I so wish I had been at Willy Cardoso’s talk at IATEFL last week, as when I arrived, it was the talk of IATEFL (those I spoke to and who spoke to me, anyway). I’m not entirely sure what follows is 100% related to what he talked about, all to do with allowing more space in teacher-training courses (listen to him talk about the session in an interview here), but it is what I’m thinking about…

Basically, I’d like to ask

• my trainers

• my DOS/head of school

• the principal at my college

• politicians (Gove and Cameron, in particular)

What would they say in response to these questions

• What is education? What is its purpose?

• What is learning? Can you ‘see’ learning? ‘Measure’ learning? Really??

• What is a language? How do you learn/acquire a language? What does this mean for teaching?

• Above all: what accommodation has to be made in light of everything above?

Not asking too much, am I?