English isn't boring - It's bloody brilliant!

Here’s the thing: students walk into English lessons already convinced they’re going to hate it. They’ve decided before they even sit down that it’s dry, irrelevant, and full of dusty old books that have nothing to do with their lives. And honestly? I don’t blame them. That’s the reputation English has unfairly carried for far too long. But here’s my truth: English is relevant. It’s everywhere. It’s in the music you’ve got on your playlist. It’s in the TikTok video that made you laugh so hard you nearly spat out your Pepsi. It’s in the football commentary that has you yelling at the telly, the podcast you binge on your commute, the breaking news that lights up your phone. English is the way we tell stories, make connections, argue our points, and show who we are. How could that possibly be boring? Take Taylor Swift. Her lyrics are practically modern poetry, layered with metaphor and meaning that teenagers dissect with more passion than most classrooms ever see. Or think about Marvel films: the dialogue, the character arcs, the themes of identity, power, and morality. That’s literature, dressed up in spandex and CGI. Even Love Island (yep, I said it) is full of language worth pulling apart: persuasion, performance, power dynamics, and yes, plenty of dramatic irony. When young people realise that English isn’t something separate from their world , that it is their world, they stop rolling their eyes and start leaning in. Suddenly, Shakespeare’s Macbeth isn’t just some bloke spouting old words; he’s a power-hungry man whose downfall could play out like a storyline on Netflix. Dickens isn’t some ancient voice from the past; he’s writing about inequality and ambition in ways that still hit hard today. My job, my passion, is to smash through those walls of boredom and show students that English belongs to them. That they’re already fluent in it. They just need the tools to see it differently, to play with it, and to use it with power and purpose. English is alive. It’s urgent. And when we teach it through the channels that matter to young people, it suddenly stops being a subject to “get through” and becomes something much bigger: a way to understand the world, and themselves, just a little better. So, to bring this all back to original point… English isn’t boring. It’s bloody brilliant!