sides of life.  They will have no excuse as they will be responsible for their acts as adults, so they need to develop critical thinking from now, and learn to solve problems by going deeper to the source of any issue to fix it for preventing it from recurring. School can provide them with the basic skills, and it is for them to develop those skills and improve them via intensive practice.

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The Dynamic Type of Education Needed for Today

INTRODUCTION

    It must be understood that education has always been dynamic. Its role is one, and it is to help children grow naturally. It provides them with the necessary academic knowledge (concepts and theories) and enough experience (for building sustainable careers) to develop and grow normally with life. Education is not meant to mess up with the kids’ innate settings. It’s only meant to discover, to foster and to sharpen their talents and to incite them to be creative and innovative. It is for kids that education is primarily destined.

          No doubt, like any other “living” entity, Education should be looked after carefully so as to grow healthier and stronger. As it is the keystone in the development of nations, it should be given greater care to grow straight, robust and prolific. Without a strong well managed educational system, no applicable learning and subsequently no progress are to be expected. Any educational system not aware of this yet is doomed to reproduce mediocrity.

As it will continually implement those invalid outdated methods and those boring frustrating contents, barren educational systems will permanently become the cause of the poor outcome of long years of continual inappropriate teaching techniques and no serious authentic practical scientific research and critical thinking skills. Hence, the seeming uselessness of school for personal, communal and national development will gradually become a general impression.

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Things that cannot be recovered

         There are at least three things in life that have to be carefully dealt with because once they are gone off, they cannot be recuperated or remediated. I’m referring here to the time when it is lost, the words when they are spoken, and the opportunities when they are missed.

           Let’s start with the lost time. Time is man’s terrifying adversary number one. It is pitiless. Once you waste it, you can never find it again. For most people, time is not precious until they lose it. Can you imagine the amount of time people waste every single day?! They have to feel regret after it is gone because they know they’ll never have it back. However they never learn, they make the same mistake again and over again. It is a part of their life which has been spared for nothing. Those who value time, they do their utmost to keep busy thinking and exploiting every moment the maximum. They firmly believe that “There are only two times in life, ‘Now’ and ‘Too Late’”

        The second is the spoken words. You need to watch your words closely. Once you say something, it is impossible to unsay it. It is always too late to undo once the word goes out of the mouth. It is just like the bullet; nothing can stop it, and nobody can imagine the damage it can cause. You have to think before you talk since what you say can be fatal for the others or for yourselves.  Therefore, you speak only when you choose your words carefully lest they should hurt, or make a jerk of you. If you don’t want to keep apologizing all the time, be the master of the words by not pronouncing them until you make sure they are harmless and maybe wise as well. Don’t forget that the wounds that some words cause last forever, and are never healed.

      The third one is the missed opportunity. Good opportunities seldom knock at your door, so you have to keep quiet and listen carefully. Maybe one day a roving good opportunity knocks at your door, then you shall be ready to seize it straight away otherwise, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Those precious occasions are not frequent just like luck. “Take full of every opportunity that comes your way” as Milka Duno said. Never miss it. If you keep missing opportunities, it is obviously your fault; that’s why life is a series of random chances which have to be seized and well exploited. Once they are missed, those opportunities are lost forever.

         To sum up, your life is made of beautiful things that you can easily and unintentionally ruin. So if you want to avoid this, you have to be dutiful with time by not to wasting it, and you have to watch your mouth for fear you should destroy your social life with stupid unnecessary comments or words, and finally you have to be vigilant to grasp the rarely presented opportunities before they are gone forever.

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Implementing "Active Learning" In Beginner EFL Classes

Introduction

            This is a performance for both Common Core and 1Bac students.  It is intended to directly involve students in the learning process and put them at the heart of the learning situation. It is also intended to engage, and stimulate the learners by giving them the opportunity to raise questions and participate in the making of the lesson. That’s what is referred to as “learning by doing”.

