John Hughes has co-authored a number of titles for OUP including three levels in the Business Result series, Successful Meetings, and Successful Presentations. He will be giving a practical workshop on how to write materials at the upcoming BESIG conference in Bonn on 15th November. This is the second of two blog posts in which John explores three key areas which he believes underpin effective materials writing. In part one of my blog on this subject, I wrote about the importance of writing materials at the correct language level and cognitive level, as well as writing exercises and tasks at an achievable level. In this next post I want to consider the importance of context and flow in the writing process. Creating context Context is the second area of EFL materials writing that affects how and what you write. By ‘context’ I’m referring to a number of different elements: First of all, the writer needs to understand the classroom context in which the material will be used. In other words, if you are writing material for General English adult student’s books that could be used anywhere in the world, then your material must appeal to a broad spectrum of people. Similarly, you have to remember that an exercise must be able to work with a class of fifty as well as with a class of five. Something else to consider is the cultural context; a choice of photograph or text that will appeal to students in South American countries may not work for students in Middle East countries. And culture doesn’t just refer to national cultures; the culture and interests of younger students will be different to those for older students. Gender is also an issue; male writers have to consider whether their choice of contexts and materials will also appeal to female students and vice versa (which is possibly why so many successful course books are co-authored by a man and a woman.) One more context which affects published materials in particular is time. If you are using a course book which is over five years old, for example, you may notice that photographs of technology look old-fashioned, reading texts are out-of-date, or perhaps some so-called famous people are no longer famous. So if you want your materials to have longevity, then topics such as technology and popular culture are often worth avoiding or treating in a way that will mean they don’t date too quickly. Make your material flow Having selected appropriate images, texts and exercises that are at the correct level and are appropriate for the various contexts in which the material will be used, you need to make sure they fit together in a logical order. In practical terms, this means that if you have six exercises or stages on a worksheet, then any teacher should be able to pick up that worksheet, take it into class, start at exercise 1 and finish at exercise 6. Yes it’s important that the material is also flexible enough for those types of teachers who like to miss some parts out, change the order or even add their own supplementary materials, but its primary function is to offer a complete lesson. You have to write the material so that one activity flows into the next and that it follows basic principles of good lesson planning. In other words, there is probably some kind of lead-in task that engages the students, perhaps some comprehension work with a text followed by language analysis and finally a free practice stage of some kind in which students use the language presented in the lesson. Part of writing materials with flow is also to provide clear ‘navigational tools’ that help the teacher to orientate the students through the lesson. These tools include use of headings, numbering, referencing and the rubrics or instructions which accompany an exercise or explain a procedure. You know when these features are badly written because you can’t find your way around the material or you are unsure what the aim of the exercise is. On the other hand, when they are well-written, you barely notice they exist alongside the rest of the material and everything flows logically. Finally, once you’ve written your materials, you may find it useful to check them against these nine key questions.  Better still, hand your materials to another teacher and, without any explanation from you, see if they can walk into class and use them successfully with their students! Check you’ve got the level right: Can I easily identify which level this was written for? Will it interest, motivate and challenge the students at a cognitive level? Are the exercises and tasks too easy or too difficult? (Can you do them yourself?!) Think about context: Will the material work in classes of two or two hundred? Will the material work in another classroom, region or country? Will the material work next week or next year, or in three years’ time? Finally, check, for flow: Is there a logical flow from the beginning to the end? Do I understand where to go next in the materials? Do I understand what to do next in each exercise?   © John Hughes ELT Ltd 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to the authors with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Business & English for Specific Purposes, Professional Development Tagged: BESIG conference, Course materials, EFL, John Hughes, Materials writing, Oxford 3000, Oxford Text Checker

