Mid-March 2020 was the last time I took a commercial flight (RBA-AUH). Abu Dhabi Airport would shut down some days later, and the Pandemic would officially kick-in. It\u2019s been an interesting year, and I learned at least a few things:<\/p>\n
1. Studying a new language is a wonderful experience. I decided to take Japanese seriously; and to witness the process by which a \u2018difficult\u2019 language unlocks, is simply amazing.<\/p>\n
2. It\u2019s OK if the world shuts down for a little while. It gave me time to reflect on what matters.<\/p>\n
3. I discovered wh<\/span>y I like face-to-face classrooms: I miss hearing the laughs, the wows and the yikes. I miss feeling their emotions.<\/p>\n 4. Remote Education & Professional Development works. I\u2019ve met so many wonderful people this year, and I learned tons.<\/p>\n 5. I value my time extremely. I kind of knew it before; but Zoom has forced me to micro-plan my online classes so I can make good use of every minute (though I don\u2019t always succeed).<\/p>\n 6. Relationships are a two-way street. If we nurture them, something beautiful will grow. If not, they die.<\/p>\n 7. I wear more sport clothes. Teaching from my desk has made me discover how elegant one can be with \u2018chic sport\u2019 clothes\u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n 8. I discovered how much I like giving workshops & webinars. Estoy en mi salsa!<\/p>\n 9. I learned that 35 Celsius can feel like a refreshing autumn breeze (#UAE).<\/p>\n 10. Teachers of Arabic need so much encouragement and support. And I feel that we are at a turning point in our field. With everyone online, I feel more connected to colleagues from around the world. Many initiatives are brewing, and it will be good for teachers and students.<\/p>\n Stay well folks & keep learning!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mid-March 2020 was the last time I took a commercial flight (RBA-AUH). Abu Dhabi Airport would shut down some days later, and the Pandemic would officially kick-in. It\u2019s been an interesting year, and I learned at least a few things: 1. Studying a new language is a wonderful experience. I decided to take Japanese seriously;…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8055,"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8054\/revisions\/8055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lailafamiliar.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}