            The point is to go beyond the traditional usual (boring) type of EFL lessons which the students no longer feel like taking. This generation longs for new strategies which would help them construct meaning and become active learners for learning actively and creatively.

            The following activity is a kind of a true to life situation where grammar is integrated to sustain comprehension and subsequently natural English use in concordance with appropriate normal body talk, gestures and facial expressions. It might be a little time consuming activity, but the results are rewarding.

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Critical Writing for High School Students

Introduction

           

              High school students are not required to review or analyse books and authors’ ideas for which critical writing is basically used, they can instead be introduced to it through writing about the ideas they are the most familiar with and which they have to support or reject calmly and reasonably. Training on using logical evidence to prove or disapprove an idea is the start. In this early stage of critical writing, the students get to learn how to use solid arguments to support or rebut an idea or a notion. The students should bear in mind that critical writing is not descriptive or evocative, neither is it criticism for the sake of criticism.

              Critical writing is based on logic, evidence and persuasion where vague and common standpoints have no place within this type of serious work. No emotions, no opinionated attitudes, no conceit or weak evidence, no readymade authoritative assertions are allowed in critical writing. The students should learn to be unbiased, inflexible, steady, but also logical and reasonable in their methods. As they learn to evaluate everything they come across and not just accept it as it is, they also learn to write taking into consideration that the readers will most probably evaluate their product critically before they accept it. This is a valuable gain even for outside school situations. Once the students get acquainted with these conditions and regulations, they will have a much smoother access to higher academic education, and labour market.

              For a start, the learners should bear in mind that, at the University, critical writing is a tough task in the sense that it is almost scientific in its procedure. It is systematic and methodical. The students must make research to be able to “criticise” an author, a book or an idea. When criticising a literary work for instance, they must read a lot and conduct analysis to which results they have to commit. They also should check if the arguments have logical coherence or not and if they are supported by relevant evidence. Besides, they must check if the reasons are related to each other leading to a valid conclusion. They should go further and see if the author is biased. To be prepared for all this, the high school students should at least be trained through the basics of critical writing, but via academically approved models.

              At the first glance these conditions look excessive and very complicated for EFL learners. This might be true in part, but the more they practice it this way, the less stupid pieces of writing they do, and the more they accept to write. Teachers know how students behave towards writing, and the amount of despise they have for it. This is due to their ignorance of how to handle writing from the beginning to the end. Sometimes they write whatever they have in mind just like on social media. Without models to follow, they are like walking in the dark, they would stumble and fall and maybe give in. So, any procrastinating is an immense waste of precious opportunities.

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The Illusory Nature Of Life

         In theory, we are all aware that life is a mirage; nonetheless, fools as we are, we still run after it. We think we can get everything we want from life. In fact, we can’t get anything at all for one thing: it is naturally illusive. All its pleasures are not only temporary, but they are dreamlike as well, so why bother killing oneself for illusive momentary pleasures. Life’s temptation and seduction are so powerful and unbeatable that they can wipe out expectations and dreams cold bloodedly. Therefore many prudent people simply choose to seize the day.

          You are told that life is short, and you are advised to enjoy every single moment of it. This motivational advice is worth taking; however, are all the moments of life really enjoyable? It has some such stressful moments that we have just to accept and experience their sufferings helplessly in silence.  Well, I am talking here like someone who knows what life is really like. No, I don’t. It is true that I have a relatively long relationship with it, but Alas, I still don’t know much; All the same, I’ll try to share the little I know with you.

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Beyond The Usual Teaching Job

Abstract

                        The teacher gives examples, but the educator tries to be the example. The teacher who moves from teaching the syllabus to teaching the learners becomes educator. The teacher who dares to step beyond the usual job she does, and starts cultivating hope, at that very moment she is becoming a mentor and an educator.

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Saying « No » without uttering the word

         There are situations in life where we can’t get free from inconvenient obligations but only through saying “No”. However, there are ways to soften the blow especially when it comes to requests. This word no matter how little it is, it hurts badly. Therefore, this word can be said in a less shocking way. As the result is always declining the request, it’s better to do that positively and more tenderly.

            By “Saying ‘NO’ without uttering the word”, I don’t mean shaking heads or using the forefinger. The topic is a little more formal. Why does it matter not to say “No!” in response to questions in general but particularly for rejecting a request, refusing to give permission or turning down an invitation? Some people are shocked when they get a harsh abrupt “No!” as an answer. Subsequently, tactful and considerate people try hard to avoid being offensive, vulgar and rough, so they use mild language and very soft terms to decline a request without being rude. They are good at using other expressions that mean the same as “No” without uttering the deplorable word.

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The question of interdependence between Imagination and writing

Introduction

Imagination and writing are mutually dependent; each one feeds from the other. Imagination gives writing a soul and a spirit, while writing renders imagination tangible. In other words, imagination can be better expressed through writing, and writing can be improved through expressing imagination creatively. It is through converting it into writing that imagination gets a value and a meaning, and it is through imagination that writing becomes lively, alluring and more significant. It is thanks to understanding and mastering this combination that some writers become eminent novelists and famous authors.

            It is not out of insanity to believe that imagination is more important than knowledge. If the students become able to use writing to express imagination creatively, they can create knowledge or explore other parts of it. Imagination is always prolific and can add to knowledge as knowledge is limited. Narrow-mindedness is what limits imagination and bars the way for new discoveries. Many of what we consider facts today have been the outcome of science-fiction intelligent imaginative writers like “Jules Verne”, “Victor Appleton”, “Karel Čapek” who first talked about Robots, and “H.G. Wells” who inspired scientists to think about the positive use of Atomic energy. A great deal of what we take for knowledge today was only the imagination of some writers in the past.

            If the students succeed in combining their thoughts and dreams with their willingness to write, they will certainly broaden their imagination scope and sharpen their writing skills. This combination has to always be nourished and taken care of to reach high levels of transcendence. And this is feasible only through regular practice transforming the virtual world of imagination into words on a sheet of paper as artistically as possible. Writing revives imagination. It protects its valuable ideas from being wasted. Writing gives imagination the high admiration it deserves if it presents it fabulously. By boosting imagination through writing, writing also automatically boosts intelligence and creativity.

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Writing for Problem Solving

Foreword

            No one can deny the fact that problems constitute a great part of our life, and they often make it worth living. We survive through struggling against them. They are the main source for hope and dreaming of a better “tomorrow”. It is true that those problems exhaust us badly, but in the end we can defeat and solve the greatest part of them and carry on with life. It is always a great pleasure when we eventually solve our problems, and build up experience to go on with life. However, many people find it hard to keep thinking all the time how to solve a problem that has suddenly invaded their life without their consent, and that’s what happens most of the time. No one chooses to create problems for themselves, but this often happens involuntarily. They only see problems as mere troubles turning their life into hell.

            These people never want to admit that everyone is subject to different kinds of problems, and they keep complaining “Why me?!” You can smell objection but also defeatism in the phrase. It seems hard for them to deal with thorny problems which surpass their capacities. This is so because they don’t know how to treat them critically; as a result, they get irritated and worried. Those more experienced people can find their way to solve their problems effortlessly, whereas those with little or no experience, easily give up the struggle pretending that their problems are problematic, i.e. they are mixed up with other associated problems, so they get cornered and they surrender at once.

            Learners have their own problems as well, and they have to deal with them to survive. Their problems are as young as they are, so they are mostly simple and can often be solved when the learners could detect and follow the causes; which they don’t generally do because they still need the way and the tools. That’s why voices of practitioners in the field of education rise for the necessity to integrate teaching critical thinking for problem solving and decision making in the school curricula. The learners need to learn how to face their problems, no matter how they are, calmly and start thinking how to find a way out with those problems. Here comes writing to be a good tool to use in exploring and dissecting the possible causes of the problem so as to fix them and find suitable solutions; then pick out the most suitable solution among them. This can be done through thinking by writing.

            No doubt writing is a High cognitive complexity task due to the great number of elements included in its making. However, when it comes to using it for thinking, it is less formal and more a free writing. It has to respect the general rules for legibility only, but apart from that, it is no more than a way to stay tuned on your focal task. If the learners can just train on this process regularly they would gradually develop both writing and problem solving skills.

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Developing Better thinking skills In High school

Introduction

            Is it really so hard for school to perceive the tremendous change that is occurring around it nowadays? It seems that it is afraid of admitting that it is too much for it to cope with the change. All indicators point to the fact that the “new” teaching methods they adopt have already been outdated. As long as we still keep teaching the kids lessons they no longer feel like learning, we will never be able to ignite curiosity in them so as to make them develop suitable critical thinking skills which fit their digital era and their creativity inclination. They need to feel the change at school; that change which is ravaging all old thinking processes and concepts about learning. The generation Y have chosen to wear lenses that are capable of piercing the invisible and discover more appealing learning approaches. I bet students no longer wait for school to introduce them to information and communication technology as they have gone a long deal already.

            Shamelessly some schools still use old teaching tools and methods in the era of tablets, Smartphones, phablets, tele-conferencing, flipped classrooms and distance-education. They are not aware that apprenticeship has enormously changed in material, content, theory, method, medium and approaches. Schools look hesitating in tackling subjects that they were not used to tackling because they are slow in acknowledging the shift in all domains of knowledge including defining literacy. There are no such digitally illiterate students today, but some schools are unfortunately.

            Most of us would agree with Arthur Schopenhauer’s words, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident”. Well, I wonder why school is hesitating and doesn’t seize the opportunity to start stimulating learners to be creative through thinking differently but ingeniously. It should invade the new world and develop it through developing the learners thinking skills. Some steps have been taken already but they are still filled with incertitude and reluctance.

            Incorporating critical thinking concepts into high school curricula is not a choice, it is the only choice to promote the students and help them develop thinking skills and abilities to be ready for the unknown challenges of the future.

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Grade Inflation & Low learning Achievement ?!

Introduction

            Some people attribute the students’ low performance at school to several different causes like, social media, working parents, poverty, bullying, unskilled teachers, conventional teaching and learning approaches, family problems, no assistance at home, absenteeism and so on, but all these are only the tip of the iceberg. The real reason however is somewhere within this medley of causes. Our concern here is simple, how come the students perform poorly at school, yet they get high grades?!

          Logically, it is unconceivable that a poor learner gets excellent grades and then be applauded and rewarded. This is an ironic situation, isn’t it? But unfortunately this is what happens in reality. The students are killing themselves to get good marks regardless of what they have achieved as learners. The standard of mastery in any school subject doesn’t permit high grades unless there is talent, concentration and perfection. Brilliant students cannot be distinguished now that even low efficient students can get high marks which can generally be ill-gotten.

            The students nowadays are so fervent to get the best grades that would meet the requirements of institutes of eminence.  They don’t care about what they are capable of but only about having the necessary grades allowing them to access those high standard schools. The result is that some students do their utmost to get excellent marks regardless of the means. The inflation of grades has harmed learning and proficiency so much.

            School needs to evaluate the students in terms of their abilities to assimilate, use, reuse and reprocess the information they get at school using their critical thinking problem solving and creativity skills. Not just repeating the lessons they have imbibed during the term. Thus, only intelligent, assiduous and committed students can manifest their skills, competencies and merit. In this case, the students, for the most part, will change their perception of learning and can draw a line between their schooling and their education.

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The Battle of Reading

     Besides writing, reading has also become another horrible experience for this generation of learners who grew up within the social media realm. We don’t know where this would lead them. Most learners today try hard to avoid reading so as not to expose themselves to boredom, embarrassment, frustration or disappointment. Most students have suddenly become illiterate in the sense that they can give the text nothing that would help them understand it. They own no schemata, no background knowledge and no vocabulary repertoire which might allow them to read, comprehend and infer. Reading has become the worst battle they have to fight and certainly lose. They are now hooked on the virtual volatile vibrant world of internet where they feel free, amused and more anonymously sheltered. They shun the battle of reading mostly for this very particular reason.