Texts have always played an integral part in classroom learning, for skills development and as contexts for language study. It has long been acknowledged that choosing texts that are interesting and motivating is key, but we also need to ensure rich and meaningful content. Katie Wood, teacher trainer and materials writer, suggests using four key questions to assess whether a text meets these criteria and discusses why it should. Question 1: Does the text contain information that can be of use in the real world outside the classroom? In today’s fast-moving and increasingly digital world students are less likely than ever before to read or listen to something solely because it’s good for them, or because it contains examples of a particular structure. They are likely to want to know which specific skills they’re working on, but also what information they can take from the text and make use of in their life outside the classroom. A good text needs to be engaging, but it also needs to contain information that remains relevant and useful to the student once the lesson is over. Texts need to provide take-away value both in terms of linguistic development and real-world knowledge. Question 2: Does the content help students relate their experiences, situation and country to the world as a whole? More than ever before, both students and teachers have access to information from a variety of truly international sources on a grand scale. Facebook, Twitter and the internet in general mean that students are communicating internationally both in terms of their career and social life. As a result the communications themselves have become more related to matters which cross boundaries and borders. Question 3: Is the text generative and can productive tasks be tailored to students’ needs? The challenge is to provide both students and teachers with texts that have universal appeal, that are relevant, yet are in some way not already worn out by digital media. Choosing texts which are content rich increases the likelihood that they will generate different responses and points of interests from different individuals, and this includes the teachers. Maintaining the enthusiasm of a teacher dealing with the material for perhaps the fifth or sixth time should not be underestimated. In addition, a large number of students learn English in a General English class, but increasingly they have a more defined purpose in learning than they did in the past. In one group for example, a teacher might find students who want to pass an exam, want to improve their English in a business environment, or want to focus more on social English. A genuinely generative text provides the opportunity to lead into productive work in more than just one of these areas. Question 4: Is the content of the text authentic and does it lend itself to further research and exploration? As previously mentioned, students want to feel that what they spend their time reading and listening to in the classroom, has real world application. A text that satisfies this criteria should ideally create a desire in readers or listeners to discover more. Consequently, texts need to be authentic and googleable, and this should be true for all levels. So, while a text chosen for elementary learners will need to be adapted in terms of language, we need the content to be real. A student can then go away and find out more for themselves.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Skills Tagged: Adult, content, Coursebooks, Engagement, Katie Wood, Teaching adults, Text Selection, texts, Topics

Okay, the temptation became too strong. I tried not to write this post, but it would be written. And it is a bit of a rant. Sorry.I got an email this morning, asking me to blog about a certain matter. Nothing unusual in this. I often get such emails. People want their cause/event/publication promoted and approach bloggers who address related issues, asking them to give the cause/event/publication a plug. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't.On this occasion, not only will I not, I have taken offence. On this occasion, the writer didn't even bother to check whether I was a suitable candidate, or whether this blog was a suitable vehicle for his cause.The email mentioned someone that I (and you - yes, you were mentioned too, albeit not by name) had probably not heard of but should have heard of (apparently), because he's done something rather marvellous... in America.All manner of issues relating to US politics were cited and (apparently) I should consider these things terribly important. So important, that I should do you the service of bringing them to your attention. I was even offered the opportunity to interview this person for your benefit and edification.So let us pause for a moment and consider how desperately a South African girl living in England wants to delve into the machinations of American politics.The answer - of course - is not at all.I know that I have American readers, and if you're one of them, I hope that you're not offended that I have chosen not to try to inform you about the future of your own country. If you are not American, but are fascinated by their politics, I trust that you have far more reliable sources of information than this blog.If (like me) you are not American and have only a passing interest in US politics, then perhaps (like me) you are irked by the occasional assumption that cyberspace is US territory.

In this series of video tips Ben Shearon, the Stretch Presenting Skills Consultant, shares his advice to help students enter The Stretch Presenting Skills Competition 2014-15 and become more comfortable and confident public speakers. The more you practice, the easier your presentation will be. But how can you make sure that your practice makes a difference? Ben shares his ideas: Have your young adult/adult class entered The Stretch Presenting Skills Competition 2014-15 yet? One of your students could win a two-week all-expenses paid scholarship to Regent Oxford, a renowned English school in Oxford, as well as a class set of Stretch for you. Expand students’ public speaking skills, improve their English, and get them presenting in class! Closing date: January 2, 2015. Enter today! Related articles: Part 1 - Plan Check back in December, when we will post Ben’s third and final video tip. Or visit the competition webpage to see it today. Filed under: Adults / Young Adults Tagged: 21st Century skills, AMELT, American English, Ben Shearon, Competition, Integrated skills, presentation activities, Presentation skills, presenting skills, Professional English, Stretch competition

Jane has finalised this year's top 100 tools for learning, as identified by, well... you.The composition of this list makes it clear that there is no real boundary around tools-for-learning as opposed to tools-for-anything-else. Just about anything can be used for learning, really.

