Lucy’s Tefl Blog

Lucy Pollard ready to blog! Well, it’s been a long time in the pipeline; but now I think I’m ready to blog. For those of you who know me, the next statement will come as no surprise - I’m not the most technical person on the planet. Some of you might even have clicked on links I add to my postings - only to take you heaven knows where. Lucy’s magical mystery tour. To you in the second category, I apologise. And to those in the first category, I say “be patient”. I’ll get technical soon enough! I don’t want to apologise for not mastering (or mistressing) tech stuff; even if a lot of my work is done on the web! If any of you were around in August on Tefl.net, you’ll know I made my first attempt at blogging then; only to give up very quickly. This time, it’s for real.

I’ve just come back from a great language exhibition and am all fired up. It was Expolangues - an annual event in Paris for anything to do with languages. You can check them out by putting expolangues into your search engine. I just loved it and got a great buzz from all the wonderful people talking about what they do. And there were all sorts of cultures and languages represented there. It seemed smaller than the last time I was there. Or have I just got bigger? How many of you have been back to your high school only to be amazed by how small everything seemed?

I realised while I was there just what an amazing wealth of resources we have as teachers of English. In fact there is so much out there that it’s difficult to make any sort of decision. The most frequent question I get at the Tefl Helpdesk is “How do I choose a Tefl course?” And that’s only the start. After that, we Teflers think about which country shall I go to? Which age group shall I teach? Which coursebook? Shall I teach using only English? or use the students’ mother tongue? Accuracy or fluency? To correct or not to correct? The list is positively endless and there are as many answers as there are people. So, are all these choices a blessing or a curse? I’d love to hear what you think.

I’m off now to read the stuff I picked up at the exhibition. I’ll let you know if I come across anything interesting. Keep reading my blog and please especially make comments. I need encouragement, just like a beginner level student. I’m eager and I’ll get there with your support!

Warm wishes to all you lovely readers.

Lucy