Writing and teaching
Sometimes, quite frankly, combining them is a pain in the arse and I wish I could just choose one or the other, like last week when saving the time and energy to write meant gettting up at 5:30 to plan the lessons that I hadn’t looked at the previous day. And then there were the two articles I was writing recently during which I seemed to spend as much time pressing “Count words” as actually writing, like a little kid saying “Are we nearly there yet? Are we nearly there yet?”
Normally, though, I’m happy to combine the two. For one thing, the teaching makes me speak to actual human beings outside my family, not something I often do on my days off if I’ve got a good book. On the other side, writing means I actually use my brain, which doesn’t always seem to be the case when it comes to first lessons with under fives yet again. And then, when it clicks, I can hardly imagine writing without teaching or teaching without writing, because the ideas flow through the keyboard in a way they just don’t when I’m lesson planning, and actually using it in class polishes up and expands the ideas in a way I never would’ve guessed even if I’d spent a month editing it and reading up on the topic. Here are a few recent ones where it all seemed to come together that I don’t think I’ve given shameless self promotion on TEFLtastic for yet:
Using the picture book Where’s Spot in EFL classes (for prepositions, furniture vocab, feelings etc)
Where’s Spot post reading tasks (craftwork etc)
Using Garfield’s Scary Scavenger Hunt in EFL classes (also furniture, preps etc, but this time through a great free online game- good for Halloween)
Using the Ten in the Bed picture book and/ or song in EFL classes (for animals, counting down from one to ten, etc)
Using Brown Bear Brown Bear in EFL classes (animals, colours etc with the classic Eric Carle book)
February 25th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
We’ve all been there, Alex. Hang on in there and don’t worry, you’re a great writer and we’ll wait a couple more days for that next blog post.
February 25th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
I don’t know how you do it, other than with greater dedication and time management than I’m capable of. I can’t believe how often you write your blog, and then, as you have today, you remind us of how much else you write on top of that – and it’s quality too. There is a reason why you are the TEFL Godfather.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:40 am
Poor Alex….
But yes, I get you. You just have to do less of one or the other. The best thing to do is work out which pays most money and focus on that.
; P
February 27th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
thanks guys. I wasn’t actually fishing for compliments or sympathy, but those are always welcome (don’t get either at home…) My point, as so often recently, was to comment on the thousand little conundrums that make up life. Or is that just my life??
btw, as you can see in the next blog post, blogging doesn’t count as real writing to me and is never a pain in the backside