Why taking a break from blogging has made me a better teacher

I started blogging in October 2009 and managed to do it regularly for about a year. It was the most exciting and thought-provoking time in my career as a teacher. I learned lots and met a group of fantastic teachers from all over the world who in most cases turned out to be good friends offline as well. But then I had to leave Turkey and start a new life in Spain. I had no internet access for quite a while and due to a whole bunch of major changes, blogging became a thing of the past.

I never stopped lurking though. It was sad to see so many other great blogs go. It was even sadder to see my blog disappear from people’s blogrolls. The time I spent away from it all however, has had its benefits as well.

To begin with, taking a step back made me see a much bigger picture. I know why I want to blog. I realized what I’m really into and what will never make me go wild. Take teaching with technology, for example. I used to dream about IWBs and free youtube videos and now, my main goal is to train myself how to teach without almost any resources.

Life in another country forced me to learn a new language from scratch once more. That gave me yet another advantage as I was once again able to observe how a language is acquired, learned and taught. The whole process raised a whole lot of issues and doubts (was Krashen right?), some of which I hope to blog about soon.

Finally I realized how little I know and how much there is to learn and understand. I became humble.

What I really missed is interacting with people online and meeting them face to face, the rush of adrenaline seeing a comment, the company of like-minded people, their support and kind words.

What I didn't miss is being online 24/7. I've been there and done that. During a TEA conference in Vienna  a few years ago, Hugh Dellar was telling me how he hated Twitter and how people who spent their time there surely had no life offline. I disagreed then but clearly see his point now.

No more two posts a week. No more spending hours reading posts and leaving comments everywhere. If that means no comments on my blog, so be it.

I want to have a life and keep on learning. 

That’s what it’s all about, right? 

Ten Blogs

I simply hate duplicating patterns and doing the same things other people do.

Yet what I’ve been doing here has been appreciated by people I both like and respect so I have no choice but to thank them and follow suit :)

I was tagged by two of my Great Men - Mike Harrison and Lindsay Clandfield and one Great Lady whom I have yet to meet - Marta Mrozik.

I wish I could choose people who tagged me but I cannot so here are the ten blogs I find worth taking a look at:

(NB I guess everyone in the blogosphere knows this and that blog so I didn't include them on purpose)

1. Carol Read's blog
2. Kalinago English - Karenne Sylvester's blog
3. Good morning from... - Laura Ponting's blog
4. Authentic Teaching - Willy C.Cardoso's blog
5. The Lives of Teachers - Darren Elliott's blog
6. Turklish tefl - Nick Jaworski's blog
7. Janet's Abruzzo edublog - Janet Bianchini's blog
8. Teaching Village - Barbara Sakamoto' blog
9. Early EFL - Leahn Stanhope's blog
10. Vicky Loras's blog

If you haven't checked these blogs out yet, you definitely should :)

New Year, New Look

I have been thinking of changing the template of my blog for quite a long time but I had no idea how hard it would be. Actually, installing a new theme is a piece of cake but keeping your widgets intact while choosing a new template proved to be an achievement worth a Nobel Prize at least.

Although I was racking my brains and had a bunch of sleepless nights thinking, I succeeded!

  

I’ve also installed a few new widgets to my blog: Contact Button , Top Commenters, Blogumus and Related Posts.

This site was very useful and this one had great templates but I could not figure out how to deal with the installation and widgets problem. Thank you Karenne for your help and advice!

I hope you like the L_missbossy’s ELT Playground’s revamped look J

R&R - recap and resolutions

2009 has been a wonderful year for me because:

• I travelled a lot and visited Amsterdam, Bulgaria, Malaysia, Singapore, Budapest, Denmark and Rome. Still dreaming of India, Japan, Portugal, New Zealand...

• I realised that PLN is not actually PLN having joined Twitter

• I started DELTA and read one million books about teaching and learning (more or less ;)

• My blog was born in October!

• Thanks to Videojug, I began experimenting with Indian cuisine and can now make delicious Chicken Tikka Masala 

• I spoke at two ELT conferences - in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria and Budapest, Hungary and met some fantastic people there

• I wrote 3 guest posts for Ken Wilson, Lindsay Clandfield and Nick Jaworski and talked about my experiences in Poland on Barbara Sakamoto’s blog 

• After months of struggle I finally got a credit card and became a proud member of IATEFL

• Lindsay Clandfield wrote a guest post for me 

• I finally bought ‘How to teach English with technology’ and started getting prepared for future debates with Gavin Dudeney

• Many people found my ideas interesting enough and posted comments on my blog so here are my thanks to: Darren Elliott, Karenne Sylvester, Ken Wilson, Alan Tait, Marisa Constantinides, Nick Jaworski, Rupert (Videojug Director), Agata Zgarda, Alex Case, Lindsay Clandfield, Prof. Nelba Quintana, Nicky, Julian Gilbert, Samccoy, Victro Hugo Rojas, Peter Fenton, Miss Shonah, Vicky Loras, Shelly Terrell, Callie Wilkinson, Melania Paduraru, The TEFL Tradesman... and all of you who stop by at my blog from time to time!

• Last but not least, I spent way too much on new shoes. Has it become a dangerous addiction?

My New Year's Resolutions and wishes for 2010 are below, disguised in a Wordle cloud.

Hope they will all come true and wish the same to you :)

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. 

On Being a Newbie Blogger

There are two types of newbie bloggers – those who are already pretty famous in the real world and those who are not. Like myself.

The newbie blogger type one does not need to worry about whether his or her blog will become successful i.e. whether people will make an effort and visit it leaving comments. Usually a few tweets is enough to direct all his/her friends and colleagues to the website.

Bloggers type two have a much a harder job to do. Entering the blogosphere is like entering a party in full swing where everyone knows each other and no one wants to talk to you. Probably because they are busy talking to the people they already know or because they think you are insignificant so why bother.

So what does a newbie blogger type two naturally do?

a)      leaves comments on VIP bloggers’ sites

b)      asks them for a guest blog piece

I have been a part of the blogsphere for a bit more than two months and I have to admit that it has been the most fruitful period in my professional development.

I follow blogs that I find genuinely interesting and useful. It’s not important to me how famous their authors are. What really counts is whether you can see someone’s personality through what he or she writes. Believe it or not but it is not that easy to find.

Leaving comments on blogs is another issue. So many comments I have read on VIP’s blogs seem empty. ‘It’s a great post!’ or ‘I agree with what you’ve written’ are so incredibly boring especially when written as an answer to a post that is, hmm, nothing special. To me, leaving a comment makes sense if you actually mean what you write and when by stating something you want to express yourself. As a result, although there are so many wonderful blogs I follow, I do not leave comments there because I have simply nothing to add.

Seeing comments appearing on your own blog is something every blogger wishes for. In a newbie type two’s case it is obviously not that easy. Some great stuff is being written every day by the less well known and too bad it’s not being read or discussed. How to direct people’s interest to your blog then? No idea. Maybe the solution is meeting the VIPs in person?

Or

asking them  for a guest blog piece which I mentioned before. It has not crossed my mind yet and I do not think I will ever dare to do so. Some VIPs consider it cheeky or simply rude.

Anyway I have quite a lot of ideas of my own J I guess time will show whether the road I have taken is going to be the right one.