June '09 Newsletter (2)
 
Hello to everyone Out There
 
Just a quickie this week:
 
Intermediate teachers' lessons and student worksheets published on Lulu.com
First independent review on TEFL.net - check it out
Big business online
Freedom of information request
Immigration hoo-ha feedback - we are not the only ones
Useful science
 
Our first EOT book is now available for purchase on Lulu.com for £14.76 printed and posted to you or just £3.56 as an e-book (136 pages of detailed lesson plans and great worksheets designed by the Guardian + full 'how to teach EOT' instructions) - go to:
 
www.lulu.com/content/7281074
 
...and you can even read all of every one of the twenty lesson plans online on Scribd for free and then download the ones you like for $2 or buy the book on Lulu.com.  Can't say fairer than that can we?  Check out:
 
http://www.scribd.com/group/75556-intermediate-spoken-english-out-there-course
 
Just as a reminder, our first EOT materials review on TEFL.net - '21st century vocabulary and situations' can be read here:
 
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/articles/first-independent-review-LOT-materials-TEFL.net
 
As you can see I have been fairly busy.  Combine that with being a part-time child carer and you will have a good idea how jumbled my brain can get around 4.30am in the morning when 'no.2' decides he wants to play.
 
The inexorable rise of online English language teaching is really becoming huge business and looks like it is here to stay.  Who would have thought when we set up the ill-fated Guardian Languages and published our unique materials for use with VoIP that sites like Italki.com, Myngle.com, Livemocha.com and now Rossetta Stone would all 'discover' the usefulness of online conversation practice using VoIP. A whole new frontier is opening up and many of these well populated sites are now finding that they need some decent teaching and learning materials for this online communicative way of learning. I love the fact that everyone who announces use of VoIP does it with the wild-eyed ferver of the first discovers of gold in the Klondike. It's come to something when the editor of a language travel magazine tells you that 'it is all going online'.  Does the bell toll for carbon spewing, pricey and, frankly, 'vanilla' study abroad programmes?  Rossetta Stone's CEO is getting quite excited by the potential of the online version and their recently announced intended IPO:
 
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/06/17/ceos-corner-rosetta-stones-tom-adams-is-changing-the-world/
 
I've got a 'freedom of information' request lodged with a big organisation, they tell me they will get back to me next week.
 
My displeasure with the new immigration policy and how it has affected our London course, punishing us for being innovative and not teaching like everyone else, has produced some welcome feedback from readers of this newsletter.  It seems we are not alone.  I've had a filibuster of a response (long, boring and not to the point; designed to delay and make you tire and give up) from the Home Office which has conveniently attempted to deflect and ignore my key question about the information they published on their website.  More to come soon...the pressure on the politicians is beginning to pay off.
 
Useful science:
 
An American scientific team has studied whether
the supposed association between shoe size and penis
size has any scientific basis. The answer? No.
 
Until next time...
Cheers
Jason