What exactly is EAP and how should it be taught? Edward de Chazal, a freelance consultant, author and presenter, discusses the challenges and opportunities for teachers moving in this area of English language teaching ahead of his webinar on the subject.  First and foremost, you’ll want to know what EAP really is. ‘What is EAP?’ might sound like a straightforward question, but there’s quite a lot to it. For some people EAP means study skills - for example making notes while listening to a lecture - yet there’s much more to EAP than this. It’s helpful to start with the three key words in EAP - English, Academic, Purposes - and look at each of these in turn. What English should we focus on? English is such a vast language that we need to be clear about what’s most relevant for our students, and spend time on this. We simply don’t have the time to cover everything. For vocabulary, it’s useful to divide the language up into three broad groups: • Core vocabulary - the most frequent words including prepositions and determiners, and frequent nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs • Academic vocabulary - this is central to EAP and includes all the words which express meanings in any discipline, for example ‘argument’, ‘in terms of’, and ‘significantly’ • Technical vocabulary - this includes discipline-specific vocabulary, such as ‘genome’ (genetics) and ‘flotation’ (economics and finance). In EAP we need to focus mainly on the first two of these - core and academic. Learning subject-specific words is beyond the scope of most EAP programmes, which tend to be general (i.e. where students of different disciplines study together in the same classes) rather than specific (where classes are built round students from similar disciplines, such as engineering or economics). In addition, there’s grammar. As Ron Carter and Michael McCarthy have pointed out, ‘there are no special structures which are unique to academic English and never found elsewhere’. What’s strikingly different is the frequency and complexity of grammatical structures in academic language. For instance, the passive is far more frequent, accounting for about 25% of all main verbs in academic texts. Complex noun phrases are very frequent too - look out for examples like ‘a difficult investment climate characterized by over-regulation’ and unpack these in your EAP classroom. What does Academic really mean? We’ve all got our own experiences of academic life and culture - the schools and universities we’ve studied at and the places where we’ve taught. In EAP we have to prepare our students to survive in a context which potentially has three shocks: academic shock, language shock, and culture shock. Academic institutions like universities have their own cultures and ways of doing things. There are different academic communities - to some extent artists behave differently from biologists. But there are many things in common, such as the principle of academic honesty (don’t use other people’s material without acknowledgment) and the necessity to communicate. What Purposes are there? The main purpose of EAP is to enable students to be able to study effectively in their chosen programme, in English. To do this, students need considerable autonomy. Autonomy and independence don’t just happen - in short, EAP teachers need to enable students to learn how to be more autonomous. Students need to learn how to study effectively, individually and collaboratively with other students. And they need many other skills and competences, such as how to search for source texts to use in their writing and speaking. There’s another, more distant, purpose to EAP. Most students aren’t doing further study in English for its own sake. Rather, it’s a means to an end - a professional purpose. So, there’s a lot going on in the field of EAP. In my webinar on Thursday 20th November we’ll be exploring this through the lens of ‘E’, ‘A’ and ‘P’. Join us and see what it all adds up to!Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Professional Development, Skills Tagged: EAP, Edward De Chazal, English for Academic Purposes, Methodology, Teacher Development, Teaching EAP

Last night, in a context completely unrelated to the business of learning, my husband made the following observation, "If you don't know what you can have, you'll settle for what you've got."That remark has stayed with me, and its relevance to just about everything keeps reaffirming itself.Think about it. If you buy a new pair of boots the very first time you spot them in store A, you might never discover that you could have had them for half the price from store B.If you don't make enquiries, you may never find out that your student card entitles you to use a certain gym free of charge.If you're a classroom-based, chalk-and-talk trainer who has never heard of e-learning, or learner-driven learning, or user generated content, or... okay, you get the idea... you'll just keep standing in front of the class, delivering your material to them in as engaging a way as you can, knowing full well that they'll have forgotten most of it by the time they find themselves in a situation in which they need to apply it.Or maybe you won't.Maybe you're one of those people who wonders if maybe, perhaps, possibly there isn't another way to do things. Maybe you're one of those people who experiments, who explores, who asks questions. Maybe you'll come to find out that there are other ways to skin this cat.It seems to me that the essential ingredient is curiosity. And curiosity is not really the province of the contented. The serenely contented person has no interest in what lies behind the doors labelled 'what else?' and 'what if?' It is only the thirsty horse that will drink when led to water. In fact, the thirsty horse will set off to find water.In my last job, my life was made miserable by a colleague who was utterly unable to conceal his antipathy for me. I'm sure there were many reasons he'd rather have had a slug dropped down his neck than spend time in my