{"id":5925,"date":"2016-12-23T04:17:42","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T04:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/?p=5925"},"modified":"2016-12-23T04:17:42","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T04:17:42","slug":"notes-from-a-distant-elt-outpost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/2016\/12\/23\/notes-from-a-distant-elt-outpost\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes From A Distant ELT Outpost"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Chuck
Chuck Sandy<\/figcaption><\/figure>By Chuck Sandy<\/em><\/p>\n

Living as I do in a quiet corner of central Japan where not much happens, I might be the last person you\u2019d expect to see commenting on recent trends in ELT. Then add to this the very fact that it\u2019s been a good while now since I\u2019ve been a classroom teacher and it\u2019s almost like I should disqualify myself from this task.\u00a0 Still I do keep a social media lookout for news from the English language teaching world and further fuel my addiction to this news with daily readings from the many English Language Teaching (and education) blogs that I follow and stumble upon. It\u2019s from this distant vantage point that I offer up the following notes and observations.<\/p>\n

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  1. It\u2019s been a year in which ELT teacher equity has been brought to the forefront thanks to the IATEFL 2016 plenary by Silvana Richardson<\/a>, the ongoing work of TEFL Equity Advocates<\/a>, and the conversation which has been happening all over social media for much of the year. The fact that the profession is now beginning to move away from the native-speaker bias that\u2019s plagued ELT for years is something worth applauding.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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    1. There\u2019s been a vigorous discussion about what it means to be an ELT teacher going on throughout the year. While at times related to the equity issues raised above, this discussion has also seen many questioning what it takes to begin work as a qualified <\/i>English language teacher.\u00a0 For an overview of this discussion, you might start with this post<\/a> on Hugh Dellar\u2019s Lexical Lab blog.\u00a0 But don\u2019t stop there. For a full range of the discussion and the bigger picture of the problem<\/i>, do a search for TEFL or TESOL or EFL teacher qualifications and spend some time looking around.\u00a0 As you do, consider for yourself what it means to be an ELT professional and what sort of qualifications new English language teachers should have upon entering the field. This is a discussion we\u2019ll be seeing more of in the coming year.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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      1. Several groups around the ELT world have begun experimenting with the notion of what a conference is and exploring the ways that ideas and initiatives can be shared. Who should be invited to speak? How long should keynote presentations be? Should there even be keynotes? Do we even need a traditional venue? What would happen if the doors were widened enough to bring in ideas from education, psychology, and business?\u00a0 Although there are several groups and individuals I could mention,\u00a0 Innovate ELT<\/a>,\u00a0 ExcitELT<\/a>, and EdYOUfest<\/a> come to mind. Then there\u2019s Laura Patsko and her Pedagogy Pop Ups<\/a> on Periscope. It will be interesting to see how these start-up conferences<\/i> and idea-sharing platforms develop in the coming year. Maybe you\u2019ll be participating in one or more of these or forging ahead with new initiatives of your own.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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        1. Everyone has probably noticed the slow but steady rise of the indie ELT publisher over the past couple of years. It may have all started with The Round<\/a> but now there\u2019s Atama-ii<\/a> with its \u201cchoose your own adventure\u201d books, Wayzgoose Press<\/a> with a growing list of titles, and the soon to be launched The ELT Workshop<\/a>.\u00a0 There is also a growing series of collaboratively written books produced by Heart ELT<\/a> which are beautifully done. These are well worth a look.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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          1. It seems that t<\/i>eacherpreneur<\/i> just might be the ELT word of 2016. Though I first became aware of the word some time ago while exploring the archives at the mostly K-12 Teachers Pay Teachers<\/a>, it didn\u2019t register fully until I connected with Patrice Palmer. Her website<\/a> is full of interviews with teachers who have made the jump from classroom teacher to provider of hand-crafted materials, self-published books, and online lessons. If you find this intriguing and are considering making a similar jump yourself, Patrice will be leading an iTDi Advanced Course in January 2017 called Teacher To Teacherpreneur<\/a> that will help you explore your options as you learn about the business end of ELT.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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            1. Perhaps it\u2019s because I live way out in the middle of nowhere as I do that I\u2019ve been even more amazed this year by how easy it is to collaborate on projects with people in far-away places. The things I\u2019m working on now couldn\u2019t have been done even a few years ago. The tools which are now available to us have become that easy to use. I can hardly imagine what\u2019s next.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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              1. I\u2019m going to go out on a limb here and call 2016 the beginning of a post-PLN (Personal Learning Network) world. What I see from where I sit is more people getting connected in more ways and yet collaborating more closely in smaller groups. My friend\u00a0Michael Obrien<\/a> calls these smaller groups pelo<\/i>tons<\/i> \u2013 a word that comes from the cycling world. A peloton is a group of cyclists who work collaboratively towards the fulfillment of a common goal. Sometimes one rider takes the lead while others block the wind. Sometimes another one does. Sometimes one rider will pull ahead while others fall behind. Then that one waits for others to catch up. \u201cYou can never be faster than your peloton,\u201d says Michael. Nor should you.\u00a0 You\u2019re all getting to the same place together and because you\u2019re getting there together, that makes the whole experience better. Working in this way with my peloton is my goal for 2017.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                And perhaps our paths will cross as I read your posts, or as we work on online projects together, or maybe we\u2019ll even meet up out in the physical world somewhere.\u00a0 Although I write to you from a distant outpost, the ELT world is a small one. To where ever you are and for whatever you do, I thank you and wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous year ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                By Chuck Sandy Living as I do in a quiet corner of central Japan where not much happens, I might be the last person you\u2019d expect to see commenting on recent trends in ELT. Then add to this the very fact that it\u2019s been a good while now since I\u2019ve been a classroom teacher and … Continue reading Notes From A Distant ELT Outpost<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-issues-in-elt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}