An apology

to the three TEFL related communities/ social networking sites that I’m theoretically a member of but never even read let alone contribute to (My English Club, BELT Free and EFL Classroom 2.0), plus the many people whose invitations to join LinkedIn or Twitter or swap Skype details I have rejected or ignored. With Twitter it’s lack of willingness, but otherwise it’s lack of time due to:

- Reading TEFL blogs once or twice a day on Onestopblogs, and commenting as often as I can

- Writing reviews for almost every edition of Modern English Teacher magazine for years

- Editing reviews and arranging review copies for TEFL.net Reviews, plus the occasional review myself

- Prepublication reviewing for publishers (which I could tell you about, but then I’d have to kill you)

- Writing at least weekly articles and lesson ideas for TEFL.net, and answering comments on them

- Writing an upcoming series of articles for MET

- Occasional bursts of writing worksheets and articles for www.Usingenglish.com

- Writing 694 blog posts in just over two years

- Answering questions on TEFL.net forum pages, and occasionally remembering the Usingenglish forums and TESall forums that are great but often forgotten (at least by me)

- Posting new TEFLtastic worksheets almost every week, usually after converting them to PDF

- Network deprivation (also known as sleep)

- Writing down witty quotes like that one above in case I ever get the chance to rip them off (like that one above)

- Reading every edition of MET, ETP and ELTJ when it comes out, and usually writing about at least something in it

- Trying to work my way through the books on the shelves of my new school, just in case I have to go back to Eikaiwa in Japan and so never see a teacher development book ever again

- Teaching 24 hours a week

- Pondering why I really am not learning any Korean at all

- Searching for a regular supply of PG Tips and Marmite

- Trying to put at least a little effort into spending more time interacting with my friends, family and colleagues than with people I’ve only met online

- Doing just enough exercise to keep the moobs under control and stop myself from going nuts

- Wiping the Seoul city grime from my furniture once a week

- Learning how to change nappies

You get the idea. Sorry if that sounds like a rant, but it’s more driven by guilt and contributing is always at the back of my mind! When someone pays me to write TEFL stuff full time…

I will reject it (far prefer teaching). So maybe when I retire and I know every inch of the South Downs like my grandfather did… Or maybe when I go off the road in a sports car in Argentina and am paralysed and bedridden (the true life story of one of my clients when I was a care worker)…

Actually though, if some people are telling me I should get more involved and most people think I spend far too much time on this kind of stuff already maybe I sort of have the balance right. It’s like in most of my schools half the teachers think I’m a complete TEFL geek and the other half think I’m much too cynical about the trade, which again makes me think that I must be doing something right

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 12:24 am and is filed under ELT publishing, English Teaching Professional, links, modern english teacher magazine, Teacher forums, Teaching English in Korea, TEFL blogs, Usingenglish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.