company, but the one on which he was the most outspoken was my curiosity. It drove him completely nuts. I thought I was showing interest in things (and people). He thought I was nosy.The problem is, my nosiness has served me well. It has caused me always to wonder if there isn't another way to do things. It has led me to information that has caused me to re-examine existing practice.I used to stand up in front of a group of delegates and work my way through the set material (even when I was the one who had set it). Then I wondered if there wasn't a way to make the material more relevant to the delegates, so I started using examples drawn from their daily lives to make my point.I found that no matter how much the penny dropped in the classroom, it was often MIA when the delegates came to apply the principles. So I wondered if there wasn't anywhere to put examples so that delegates could refer back to them after the fact.My boss refused to buy me an elearning authoring tool, so I wondered if I could cobble something together using clever tricks with PowerPoint and a cheap screen capture tool. I colluded with the helpdesk to make sure I covered the hottest FAQs.We didn't have an LMS, so I wondered if I could put the thus-cobbled-together resources somewhere where people could find them, and I found the public folders of Outlook extremely useful!I didn't enjoy having to plough through materials in a set order using back/next buttons like some kind of mindless sheep. So I wondered if there wasn't a way to make it possible for a user to plot his own route through a resource.I was unfamiliar with the machinations of a certain application, but needed to include screen capture videos in a learning resource I was designing. I wondered how I might overcome this problem. Would I have to become expert in the application, or was there a more effective way?These are just a few examples drawn from my own life. Situations in which dissatisfaction and curiosity have combined to send me down a new path.I don't know what else I can have, but I certainly hope that my reluctance to accept the status quo will drive me to find out.So to all the malcontents, who are subjected to a hail of criticism for being the squeaky wheel: hail fellow, well met!

Rachel Appleby, co-author of two levels of the new International Express, looks at ways to help your students to communicate more effectively at work, ahead of her webinar on this topic on 3rd December. The other day I had a meeting with a restaurant manager, Anna, about language classes. Her English was passable, but clearly not as good as she wished, and she felt embarrassed that she couldn’t express herself more eloquently. Phrases didn’t seem to come to her mind, and she kept apologizing for the little mistakes she was making. It reminded me of another of my students, who once complained that he sounded like a six-year old in English, and it didn’t help him do a good job at work at all! What is it that such people need? Anna is adult and sophisticated, and can run a meeting more than adequately in her own language, but in English, it seemed to bother her that she had so many difficulties, and - as a result - little confidence. I really felt for her. In a nutshell, her passive knowledge wasn’t bad, but she didn’t have those stock phrases we use in conversation to negotiate a topic (for example, how to add information, give an example, or move on.) - those phrases which help us sound fluent, make it easier for the listener, and ensure communication is effective. When she emailed me later that day, her writing illustrated a similar lack in conventions we use in semi-formal correspondence, those phrases which clarify the message, and orientate the reader. So how can we help these students? They want to be able to function as easily in English as in their own language, even if they’re not at native-speaker level. Our students want to ‘be themselves’ in English, and behave as they would in their own language. The good news is that some work skills are transferable, even if we have to raise students’ awareness of what they are. So let’s have a look at the main problems are, and what we need to do. Students, especially at lower levels, may have difficulties with grammar, but if we can focus on chunks of language, with an emphasis on intonation and sentence stress, this will help them communicate a clear message. Additionally, students often find that they have the technical language for talking about their area of work, but need help with putting it together. Functional language, phrases which have a purpose, are what they need here. With writing, obviously we need to highlight standard conventions in emailing, and work with models to help students. I also think when writing that it’s useful to pare down content: it can be easy to write too much in another language in order to try to explain yourself, when it fact you just cause more confusion (I know I do this!) We need to help them keep their writing focused, and avoid unnecessary complications. In my webinar on 3rd December, we’ll look at some examples of how we can increase students’ confidence, so that they can operate professionally within a work environment. We’ll look at chunks of language to use in meetings, conventions for writing clear emails (in particular, ways of handling difficult emails), tips for creating focused PowerPoint slides, and, finally, how to get your to-do list ticked off - in other words, ways of setting clear work objectives. And I think all these are things which Anna would benefit from! I’ll be using materials from the Pre-Intermediate, and Upper Intermediate levels of the new edition of International Express. I look forward to seeing you soon! Register now.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Business & English for Specific Purposes Tagged: Adult Learners, Engagement, English for Specific Purposes, International Express, Language learning, Motivation, Rachel Appleby, Written English

