"When one teaches, two learn"
I’ve had some free time these days to rethink my role in education and in particular ELT. So think of this post as the start of my St. Augustinian “Confessions”. English language teaching is great! It’s given me so much and I’ve traveled the world,...
Every week or month brings another announcement within the educational tech space of a new player in the “Teacher marketplace” place. I remember back in the early years online, before all the social media, Web 2.0 craze. It was natural and easy for teachers to...
I had the luck to start teaching English at a school where I basically had free reign to teach as I saw fit. It was just after the fall of communism in the Czech Republic (then still Czechoslovakia), a beautiful spa city, Karlovy Vary. I...
Well, it is that season again. You know the one – the one where everyone is tweeting and posting about all the “best” bloggers (their online buddies) and posting all their little badges on their blogs. Yes, that time of year – Award Time. I...
I haven’t written much about language recently but I’m definitely always thinking about it. It is itself a jailer, something I can’t get away from and like the adage goes “I am language”. But been thinking about language as it relates to what we teachers...
Clayton Christensen, Harvard professor and proponent of how new technologies change traditional market structures and relationships, defines disruption as “the process of transforming something that was previously expensive and complicated into something affordable and simple that everyone can obtain.” This is my own drum beat,...
Just a reminder to those who haven’t taken a look yet – my “Number 1 in ELT” ebook is a free download (click the little icon). Full of the best and not the rest – a synthesis of my experience both regarding technology and also...
Let me start by asking this – do you love your teaching job? Let me now ask, can you imagine teaching until you die? I can. I really can. I don’t know what the future holds but right here, right now, I can imagine being...
This is a reply I posted to Pearson’s “new” social networking site. Hired guns drumming up business and time of hard working teachers. The post speaks for itself. I’m not against Jeremy Harmer or even Pearson. Just the notion that you can hire people to...
We have a new “Swicki” – a custom made search engine. Now, you can search and get really specific English Language Teaching results! PLEASE spread the news and support this “new” and powerful idea. WHY is the needed? Technology is allowing us to harness the...
** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1. Not Pausing while speaking I’ve been in a lot of classrooms recently. One thing that becomes abundantly clear is that most instructors aren’t pausing enough while speaking. Students need time to process language, students...
I think backpacking English teachers get a bad rap. Truly they do. And especially from the more “senior” and “accomplished/established” members of our profession – ELT (English Language Teaching). Why so? I have only praise for this unseasoned, fertile, fecund and procreant soil of our...
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