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.