Colin Ward looks at how to support students to think critically in the language classroom. Colin is a Professor of ESOL at Lone Star College - North Harris in Houston, Texas. He is also a co-author of Q: Skills for Success and the forthcoming Trio Writing, both published by Oxford University Press. As teachers, it’s not always easy to embrace uncertainty.  There is comfort in knowing exactly what a lesson will cover, what questions are going to be asked, and how students are supposed to respond. However, a paradigm shift often occurs when teachers push students toward thinking critically.  By its very nature, critical thinking brings teachers and students to a much more ambiguous place.  There is no single correct answer—but many.  Teachers are asked to adopt a "pedagogy of questions" instead of a "pedagogy of answers." 4  They might not have all the answers, and answers might themselves be in the form of questions. Managing such ambiguity in the classroom is no simple task, yet many researchers continue to cite the benefits of teaching students to think critically.  Evidence suggests that teaching critical thinking in the language classroom improves both speaking and writing and increases motivation.11  Kabilan goes so far as to suggest that foreign language learners are not truly proficient until they can think critically and creatively in the target language. 7 In addition to embracing ambiguity, teachers must grapple with what "critical thinking" actually is, for there are countless definitions in the literature.9  Is it making decisions independently? Developing criteria for analyzing one’s own thinking? Evaluating different perspectives, forming opinions, and taking action?  Making inferences?  Challenging assumptions?  Withholding judgment? In fact, critical thinking has become an umbrella term encompassing all of these skills.  In looking at the literature, it also becomes clear that critical thinking is not a one-off task, but a journey, where students must discover and evaluate what they believe, why they believe it, and how new evidence challenges or supports what they believe.  It is a journey, but one that requires several stops along the way.  Part of our role as educators is to scaffold this journey of inquiry for our students. In class, the first step of this journey often starts with a thought-provoking question.  What does it mean to be polite?  Why do things yourself?   Does advertising harm or help us?  Questions such as these allow for multiple viewpoints and set a trajectory. Questions also motivate students because they become a puzzle to be solved. 3 At this stage, teachers must consider students’ abilities, and scaffold appropriately. 8 Before asking students to share their opinions, for example, instructors may first need to give them the language necessary to do so.  This may involve teaching basic chunks such as I believe that or One reason is because before a discussion. Teachers can also reinforce critical thinking skills by paying careful attention to the language they use in class.  Using higher-level terminology from Bloom’s Taxonomy, such as compare, predict, analyze, and recommend, will help students acquire the meta-language needed to understand what critical thinking is and what it does. There is also art to asking questions.  A student may say, I think that advertising helps consumers.  It is natural for teachers to follow-up with Why? to encourage critical thinking.  Too often, however, the Why? question can feel like an assault and lead to uncomfortable silence.  Instead, rephrasing Why? to Can you explain that? can result in less student anxiety, and a more immediate and relaxed response. Once the journey of inquiry has been established, new content helps to keep the momentum going.  However, interacting with the content will require careful pauses.  After a reading text or a listening, for example, students often need opportunities to stop and think, considering how the new information has modified their understanding of the question.  Here teachers can scaffold new perspectives by adding on to the initial question. What does it mean to be polite….at work?  At school?  With family?  With friends? Students may also be encouraged to challenge or support their initial beliefs based on new evidence from the text.  When mediating such discussions, teachers must be mindful of their students’ cultural backgrounds.  Atkinson, for example, points out that in some cultures, the nature of critical thinking as an act of self-expression is not encouraged. 1  In culturally sensitive contexts, a lighter approach could involve asking students to think about how their experiences connect to those explored in a reading or listening, rather than demanding an outright opinion.  This can still lead students toward re-evaluating beliefs, but in less intrusive way. Often the journey must be messy in order to allow disparate elements to come together in the discovery of something new.  That "aha" moment may come at one stop or another, but more often than not, it appears at the final destination.  This is when students synthesize what they think with the knowledge they have gathered through a formal speaking or writing task.   Students’ answers to the question may take a new direction, or several directions.  Graphic organizers that help students organize their ideas can help scaffold this process of discovery.  For example, when answering the question, Does advertising help or harm us?, students could use a T-chart to list reasons that support "yes" and "no" answers. Another way to support critical thinking at the end of the journey is to ask students to reflect on their responses to the question when revising.  When students revise the final assignment, for example, they could directly compare how their response of the question compares to their response from the beginning of the journey.  