What I've Learned From My PLN (August 22, 2009)

Teaching English at a Japanese Academic High School (by Tomo Wakui)
 My teaching History Hello. My name is Tomoe Wakui. Please call me Tomo. I am a high school English teacher in Niigata, Japan. I am very happy to have this opportunity to introduce myself here in Teaching Village. Let me explain my teaching history briefly. I became an English teacher in 1989. I worked at a Girls High School. Except for only having female students, it was just a normal high school.

What I’ve Learned from My PLN (November 14, 2009)
(Note: If this is the first post you’ve read in this series, and you’re mystified by the PLN acronym, start with What’s a PLN, anyway?) The seven guest authors for the “Front Lines of EFL” series have been the members of my personal learning network I’ve shared with most intensively in the past few weeks, so I thought I’d share what I’ve learned from them. If you haven’t read all of the posts in this series, then perhaps it will provide a good summary as well, before moving on to more stories. So far, we’

Learning Lessons in Thailand (by Rob Newberry)
Part of the series: Stories from the Front Lines of EFL I teach in an International School in Bangkok. The “internationality” of the school is an interesting term, as there really are two languages spoken here — English and Thai — and not necessarily in that order. There used to be signs posted around the school saying, “Proud to be an English-speaking only school,” but when I went to find one today, hoping to include a photo of it

My Teaching ‘Journey’ in Greece (by Christina Markoulaki)
Part of the series: Stories from the Front Lines of EFL Imagine a persistent traveller who suddenly sees an ominous mountain in front of her obstructing her way. A photo I took on the island of Santorini. Determined to arrive to her destination, sh

EFL Teacher’s Kit for Surviving Kids (by Shelly Terrell)
Part of the series: Stories from the Front Lines of EFL When I first began teaching very young English language learners in Germany, I went a bit insane! Kids climbed the walls literally and flew the paper airplanes I had actually thought would be a creative lesson plan. With 14 children running around and yelling, “Shelly Belly” I nearly quit.  At least they were using English, right? My extensive years of teaching had been to English speaking children who were much older and to