First draft complete!!! and other fascinating news...

I must start off with a nod to a story that captured my interest and can be deemed as relevant to my blog (all things come back to MY blog right? Well they should).

A news story from the Chicago Tribune by Eric Zorn (http://ur.lc/1b) discussing McCain's pronunciation error of the Iran leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad included a link to one of my favorite sites Forvo (http://www.forvo.com/). In daily conversations I haven't found myself ever saying "Ahmadinejad," so my attempt to try and say it was much worse than McCain's. I then engage my Mom about it briefly and she says it perfectly, just like the native speaker from Forvo. Okay, so maybe McCain and I need to brush-up on "world leader's names and pronunciation." A fun game for the whole family.

Also I found the challenge posed on the WikiProject EduTech page on Wikipedia to be interesting! The challenge/goal is "that representatives of the EduTech community work on any one of the many lamentably poor articles in their field, and get them up to at least Good article status, ideally Featured article status, within the next sixty days." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_EduTech)
The lamentably poor articles being those related to incorporating technology into education.

I have finally finished (hoooray) my first draft of my proposal and purpose statement for the Fulbright to the Lehigh professor helping me through the process! I know there will be many, many, many more rewrites before I submit the application, but I am still excited about at getting through the first write-up!

In other news and possible future goal: How long would it take to gain 25,000 followers like Scobleizer on Twitter? Apparently around 12,000 updates... http://twitter.com/Scobleizer

And the process continues...

I have encountered a very minor, but annoying, dilemma: there really isn't any offline material for someone pursuing a teaching career within the EFL field. More specifically, someone who has an interest in utilizing Web 2.0 capabilities within their teaching practice. I know it may seem ridiculous to desire to read a book about these two elements when I can find the material online, but I figured there might be a great book with consolidated information that I could use as constant companion in my new adventure.

I have gone to a couple of larger bookstores to attempt to find the "all encompassing" book but haven't been successful. I realize that most EFL/ESL books center around teaching to students in which English is the primary language. I know that I could learn some important and essential tips and tricks on teaching by reading these books, but I am looking for a read that places the emphasis on being in a location where English is primarily a second language.

I did some perusing on Amazon and found, Teaching English Abroad, 7th (Teaching English Abroad) (Paperback) from 2005. (Amazon listing: http://ur.lc/14) Could be interesting, but is it the only one of it's kind? What about a book referencing social media outlets, etc? Maybe this one instead TEFL Questions and Answers (Paperback)(http://ur.lc/17).

I have been reading How To Teach English (Book with DVD) (How S.) (Paperback): http://ur.lc/16. It has been pretty fascinating to read about aspects of teaching that I never would have considered previously. Such as a general layout of a classroom and the social impact that it can represent.

Thankfully there are lots of great online resources that have helped me formulate some good ideas not only for when I begin to teach but also for my Fulbright application.

I had spent the majority of the last few days writing by hand (almost a foreign idea to me nowadays) my proposal and personal statement. Last night around 11PM I started to type-up my rough drafts. Organization is lacking within my paper so now I need to motivate myself to complete that...


Some cool applications/sites that I have seen on the web that would be relevant for TEFL:
*Forvo - A pronunciation guide in different languages by native speakers (http://forvo.com/)
*Heads up English - a website with English lesson plans and articles (http://www.headsupenglish.com)
*Twitter - always deserves a mention. Great social networking (http://twitter.com)

Off-Topic Alert:

Here is an interesting Turkish news story: http://ur.lc/15

Also, here is an extremely funny reward for making it through my blog from LOLCats:

more cat pictures