Hi! I’m glad you found your way here because if you’re serious about EFL, then you’ll find some useful stuff here. If you’re not serious about EFL and you’re in it just for a laff and/or to pay off your college debts, that’s okay, but this site probably isn’t going to be able to offer you too much, I’m afraid.
(And if you’re a JET, you might be better served by taking a look at the (still pretty new) Team Teaching Forum, theTTforum.)
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So, assuming you’re still reading and haven’t surfed away…
…how, my time-challenged-overworked-underpaid-internet-travelling colleague, will this site benefit you?
Well, that depends, dunnit.
The primary reason I’ve set this site up is to not just to share tips, ideas, thoughts, and observations, but to start some sort of discussion around them. I have no intention for this to be a static site; your opinion and professional experience are required. If you’re not willing to contribute something and get involved, then surf away, surf away!
It’s one of those no brainer obviousness-ness type things in life that if you get involved in something—if you actively engage with it—then your propensity to learn increases 10-fold.
I’m sure we’ve all had students who just wouldn’t engage with the material, expecting you, the teacher, to “teach” them everything they needed to know. And we all know that students like that don’t tend to get very far. Their inability (for whatever reasons) to take responsibility for their own learning is hamstringing them far more than they can imagine.
And we also know that this is an entirely indiscriminating disease. Which is to say that anyone can be a sufferer! So if that’s you, you have no business here. Really. Not until you cure yourself.
And that’s what I meant by “It depends, dunnit,” above. Get involved, it’ll benefit you a lot, I think.
Lurk, and hmmm… not so much.
But let’s back up a moment…
I really should introduce myself, shouldn’t I? My apologies!
My name’s Leslie and I’ve been around the EFL traps for a little while now (That’s a cartoon of me up on there on the right, done at the manga museum in Kyoto last year).
I’ve had the great pleasure to work alongside some masters of the craft and I’ve had the misfortune to witness a lot of “teaching” (’nuff said).
I’ve also had the privilege of training total newbies, designing and conducting an inservice training program for teachers who had been at it anywhere from 5 to 25 years, and putting together a bunch of workshops and seminars for my colleagues at the various places I’ve worked.
Racked up a DELTA along the way.
Have just about completed an MA (in Language Program Management)—one subject to go! 
So, I thought it was time to start a site dedicated to really learning how to teach English instead of blundering along and trotting out the same ol’ ineffective stuff that we all more or less teach ourselves from the textbooks we end up working with day-to-day.
And I’m no different in that regard, incidentally.
When I started teaching I just kind of followed the textbook. I mean, surely something published by OUP or CUP can’t be wrong…
…right?
Well, what I discovered later, of course, was that in places they are wrong! And textbooks of all sorts are forever pedalling half-truths about the language which end up causing students a great deal of frustration further down the track.
So I had to unlearn all the crap and set about finding the things that lead to EFFECTIVE teaching and learning.
I do hasten to add at this point, though, that not all of the “mini-training” you get from textbooks is bad! Some of it is excellent, in fact. Also, for newbie teachers, textbooks are a real and perhaps necessary lifeline. To be fair, I’m not sure how I would have managed without textbooks when I started.
So I’m not down on textbooks per se. I’m just down on a lot of the stuff that, as I said, we basically teach ourselves from textbooks! Things that often do more to confuse the issue for our poor old students and leave us wondering what we’re doing wrong! We are, after all, just following the book!
And then what ends up happening is that each new batch of old hands starts writing textbooks and, well, sorry to say it, but they start pedalling the very same half-truths that they “learnt” along the way and which they adhered to for the 487 years they were in the classroom.
There are some notable exceptions to this. I thoroughly recommend anything and everything written by Scott Thornbury, for example. I think I own all his books! I particularly recommend this one if you’ve been in EFL for a while:
And these ones if you’re relatively new-ish to EFL:
And if you can wrap your head around Michael Lewis and the man that inspired him, R.A.Close, then do yourself a favour (just follow the caveat of not getting too excited and rushing out to “lay it all on” your unsuspecting class!).
And if you can get your hands on a copy of the (unfortunately long out of print and absolute leagues ahead of its time) Collins Cobuild First Lessons textbook by Dave and Jane Willis (and then use it and reflect on it and pull apart how everything is put together), well, you’ll start to see what I mean.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg on the recommended reading list.
I don’t mean to go on and on bashing textbooks. I know that we need them when we’re newbies. It just seems to me that very few people ever truly get beyond the dominant methodologies/syllabus designs/dogma of the major textbooks out there.
So that’s where this site hopefully comes in!
I really want to build a community of like-minded folks
who are dedicated to excellence in language teaching.
Not everyone needs to be a wizened greybeard with encyclopaedic knowledge. On the contrary, there are a lot of people who, as the expression goes, are just “born teachers” and whom I’m sure can contribute great insight from the position of being a relative rookie.
And I’m really, really excited about this!
The “problem,” if you will, is that I don’t have a lot of time at present to dedicate to this site. I put it up more or less on a whim in October 2007 as a more effective means of distributing some Halloween lessons and resources that I had put together and it’s just kind of grown out of that.
There isn’t a lot here at present and not a whole lot of visitors, based on my almost complete absence of “promotion”.
Also, I’m more than a little tied up with a number of large, ongoing projects (including finishing my MA and gearing up to move country again in a few months, lining up a new job, etc.) so… I doubt I’ll be able to give this site the attention that it deserves and that I so want to give. But I’ll try.
It does depend on visitor involvement, though. If no one comments on anything or asks questions, or offers anything… then I’ll simply concentrate on my more pressing projects for the time being.
I guess we’ll see.
In fact, your opinion would be greatly appreciated. I have a super-fast 3-question survey asking you to imagine having a magic wand in your hand! Share Your Thoughts Here!
You should also sign-up to the EFL Teacher Training mailing list so that you can be alerted to any new developments and resources I might send out from time to time!
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Not interested in receiving tips and updates by mail? Click here. I’d rather you did that then clog up my mailing list system with crap like snotmonkey@bigbananas.com 
I look forward to hearing your ideas and I warmly welcome you to EFL Teacher Training!
Best regards,
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