Talk to the Clouds

Category: aboutme

  • No.

    I do not accept guest posts or link exchanges with “online degree” sites or “online TESOL certificate” sites. Of course, people contacting me to offer such undoubtedly have never actually read my blog. They’re just hunting (or using a program to hunt for) keywords. But just for the record: The answer is “No.” (Genuine offers…

  • Learning Diary: Tadoku For Me

    A basic principle of any form of teaching is that a teacher should avoid asking students to do anything she wouldn’t do herself. Dr. Sarah Nielsen, the head of my MATESOL program, always put this into practice by joining us during in-class reflective essays. Most models for extensive reading programs similarly encourage the facilitator of…

  • Learning Diary: More Language History

    My friend Tora, who does ESL tutoring and editing in the San Jose area, managed to remind me yesterday that I’d forgotten two more unsuccessful language-learning attempts in my history. One was Chinese again, with the Berlitz method in San Francisco. I literally don’t remember one word of anything I studied there, because Berlitz is…

  • Learning Diary: My Language History

    Or, “Airing My Dirty Language-Learning Laundry.” I am not an exemplary language student myself. Through what I learned about good pedagogy during my MATESOL program, I concluded that most of my language teachers had not been trained in language pedagogy. However, I know lots of people who have become fluent in another language in far…

  • The One-on-One Teaching Life

    My job is a little unusual. I’m not a Freeway Flyer, tenured community college instructor, or IEP teacher–I’m essentially a tutor, although I usually don’t use that word to describe my job. I think “tutor” makes people think of a college student earning a few dollars by teaching the neighbor kids how to do algebra, but…