July Newsletter - Free Membership
July '09 Newsletter (1)
Hello to everyone Out There
I hope your summer is as chilled (relaxing) as mine is:
New FREE membership - have a go and see what you think
The government, Lesley and me - immigration misery
Social media English explained
London summer course going entirely to plan
The unholy trinity in 'Talibanistan' - discuss
We decided that it might be a good idea to help more of you fully understand what Out There lessons actually do and enable more of you to have a go with some materials, so, we now have a FREE membership category which gives you access to 24 lesson plans plus the forums and profiles etc. Just click on the page below and 'push the button' :
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/categories/FREEMEMBERSHIP
Judge for yourself if you think the UK government is ducking (avoiding or refusing to answer) my questions with regards the misinformation on their websites that caused me to make a complaint to them. If you have the time, the whole correspondence is here but be careful, you may lose the will to live!:
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/articles/ukeltimmigration
We've been talking to some people about social media and how our stuff works with it, it seems some people are still a bit confused, this is an excerpt from an email to a media agency. The potential for Out There to transform the teaching of not only English but other languages is, we think, quite real; but for many cultural and psychological reasons some people find it hard to grasp the difference between one language programme and another:
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/articles/socialmediaenglish
Our summer programme looked like it wasn't going to happen this year, but it has and it is going according to plan. I mention it because yet again it has proven that you can take some TEFL teachers, give them our materials and the written instructions but no formal training, and they can create what one teacher with many years of conventional English teaching experience described last week as 'a much better programme than any of the others in London'. What we have created works, every time, pure and simple. It is easier to prepare, easier to teach and gets better results in the form of more motivated, more confident students whose ability to recall and use language is greatly improved. The cost benefits are also huge to freelance teachers and schools who use the materials. I will explain more about this soon.
This news image from Talibanistan really struck me as quite poignant. In the last few months I have read a book about the history of narcotics which could be called a history of human nature. Time and again the human race panders (is worried about and tries to accommodate) to what is considered to be politically correct or 'moral' when everyone, depending upon their background, has a completely different 'moral' compass (view). We ignore the facts and repeat behaviours that could be avoided and change the world permanently for the better, if we we did some research and took what might seem like tough decisions. Here's the image from the Guardian a week or so ago:
http://www.languagesoutthere.com/articles/talibanistan
Until next time...
Cheers
Jason
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