Archive for February, 2008

“You so want to be a part of the culture, fit in and find out what’s going on,” she says, with real feeling. “Dallas is responsible for making me learn English.”

I guess that makes Dallas the Harry Potter of its time (or indeed makes Harry Potter the Dallas of its time, which explains a lot).

From the Scottish newspaper The Herald- Secrets of Language An Open Mind and a Glass of Red Wine

And they have also decided to have a go at the “language learning as sports metaphor”, so I guess that my attempts to do that are less than original (like thinking you’ve invented a new TEFL game and then finding out that Mario Rinvoludicrous did it in 1871): (more…)

“A professional is one who emphasizes public service, has high standards of performance, has a broad knowledge of his or her field, and participates in professional conferences and associations.”

Quote from The Japanese Police System Today (pg 33), not the most typical source of quotes for a TEFL blog I’m guessing, but as someone who has contributed a fair amount to English Teaching Professional (ETP) magazine over the years but always had a slight doubt about what the title of the mag was supposed to mean, seeing a definition of “professional” really caught my eye. So I decided to give myself a English teaching professional ranking, a quest you can join me on if you fancy:

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Still ruminating on the details my next big post, which will be “Why you should take the latest TEFL research with several buckets of salt”, but thought I should reassure my faithful reader(s?) that I haven’t abandoned you in the TEFL wilderness in the same week as Katie from TEFLlogue found a good man and hung up her TEFL blogging boots for good.

While I have been maintaining radio silence on TEFLtastic, I’ve been busy working on my two new blogs, JapanExplained (of which the English Words from Japanese explained, Japanese Education Explained  and Japanese Company Names Explained pages might interest TEFLers and other language buffs) and QuoteJapan. I’ve also written loads more new stuff for UsingEnglish.com and put new Medical English worksheets and Business English and ESP games and worksheets here on TEFLtastic, including most as pdf for easy killing of trees with the photocopier.

You’ll be most excited to hear, though, that I will soon be available in your pocket. I’ll let your imaginations go on that one for a while before I give any details…

Talking of the power of imagination, I actually have no evidence at all on Katie de Teflogue’s love life, but the TEFL world needs some good gossip I reckon. I’m picturing her man coming into the English school halfway through class, picking her up and sweeping her out of a life of drudgery like Richard Gere in “An Officer and a Gentleman” (as also featured in the Simpsons episode where Marge takes bowling lessons)…