Language Doctor

THE AREAS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING (ELT) THAT ARE OF PARTICULAR INTEREST TO ME One of the areas of English language teaching that I find really fascinating is grammar, the bedrock of a language. When teaching grammatical concepts, I make the teaching fun and the concepts relatable for my learners, by using experiential, real-life examples and a communicative approach/method and I constantly let my learners know that having a good knowledge of grammar will enable them to send language on wondrous errands. Creative writing is another area that deeply interests me and the interest was sparked in my primary school, when I did engage in drawings, using crude images to tell stories and many classmates and some teachers would laud my efforts. However, the turbulence that characterized the later part of my teenage years and beyond badly dented my confidence and self-worth and subdued my passion for drawing, but my fondness for writing was too stubborn to be repressed. Paradoxically, that t...

Physiognomy There was a man I saw I looked at him with awe I thought he'd have the world I can't describe with word His looks that had no flaw He had a rare nature Gentle from sole to crown He rarely wore a frown His kind was rare in town He’s a perfect creature! I envied his nature So schooled in every grace His gestures and stature Sure took years to nurture I longed to have his place Was he from this culture? So young in face and age His words were few but sage One ugly night in May I heard he passed away My heart got a puncture I raged he died a youth In death, he bared the truth Many secrets he kept Confessed in notes he left The man we thought was couth Traded his soul for wealth He ached in hide till death His heart was full of wounds With none he shared the wounds No wife nor kids nor kin For none he left his things From this tale I've just told What glitters' not all gold. (c) adebesin.ibraheem

LIFE IS SLENDER What advantage have you possessed making you so condescending - a pretty partner or a stunning spouse? a thriving matrimony or adorable kids? a state-of-the-art vehicle or a regal estate? an immaculate scholastic record or a sterling career? What triumphs of yours hasn't history exactly mentioned? Before you, there were movers and shakers Before now, there were stunners and runners After you, there’ll be millions more. Your fame’s just rising Someone else's is now roosting Your name’s just glowing Someone's elsewhere is now dimming Your flame’s just flaring up here Another's is tapering off there Fine feathers make fine birds – Life's lucks aren't locked exclusively in your locket The many beneath you might be better if they’d similar luck The many behind you aren't relenting in their longing to outstrip you The many before you are now breaking or braking into oblivion Calm down with whatever advantages you now possess Slam down the ego pu...

COMING Breaking out of the nine-odd seasons of immersion, with no tweed It traverses the uterine terrain of creamy crimson fluid Squashing through the bone-walled gate of periodic liquid It announces its coming with a shrilly thrilling cry – Oh, my! So cute, so fresh, so fragile, so fry. Lit faces soon seen streaming in in cheering shifts welcoming it with cheery lifts and gifts to humans’ inhumane dwelling place. Such is the coming; the ritual and the grace

GOODBYE IS THE SADDEST WORD Adebesin Ibraheem Tuesday, January 31, 2017 When my plane touched down on the soil of Ifako International Secondary School (IISS) on Monday, 15th of September, 2014, I was unsure of what fate held in store for me, but I was certain that I was going to do my best, as it had been my wont, to contribute to the growth of the students and the school. So, the journey started. I got warmly welcomed into the midst of a wonderful, dutiful team. Then, I met an array of good, bad and ugly students. Some of them readily fell in love with my charismatic personality, while some felt ‘what an arrogant tutor he is’! Many of them openly gave tickling commendation that I was good, while some secretly sneered at me and my assertive character; some admired my eclectic methods of teaching, while some just couldn’t cope with my meticulousness. Once, one of them, named Christen (with the weird pseudonym, ‘misanthrope’) openly confessed she didn’t like me. I smiled and told her not...

MAUREEN CLARK     (Fiction) The passage below is about a woman who conquered obstacles in her way to rise to fame. "Suffering refines and defines us”. There is so much truth in that saying. Maureen Clark had been refined and defined by the shattering experiences of her growing up years. Those bygone tribulations had enriched her brainpower, as well as her outlook on life. She secured an employment at the age of 25, with a private consulting firm. Performing consistently superlatively at work earned her a meteoric rise to fame. Within the space of five years, she steadily climbed the corporate ladder, and as an ardent advocate of training and upskilling, she attended trainings with an enviable frequency – self-sponsored trainings and officially-arranged ones. One of the officially-sponsored trainings was a top-ranking three-month course at a prestigious institute in Canada. At the end of the training, she returned home with a phenomenal result and a number of awards from ...

A Short Analysis of Hopkins’s ‘Binsey Poplars’ In March of 1879, Gerard Manley Hopkins was working as a parish priest’s assistant in Oxford, England. It was familiar territory for him, having studied Greek and Latin at Oxford from 1862-1867. In wandering north of the city, he came to the little village of Binsey, with which he had long been familiar. There he found, to his horror, that the long line of tall trees he was accustomed to seeing along the River Thames was gone; all had been cut down. He was so moved by this that he wrote the poem ‘Binsey Poplars’. Binsey Poplars Felled 1879 My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled, Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun, All felled, felled, are all felled; Of a fresh and following folded rank Not spared, not one That dandled a sandalled Shadow that swam or sank On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank. O if we but knew what we do When we delve or hew – Hack and rack the growing green! Since country is so ten...

  THE SCARS THAT REFUSE TO HEAL - Fiction The saddest day of my life was the Thursday night my Dad passed away! It would remain an indelible experience. Before that Thursday, however, I had had another ‘saddest day of my life’; another Thursday, three years earlier, when my paternal grandmother kicked the bucket. Death snatched her away at the age of 84. Grandma and I were devotedly intimate. She treasured me like I was some crucial part of her body! The feeling was mutual – I would fall sick if I didn’t speak with grandma for a stretch of five days. So, her demise hurt me more than a bee sting would and the shock lingered for two months – the protracted denial, the sudden outburst, the secret and silent blasphemies, the introversion, etc. Dad’s staunch support gradually helped the pains ease. My situation provided him the opportunity to refine his sense of humour; to become incredibly funnier. His jokes would tickle tears out of me, so much that the stubborn pains haunting me st...

It was Friday, after school. It had been a hectic hot day for Krishna. School had been taxing, with seemingly endless lessons and unexciting after-school events. Nature had even worsened the situation, with the sun’s scorching rays furiously and relentlessly pouring on earth, stinging skins and beating sweats out of tortured skins. As Krishna was being driven home by her parents’ driver, the air conditioning in the car, seemingly blowing hot, wouldn’t help to lessen her uneasiness. She felt uncomfortable through most part of the journey and at some point, she wished the car, like those found in fairy tales, could develop wings and just fly her home.  It had been forty minutes since she arrived home. After having her bath and taking her lunch, she felt it’s time to visit Samantha, her best friend, whom she fondly called ‘Sammy’. She and Sammy had always exchanged visits during weekends, the only time they had, to be friends, physically, aside from their irregular virtual bonding du...