We tend to see our students as "linguistic beings"

Dear Mario,

Thank you for your teacher training visit to Samara, on the Volga. One of the phrases in your second day letter to the group caught my eye:

"Don't teach language purely linguistically but draw on the students' multiple intelligences"

I think that when we teachers teach language purely linguistically we tend to perceive our students purely as "linguistic beings", not as human beings. This one sided approach is also bad for teachers, because the process of teaching and of life itself have more dimensions than a verbal code. I will think more about this.

Gratefully yours,

Natalia Shuvalova, Samara, Russia

Management as the art of demotivating

Dear Editor,

I wonder how many motivating managers you have had in your career so far?
My experience of managers in my country is that they are promoted for these things:

Reducing staff
Getting fewer people to do more work
Standardising,
Centralising
Controlling
Measuring
Saying " Yes" to their bosses.


Words their vocabulary is lacking in are inspiring, energising, liberating.
Perhaps your country is different. Here in Finland the landscape is bleak

Yours faithfully,

Soili Hulkko,
Loimaa, Finland

[ Editorial note: do other readers take an equally jaundiced view of management or do their experiences in this area differ from Ms Hulkko's?
In summer 2006 Adrian Underhill will be running a management course with a very different philosophy behind it. To find out more click here. ]