     For these “digital” non-active learners, Reading is a real ordeal. It is the worst battle they have to fight; all the same, they never feel like reading at all. They hate fighting the battle of reading because they know they will lose it, and even if they are sure to win, they believe that they won’t get anything of value from that false pride of winning the nonsensical battle of reading. They don’t generally read unless they are obliged to, like when they have to sit for a test or an exam for instance. In leisure time, they never dare to fight the battle of reading because they need to be strong enough to keep up with the rhythm of the battle. They feel it is a mere waste of time and effort because they won’t gain anything even after winning it.

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A stylistic approach to Meja Mwangi's novel "Going down River Road"

Abstract

Meja Mwangi’s novel Going Down River Road has not got the merit it deserves. Most critics approach it negatively. They emphasize the fact that it is weak, pessimistic, and does not offer solutions to the deplorable economic and social situation of the neo-colonial period in Kenya he tackles. However almost no one has approached it stylistically to explore its artistic features. And this is what I am trying to do in this study.

Let’s first stress the fact that the novel is not an essay or an article. It is not required to propose solutions to problems though most African novelists do so. We should not deny its powerful construction thanks to its style and language. Its force stems from its true to life characters, setting and diction, besides its distinguished depictive language. Its styles reflect the real type of life people in the poorest areas of Nairobi lead and this is creative writing. To reach this, Maja Mwangi deployed all figurative language devices and tools such as metaphor, simile, degeneration, personification, synecdoche, euphemism, comparison, irony, along with the use of the cinematic techniques. His use of imagery, on the other hand, has enriched and of course given the book the value it deserves as a piece of art.

Going Down River Road was first published in 1976 after Meja Mwangi had published three strong novels, namely Kill me quick, (1973), Carcase for Hounds (1974), Taste of Death (1975) but Kill Me Quick got Jomo Kenyatta Prize in 1974.and this novel, owns the same strength and worth which made it deserve the same prize in 1977. Going Down River Road is using quality literary devices and this renders it particularly very popular to the extent that it is recommended for tourists who want to visit Neirobi.

Meja Mwangi’s book is not a simple report on the conditions in Nairobi. It is rather a living thing which makes the reader absorbed by the marvels of the detailed descriptions which stimulate all the five senses; besides the funny characters that add a lot to the refinement of the artistic skills the writer obviously worked on meticulously.

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Learners as Public Speakers

When the learners are called on in class, they commonly get haunted by the shame of making mistakes and being laughed at. That’s because we have stigmatized mistakes and consequently blocked their involvement and engagement in most classroom activities which consists of speaking, giving opinion or negotiating meaning. When we stop correcting them all the time, the students feel independent and become a little more daring in expressing their thoughts. They can think aloud despite the hindrance of their language imperfection. Gradually their responses or comments go from scattered words to phrases then to sentences and statements until the students reach the stage of being capable of presenting their ideas trying hard to make them intelligible. The teacher should seize the opportunity to shift with this new skill they get into leading them to the ultimate stage of delivering speeches. They will surely be pleased to speak publicly (within the restricted classroom context first) surmounting all their fears and disinclination.

            Whenever they have an idea, no matter how imperfect their language fluency is, they stand up in front of the class to deliver what they have in mind. It works well with most students. As for those who still couldn’t get rid of the stage fright and the mistake phobia are given models to exploit for more insurance and self-confidence, and this works pretty well as a shelter from making mistakes or getting stuck.

            Training the students on public speaking is not a superfluous activity; it is a priority nowadays because communication has become the key for success in business and in almost all careers. How the students can express their ideas clearly counts a lot, and for this reason they need to practice public speaking as early as possible and with a public as restricted and confined as their own classmates.

