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Plans for 2018

When I retired from teaching in 2012 I never thought that I would remain so busy in the field of language teaching. Since that time I have authored or co-authored two books, written over 10 blogs a month about language teaching, written and frequently presented for the AQA exam board, taught PGCE students at York and latterly Buckingham University, produced hundreds of resources for frenchteacher.net and taken part in a number of MFL teacher conferences, including three for ISMLA, two for the Chartered College of Teaching, and one for ResearchEd.

I can’t seem to take my mind off language teaching.

So this year, although I shall try to limit what I do (I have other fish to fry), I hope to achieve some or all of the following:

  • Continue to engage and share experience with teachers online via Twitter and Facebook.
  • Keep refreshing frenchteacher.net and weeding out some of the old resources as new ones are written. (The site risks becoming unwieldy and hard to navigate.)
  • Accept occasional invitations to speak or take part in teacher meetings, as and when they fit my diary and appeal to me. I enjoy meeting other teachers very much and it gives me a chance to "work a crowd" again! If you want to have me come and present give me lots of notice please.
  • Continue to present for AQA - I have three upcoming A-level events from January to March.
  • Get stuck into a third book to be written with Gianfranco Conti, this one about teaching listening skills. We have been doing some reading and a little writing about this up to now. The emphasis will be largely on practical classroom ideas rooted in sound theory.
  • Develop some more French teaching resources with Gianfranco for our TES shop.
  • Continue to blog about methodology, classroom ideas, lessons, news and resources. I am always happy to receive books or resources for review, by the way.
  • Continue thinking and reading about language teaching. It’s a fascinating field where so little is agreed upon. I have learned a good deal over the last few years.

One of my aims is to try to keep the amount of work I do in proportion, since my wife and I enjoy spending time together and, in particular, travelling. We have journeys to France, Florida, Australia and Canada already lined up or in planning. Work is rarely a chore for me, though. I take pleasure in writing and producing resources, and with sharing ideas with colleagues around the world.

And finally I need to try to let Brexit and Trump worry me less. Sensible people will come back into power at some point.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Comments

  1. Just out of curiosity, what parts of Canada are you planning to visit?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi. We’ll be in Toronto around 4-6 June and Vancouver around 18-22 June. We are taking the Canadian train from Toronto to Vancouver. We stop in Jasper en route.

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    2. What a great adventure you will have, and the scenery you will see! I am based in the central prairies so I won't have a chance to show you around my town. Enjoy your visit.

      Delete

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