Do you know where Aristotle taught his students in Athens?

What about who built the National Garden?

And what is the Academy of Athens?

Or how come we don’t use the palaces of the former kings and queens as places of visit, like most other former monarchies do?

Why is the Acropolis of Athens important? Which myths have breathed life in this city?

 

The Talking Rambler has been an idea for quite some time now. It finally happened in 2019 as an effort to combine two great loves.

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Teaching English and Exploring Greece.

This was not an epiphany, but it had a constant presence in my mind, mainly because I had the privilege to work with Greek students as well as students from abroad.

I worked along with amazing educators and admired how they would use their visits to enhance the learning procedure. I also traveled abroad, accompanying Greek students in countries like the Netherlands, Belgium and France among others.

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The first thing I noticed was that my Greek students were extremely interested when their teachers were interested. Educators who really want to show things, to allow their students to experience a visit. Those ones were usually well prepared and willing to do everything possible. They would make the kids listen, for sure. The feedback was overall positive, but for one thing. The initial excitement could easily turn into absolute boredom.  Too much information and too many areas of visit. 

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Was there anything else I could do?  The things I say, maybe? The way I say them? How can I improve that? It was a major challenge. I started observing reactions, asking about what sort of information would be more intriguing. Sometimes the simplest thing is to listen. So I listened. I asked more questions, I noted down the things that had an actual effect on students, and I used Mythology, Philosophy, and History in anecdotes, mentioning video games or movies, and even songs. 

Through this transformation I dedicated myself to this method as my totally new approach to teaching English.

I could focus on the history and culture to have more strings to my bow. Use the language in practice and make my students fall in love with their surroundings; most of which they probably take for granted or think they know because they’ve seen it once or twice.

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Tourism is vital to Greece. It is important, therefore, to understand what is going on; especially when this sector contributes about a quarter to the National Gross Domestic Product. I want to show my students that there is a real reason why over 30 million people choose to come to this country. And it’s not just for the warm weather and the crowded beaches of Mykonos and the sunsets in Santorini –which we all love, of course.

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However, if we truly love this land, we should get to know it a bit more. Break the surface and become true visitors of our cities. Support all our cultural institutions like museums and art galleries by simply visiting one of them once a month or even once a year.

Let’s show our citizens of tomorrow the paths that have lead us here.

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And become tourists in our own cities, full of curiosity and interest about our own world.