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Misinterpreting Creativity for Verbal Irony

While the teacher was establishing the classroom rules at the beginning of the school year, he seized the opportunity to draw the students’ attention to the importance of doing homework in time.  He clearly stated that “Any student who fails to do homework has to write an apology e-mail giving at least three reasons why the homework was not done, and the e-mail is to be considered a substitute for the homework, and it will be corrected and graded”. As the students hate writing, they decided never to forget about their homework whatever it takes. And that’s exactly what the teacher aimed at.

            One day, after he had taught the students the use and usage of “too and enough”, as usual the teacher gave them homework to do on the weekend. The homework was an easy receptive exercise. The students have only to fill in the blanks with the appropriate adverb of degree, and it goes something like this,

*// Fill in the blanks with “too” or “enough” appropriately

1. This exercise is _______ easy to do.

2. I think Mr. Baker is good ________ for the job.

3. The workers don’t work quickly ___________

4. John is _______ smart to be fooled.

5. The manager is ________ busy to meet you today.

6. etc

Adam, who is actually a good student, didn’t do the homework, so he had to write the e-mail, and here is what the teacher read,

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To say or not to say, "I'm sorry". Is that a question, too?

Startup

            Communication is the pupils’ major in most schools. It focuses on exchanges that make sense. It consists of interacting positively in various situations simulating real life. Normally, there must be a great amount of etiquette and politeness in conversations that are supposed to happen in real life. Among the things the pupils learn are how to communicate civilly. They learn how to ask for anything and how to respond respectfully. They also learn how to apologize when they feel they have done something wrong. Well, this is great. What if the learners learn to behave first? They should learn their rights and duties vis-à-vis their entourage and their community. They should learn how to conduct themselves correctly and respectfully according to the norms of the community in which they live. They should remain inside their circle of liberty and never invade others’ either physically or verbally. This way, they won’t need to keep apologizing all the time.

            There are situations in life that the kids are not prepared for, and they almost don’t know how to cope with, but if they are prepared to be active citizens, they would easily find an outlet. They need to admit it when they feel guilty and apologize for any harm they could have caused to the others. This is the only way they will learn not to be outraged and abide by the rules and customs of the society in which they live. Once they are not brought up correctly, they will never be aware when they do wrong. They have no background knowledge about the rules to rely upon in dealing with life diverse situations.

            They have to learn to be good communicators, extroverted and sociable. They should learn never to be ashamed to say, “I am sorry” when they have to. Apologizing is not easy for most people, it needs courage and self-confidence. Despite all, before teaching kids how to apologize, teach them how to avoid situations in which they would be obliged to say sorry. They should learn to gain control of their behavior. This is how the loose “I’m sorry” would gradually vanish except for courtesy or for showing compassion.

It’s usually too late when one says, “sorry!”

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The Passive Voice, the easy way

It is true that the passive voice is most talked about by our students. I think we can go beyond the formal grammar rules and deal with it in the funniest way. That's -between us- a sort of word games. Let's enjoy talking about the passive voice in the absence of Mr R.G.R (Rigid Grammar Rule). We will be back biters for a while, yet I hope in the benefit of both The Passive Voice and our students.

Let's make one of the old so missed rules our starting point. The rule says: the object of the active sentence is always the subject of the passive one. But before all let's see what does the active sentence look like before the operation then go to discuss the process the doctor follows during the operation and examine the patient after the operation. It is not an easy work to do, I admit it.

<<The passive voice of any transitive verb is made by combining its past participle with the appropriate tense of the verb "to be" >>, the teacher said. He means that the verb “to be” is always the doctor who can operate on the sentence successfully in a "passive voice" surgery. Take this so called the patient active sentence, for instance,

Someone plays the piano every night

             This sentence is composed of a subject: (someone), a verb: (plays), and an object (the piano). And the latter is the organ that gears the whole operation. It is the most important part of the utterance to make the operation feasible. 

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