Archive for November, 2007

Although many people find the fact that how to break into the ELT publishing world is rather opaque and difficult frustrating, the fact that it can rely on personal contacts and being in the right place at the right time as much as they standard of things you have written can also work to your advantage. In fact, you might even be able to break into the business without ever presenting your ideas on paper. A comment by someone in my recent workshop at the Tokyo Expo/ ELT Bookfair reminded me that the way I first got the idea of writing my ideas down and getting them published was by putting my ideas into a workshop plan and then having people who attended say I should get them published. By giving your workshops on a wider stage than I did, you might even find that the person giving you that feedback works for a publisher…

Example Career Path Two- The Workshops Man

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 …this happens:

No, I’m not talking about my inability to put a photo into my blog, which pales into insignificance compared to some of the incompetence of this industry of ours. The thing above was supposed to be a photo of the latest Gaba advertising campaign, which will be the topic of my latest rant

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This story about how the Peace Corps are looking to bring more over 60s back into the classroom really caught my eye today. One reason was that my eye really was caught, seeing as I was pressed up against my newspaper by the rush hour Yamanote circular line crush and unable to even fold it another way, let alone turn the page. The other was I have been suffering from the walking stick shaking wrath of TEFL pensioners recently, so think getting them back into the classroom might be a good thing (that or more aqua aerobics).

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“It often seemed to me, in fact, that all the tinky amusement-park surfaces and chipper reassurances of the public world here were almost a way of keeping people quiet; or at least of providing them with pre-shrunk pleasures so that they would not seek out unscheduled dreams of their own- let alone acknowledge any kind of sadness. Thus all the happy communal rites- from Disneyland tours to cherry blossom parties- seemed ways of providing safe, user-friendly forms of organized happiness, satisfaction guaranteed, a little like the bright baubles that a parent might offer a child to prevent him from crying. This was the social contract in Japan: forfeit your individuality and you would receive a life of stability and comfort; give yourself over to Japan and it would never let you down. It was like a kind of emotional welfare system: give up your freedom and you would receive a life so convenient that you’d hardly notice the freedom you’d relinqished”

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Here goes with another attempt to convince myself that I am reading the International Herald Tribune not just to keep myself awake on the Asakusa Line when the Japanese language newspapers or teaching books make my eyelids heavy, but am also learning something useful for my life. TEFL relevant links don’t exactly abound, but there have been a few choice pieces of the last couple of weeks to make me feel better after I slip into reading the gossip column:

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One of the biggest frustrations I hear from TEFL teachers is that there is no clear career progression in our profession, especially for those who do not want management jobs. There is an even louder clamour from those who want to break into writing for English language teachers and students, as there aren’t even the few clear options like “CELTA leads to DELTA leads to MA leads to university job” or “one year of experience leads to International House leads to British Council” that teaching can sometimes offer. Although the way most people who now get published regularly originally broke into the business are as varied as the teaching careers of the vast majority of teachers who did not follow the two ladders I described above, I hope giving a couple of simplified examples can persuade more people that it is a ladder worth starting on, and one that can provide satisfaction on every rung even to those who don’t make it all the way to the top.

Example One- The Article Man

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