To scaffold, teachers could offer chunks of language to frame the comparison: Originally, I believed that…but now, I think that…because…  This kind of reflection will push them to see and summarize the journey as a whole and could be added to their concluding remarks. Seeing critical thinking as a journey with several stops treats it as an essential part of the lesson plan, which explains why critical thinking is often paired with content-based instruction. 3 It also acknowledges that students may not have a complete answer to a question right away, but will build on their answer as they travel through the lesson and encounter additional input.  It is a means to an end. It is tempting to assume that teaching content and skills will result in higher-order thinking without explicit instruction, but research suggests otherwise.  Fostering critical thinking in the classroom becomes the teacher’s responsibility.  However, when done effectively, it can be one of the most rewarding experiences for students and teachers alike.  There is great satisfaction in witnessing students think about what they think, and taking them through that journey of discovery, one stop at a time. References 1Atkinson, D. (1997). A critical approach to critical thinking. TESOL Quarterly, 31(1), 71-94. 2Brookfield, S. (2011). Teaching for Critical Thinking.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 3Crocker, J.L., & Bowden, M.R. (2011). Thinking in English: A content-based approach.  In A. Stewart (Ed.), JALT2010 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT. 4Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: The Seabury press. 5Freire, P. (1973). Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: The Seabury Press 6Halvorsen, A. (2005). Incorporating critical thinking skills development into ESL/EFL courses. Internet TESL Journal, 11(3).  Available: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Halvorsen-CriticalThinking.html 7Kabilan, M. (2000). Creative and critical thinking in language classrooms. Internet TESL Journal, 6(6).  Available: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kabilan-CriticalThinking.html 8Liaw, M. (2007). Content-based reading and writing for critical thinking skills in an EFL context. English Teaching and Learning, 31(2), 45-87. 9Long, C.J. (2009). Teaching critical thinking in Asian EFL contexts: theoretic and practical applications. Proceedings of the 8th Conference of Pan-Pacific Associate of Applied Linguistics. 10Mayfield, M. (2001). Thinking for Yourself: Developing Critical Thinking Skills through Reading and Writing (5th ed.). United States: Thomas Learning. 11Shirkhani, S. & Fahim, M. (2011).  Enhancing critical thinking in foreign language learners.  Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, 29, 111-115. Available: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042811026759Filed under: Adults / Young Adults Tagged: Colin Ward, Critical thinking, EAP, English for Academic Purposes, Q Skills for Success

Today would have been my father's 70th birthday. Except that he didn't even live to see 60. He committed suicide when he was 57.I have no illusions about the kind of man my Dad was and I am not superstitious enough to 'not speak ill of the dead'. I am honest with myself and others about my father's failings.He was no manner of Dad, really. He longed for, but never received his own father's approval. He was still too desperately waiting for his Dad to say "You done good, kid" (or some South African equivalent thereof) ever to be able to look beyond himself and build us up as children. After our parents' divorce when I was 6 and my sister just 2, we saw him increasingly rarely. He chose not to be involved in our lives and then cast himself in the role of victim when he wasn't involved in our lives (if that makes sense).But he did teach me a few things of value.He taught me that you decide whether or not you like a food by tasting it. No other criterion counted. "If you want something that looks nice, go eat the Mona Lisa."He taught me that nature should be valued and respected. "People go around shouting "Africa for the Africans." Well, reckon it should be "Africa for the animals." It's the people who *&^%$ things up. They should force all the people out of the continent and leave the animals to get on with it." I pointed out that that would mean we have to leave, too, but he wasn't interested in minor details.He introduced me to Victor Borge. We didn't have television in South Africa in my childhood, but we had vinyls of several of his shows. We used to sit in my grandparents' lounge and laugh uproariously. The link is to one of my favourite clips.But most of all, he taught me about love. Sadly, not in any positive way. He taught me that love can be measured in inconvenience. Hear me out.You can tell your kids "I love you" with every breath you take. But they will never believe you if:you don't pick up the phone when you receive the copy of their reportyou don't contact them when they get selected for the first team, or cast in a lead roleyou don't keep your promisesyou don't know what things matter to themyou don't occasionally make a long journey to surprise them by pitching up at prizegiving (or some such event)you criticise them for the lack of closeness in your relationshipyou refuse to attend a landmark solo performance in your own city because it takes place in a church... and you're an atheistI still believe that if you love someone, you put yourself out for them from time to time. You do something inconvenient to yourself to support them or to make them happy.This is why women like to get flowers from their partners. It's not the flowers. It's the out-of-the-comfort-zone effort.Strange as it may seem, I am grateful for this lesson. So, in memory of my Dad, I am putting aside a pressing job to take my younger son out to his favourite restaurant for lunch (fortunately, this is the reasonably priced Nando's!), and I am going to get up at 8am tomorrow morning to skype my older son in Australia (I don't normally surface until 11 on a Saturday).Can I challenge you, on this Friday afternoon, to do something inconvenient to show someone else you care?