Its probably time to revisit both the objectives of this blog/website and its aims, ensuring that it largely stays within what I intended it to be when I first started out writing my thoughts on paper, then putting them on the site, whilst expressing my ideas and certainly my opinions with some facts along the way.
Generally speaking, I intend to inform and by implication educate those who wish to listen, logically this would be the case for most blogs and/or websites I am led to believe and there are many examples right across the “internet spectrum”.Fine examples of great and well structured written works and/or imagery can be found, absolutely great and informing content.
So today I am going to restate what this blog and/or website is all about and what I will be writing about most of the time, a lot more frequently than in the past I must add.
Now before I go on. Firstly I would like to thank all of you who have followed this blog/website, thanks for following me and sharing your comments, ideas and opinions. Secondly, your blogs are an interesting and diverse way to read the world with your content, even though sometimes I don’t know much about someone else’s subject matter it helps a lot since I learn from you and increase my knowledge that otherwise, I may not have known, thank you and it is much appreciated sharing what you know!
In a nutshell, I primarily write about and take photos on what interests me and that is largely a hobby. The scientific fields of Marine Biology, Oceanography and Marine Ecology are of great and rewarding interset to me, simultaneously writing about photography, specifically certain types /categories, often called genres if you like such as Landscape, Photojournalism and Underwater photography.
I will be now starting to write about my full-time profession, being an English teacher. Topics that range from how to approach beginner level English students and teaching methods to grammar and forming an extensive adult learners vocabulary or teaching a variety of ages about phrasal verbs will be something, as an example to write about here.
Now being an English teacher by profession, lead me to the area of Linguistics, which is the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of grammar, syntax, and phonetics et etc, but here on this blog I will concentrate on Sociolinguistics, which is generally seen as the detailed and narrative study of the effect of all aspects of society were spoken or written language is used, which includes cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society’s effect on language and much more.
I will concentrate specifically on the English language, by default my native tongue/language and the one I teach daily to students.
For the most part, my experiences in teaching English have been challenging yet rewarding, from the fundamental to the practical parts of teaching the English language.
My interset in Sociolinguistics will revolve around Semantics, Pragmatics and Paralanaguge or commonly referred to as non-verbal language or verbal cues. Particularly, sociolinguistics is the study of how language and culture are intertwined is something I like to talk about. It has aided and vastly enriched my teaching knowledge and teaching delivery in classrooms and I would like to break it down so it can be understandable and share that knowledge with readers.
I would like to add that what I am generally and sometimes specifically writing about is my experiences of being a hobbyist like talking about the oceans and seas, this comes from being a scuba diver for well over a decade, Marine Biology, Marine Ecology and Oceanography is a natural evolution of information for myself, thus understanding the underwater realm apart from the scuba diving aspect.
On that note, photography has been a large part of what I have done as a hobby as well, so my first genre of photography was Underwater Photography while my interest in Photojournalism, Reportage and overall visual storytelling have not waned over the years, being a major driver or motivation in photography which has influenced, informed and detailed a lot of my photographic self-education.
Now I’m going to preface what I’m going to say before I continue, briefly. In no way am I an expert on any particular topic or subject that I talk and/or write about, that’s why we call them subjects, not objects. The word expert seems to be a misnomer, it’s hard for me to quantify what I know, I can only add value to the information I provide.
I don’t claim to know everything that I write or talk about I just merely state my observations what I have learnt over the years and try to impart my knowledge as long as what I know is not fraught with errors, stupidity, ignorance or otherwise non-factual arguments or positions.
Certainly, my opinions and ideas are how I experience the world or particular environment around me or us, to gather understanding and along the way providing information on what I know in written form. Talking about what I know or don’t know.
Basically, I write in general about many aspects of Marine Biology, Marine Ecology and Oceanography taking interest in these fields being a Scuba diver but not a scientist by any means, shape or form. The ins and outs of being an English teacher and my liking for Linguistics and heralding in my interest in photography are what my writing is about.
Now, writing about my experiences in a way that can inform and educate is my goal and overall objective for writing what I am passionate about, and if someone somewhere wants to listen and take on some of this knowledge then I am happy. Knowledge is not exclusive it is universal.
To the tidal forces at play and marine life species that inhabit the underwater world, a certain area in the world or the marine ecology that exists locally I will endeavour to write about.
Similarly, writing about some of the technicalities of scuba diving from its practical, physiological to mathematical diving concepts
, the technical diving aspect and dive theory is another area among other things to talk about.
Having said that, information and knowledge by its very nature is a moving thing, it’s in perpetual or constant motion, it is not static, things change over time, they evolve as new things come to light. As new information comes in it does not remain static and etched in stone forever, I see education thus knowledge the same way. I don’t remain static in my beliefs and as such writing about my hobbies or what I like is no different.
I attempt to explain and present, information changes along with facts and opinions as the world move forward, knowledge and education are the same, just as much as the very people who seek it.
Challenging as it may seem the technicalities of the subjects I have mentioned in this article does not mean they are hard to comprehend, I try to avoid being academic or use technical jargon so that every reader can understand, simple language is key here.
Finally, I would like to thank all of you who are following this feed, thanks for sharing your comments ideas thoughts and opinions. Thank you for allowing me to transition my thoughts to written form, whilst expressing my opinions, facts and other types of monologues, and hopefully, I can educate and inform you as well. Cheers Linley.
Linley Bignoux-English Teacher/ Photographer 