The title says it all. This week's prompt from Tara for The Gallery obviously had me thinking about photos of DD - so much to be proud of there. On the other hand, when you're handed such perfect material you'd have to be pretty stupid not to end up with a lovely, happy, beautiful three year old. And I write about her a lot - obviously as this is primarily a Mummy Blog. So I started to think about other things in my life that I'm proud of. In the end I chose the thing that took me the longest time and required the most amount of work. And, after being an academic C+ all my life, I finally, at the age of 38, got myself an A grade. Granted, it's not a very exciting photograph but I'm very fond of it (the paper not the picture of it).
This is the soft copy of my MA dissertation. There are a couple of hardback copies somewhere in the Intitute of Education, London University library but I couldn't afford another hard copy for myself. It's called: Reading Preferences of Bilingual Children - The Implications for the General Promotion of Reading. Basically it hypothesises that if bilingual children prefer reading for pleasure in one of their languages over the other (where the children are equally proficient in both languages, the two languages hold equal status and suitable books are readily available in both languages) and we can isolate the factors that encouraged the children to make their language choice, we will have a valuable tool towards promoting reading for pleasure among children generally.
The feedback from the examiners included the recommendation that I should get my findings published. I was so chuffed I promptly did nothing about it and it's sat in my bookcase gathering dust ever since. However, the real irony is that having discovered how to teach reading more effectively, getting the MA enabled me to leave school teaching and teach at college level, where all my students can already read. Remember the Peter Principle? I'm living it.
Wow, what an accomplishment. Well done you - go and get it published. I'm raising a bi-lingual child and for the first time she said she preferred her Welsh reading books from school to her English (English would be her home and primary language). Not sure what that means, but it's interesting (to me). I think I need to read your dissertation.
ReplyDeletea great accomplishment and I guess useful information now!
ReplyDeleteI love your take on the theme - well done you X
That is indeed something to be very, very proud of. A major accomplishment. Well done :-)
ReplyDeletexx Jazzy
what a great achievment and something you rightfully should be proud of x
ReplyDeleteA most impressive sounding dissertation! You should totally publish it. Or frame it. X
ReplyDeleteWow what an achievement!
ReplyDeleteMy Step Son attends a Welsh primary school & we find it hard when he brings his reading books here, but we always make sure we remain interested in his reading & he has developed a love of English language books too!
Wow well done - didn't realise you were such an academic.
ReplyDeleteI know all about the Peter principle.
Liska xx
Definitely something to be proud of.Good luck with getting published.
ReplyDeleteFantastic you should be proud. I also got an amaazing grade for my MA dissertation and was asked to do collaborative research with a Prof in NZ so we could take it further and publish. I was 35 weeks PG with the twins when I gave it in. Guess what? I did nothing with it! lol
ReplyDeleteMich x
Fantastic! Yes, publish it! Sounds really interesting. I've just started going into my son's school once a week to read with the kids, most are too young to really read at the moment, and many are bilingual. It's a treat to see them learning and becoming themselves. You should be really proud of this- what an achievment! x
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. What a fabulous achievement. And also relevant to me as I have a bilingual niece! She's only three and speaks fluent Mandarin and English.
ReplyDeleteClever you, that's an amazing accomplishment and you deserve to be so proud of yourself.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fascinating hypothesis. I'd love to hear of future findings from this research because I cannot persuade my son to enjoy reading. I'm proud to follow a blog written by such a powerful thinker!
ReplyDeletethats something to be seriously proud of, well done, a real achievement x
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic! As I've got older, I've realised that I'd love to do an OU course and perhaps achieve a diploma or something like that. I'm not academic though and find revision very difficult. Maybe one day.
ReplyDeleteCJ xx
Thank you all for such lovely comments. I don't think I'll be getting it published after 10 years have gone by but I may blog about it - in fact I should.
ReplyDeleteCrystal Jigsaw - you should do an OU course if you want to. You don't have to be 'academic' what you do have to be is passionate about your subject. Then it will be easy and you'll enjoy it.