Sympathy or empathy?

Over the last few months, I have been brooding over these two words - sympathy and empathy. The online dictionary has given several definitions of these words and so do many others. I also had a look at wordia.com which shows videos of people describing what these words (sympathy and empathy) mean to them. Unfortunately, sympathy does not yet have a video. This may probably mean that people can easily express sympathy to others but may find it difficult to empathise with others.

These words are very commonly used in our everyday life too. For example, we show our sympathy to our family members, friends and even strangers. This may make the recipient of sympathy feel better although I have no access to any research evidence that I can present here in order to support my view. On the other hand, it is often very difficult to find people who can empathise with others in the real sense. I keep on trying to put myself in a teenager's shoe to see if I can find out more about my son's feeling as he is in his early teenage. It doesn't seem impossible abut certainly very challenging. This actually reminds me of people who always look for sympathy towards them and never stop to think about whether the sympathiser can actually show his/ her sympathy to this person without impacting on themselves or others around them.

Not only our everyday life, I have found the concept of SYMPATHY very powerful in a professional setting too. A case in point is teachers' professional development when they find it difficult to empathise with their learners. As teachers, can we put ourselves into a learner's shoe? Would it help us with our teaching? And this reminds me of an article that I recently edited for the IATEFL ESP SIG, which talks about emotionally intelligent teachers - teachers with an ability to understand the emotional feelings of their students and respond to them accordingly. Perhaps, this idea can be applied to the teacher professional development project in Bangladesh, English in Action. Well I am still thinking... and you may be interested in reading more about empathy here.

Appropriation of English?

You may enjoy watching this clip: learning English in South Asian ways!

After the long summer break...

Today was my first day back to work... you can imagine what happens when you return to work after more than a month: a nightmare! Well, it was not a nightmare as such but there were many things that needed my attention urgently. For example, I had to set up various meetings with my line manager, English in Action team members and send emails to students and colleagues who had ben waiting for my response for ages. Anyway, the day went smoothly without causing any major havoc, to my satisfaction.

My morning was spent on thinking through and discussing the implementation of the EiA interventions in its pilot phase: what model of support for teachers to follow, how to maintain sustainability and how to ensure institutionalisation will not be a problem later. I discussed these issues with Claire H this morning as I am not going to attend the forum discussion tomorrow when I will be in the EAp online course meeting.

Right now I also need to finalise the articles for the Journal of Professional and Academic English to be published in autumn this year. The deadline for sending the edited articles to the publisher is approaching which means more pressure - so for a while I will be snowed under which does not surprise me. I must say that I am enjoying this editing business!

Well, prior to these serious business tasks, I had some fun with my family and friends. For instance, I was in north Norfolk for a coastal visit. And I also went to some local places in Milton Keyens recently. See some pics below.

Mad rush hours...!

Over the last few weeks, I have been working really non-stop! Work and study, study and work. can't believe it! Well, it's the way of life here in the UK. I can't blame nobody!

This week I am officially on study leave but apparently I have to juggle with m

any other things such as getting the audio materials recorded for the English in Action project in Bangladesh and getting a paper ready for the Language and Development conference in Dhaka in June '09. But it's fun too. I will have no time to think about anything that might be negative and often debilitating to my health.

It's the Easter week here and so the kids are at home but unfortunately I am not able to give them much time as I have already explained before :-) I don't know how long I can go on like this. Things must change pretty soon.

My visit to Banglades

h last February gave me a short break from the monotonous 'working from home' life. As I was visiting one the schools there, it even reminded me of my own school days (both as a teacher and a pupil) in Nepal. Here are a few pics:

All from Janta Goli High School in Mirzapur, Bangladesh

Video of Tihar celebration 2008

This is a video taken at Tihar festival in Milton Keynes in October 2008.

I hope you will enjoy watching selroti being cooked/ fried(?).

Badminton with the EiA base team in Dhaka

This was when there was a badminton day in Dhaka back in November 2008. Had lost of fun and built good rapport with the EiA (English in Action) team. More photos below: