Bringing out the beast by Lindsay Clandfield

Dear Readers,

It is my honour to invite you to read my first guest post written by Lindsay Clandfield.

Bringing out the beast

I’ve been a part of the ELT blogosphere and twitterverse for only a year now, so perhaps I’m not making a new point here, but I wonder if this medium doesn’t make us act in occasionally extreme ways. Okay, well maybe extreme is an extreme word but I’ve come across some pretty intense blogposts and comments (both on my blog and on others) that are, at times, rather aggressive and contain thinly veiled character attacks. What’s stranger is that sometimes they are from people who, face to face, are nowhere near like that. I’ve also felt myself get the urge to rant about something too (and no doubt I have, both on my blog and elsewhere).

One argument for this because people experience more disinhibition on the Internet, and feel free of adverse consequences of their words. You could say that the internet brings out the beast in some of us.

But this is only one side of the story. There is another characteristic of this social media which is precisely the opposite: that of extreme affection. On twitter, blogs and other social media I see lots of verbal stroking, encouragement, “you’re the best!” type stuff as well. Sometimes it looks like a veritable love-fest. And yes, before you ask, I’ve also caught myself getting carried away with what one colleague cynically called the “happy-clappy” spirit of it all.

Has anyone else noticed this or is it my imagination? Is there an explanation for it? Is it a man-thing or woman-thing? Does all this web 2.0 stuff give us all bipolar tendencies?

This is a little post I’ve been meaning to write for some time, and it never managed to fit into my six things format I set for myself on my other blog. So I’m glad that Anita invited me here to do a blog post for her. 

Lindsay Clandfield is a teacher, teacher trainer and author. He is also a fan of lists and a godfather of L_missbossy's ELT playground. Lindsay's blog Six Things is, in my humble opinion, one of the best in the blogosphere. 

10 words a foreigner teaching English in Turkey should know

Inspired by Lindsay Clandfield’s blog www.sixthings.net I have decided to write ten key words and phrases a foreigner teaching English in Turkey should be familiar with as she/he will hear them millions of times every day:

·        YABANCI (that is you – the foreigner)

·        SUS (meaning: be quiet or simply shut up!; the most useful of all words gathered here I guess)

·        YARAMAZ (naughty – very easy to memorize as appropriate contexts are always at hand)

·        HOCAM (again you – meaning: my master, my teacher; a word used primarily by lise /high school/ students; kids at primary school will call you ÖĞRETMENIM)

·        HADI (something like come on!, variations include HADI YAAA, HADI BEEE or HADI BYE, BYE. The last one always heard when someone finishes talking on the phone)

·        GÜZEL (beautiful, nice, delicious, good – used to describe basically everything you like or enjoy; word that is heard all the time. A variation would be ÇOK GÜZEL, çok /read as the English word chalk/ meaning very or a lot)

·        ANLAMADIM (meaning: I don’t understand; why use the past tense suffix then?)

·        SINIF (classroom) that I always confuse with SINAV (exam)

·        OTUR! (said angrily usually works – sit down!)

·        oOOOo (an expression with rising and falling intonation used to express exaggeration and my personal favourite)

O zaman, hadi let's start learning Türkçe arkadaşlar :)))

My first post

Hmm...
I guess this is the hardest moment in the life of a blogger. My first post.

To begin with, my special thanks to Lindsay Clandfield who convinced all of us attending his workshop in Budapest that starting up a blog is a piece of cake :)

As I'm in the middle od doing my DELTA my posts might be few and far between but I will definitely write something twice a week to keep it alive (not sure if it's going to be Monday and Thursday though :)

My key interest is teaching English to Young Learners (aged 7-9) i.e. the ones who have just learnt to read and write. In my view, not enough is being written or taught to help teachers deal with them and I'm planning to change it. Hence this blog will be my place for sharing ideas and raising questions that I hope will get answered.

So, off we go!