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Home Away From Home: Your Country’s Embassy Abroad
Wherever you go, there it is…kind of.
When I heard about a compact resource which Chris at Bootsnall’s London travel guide had put together for London visitors, I realized I had never even really touched on this topic: your country’s embassies abroad.
I’m sure each country’s embassies have different services, and even within the embassies of one country, services may vary from location to location, but here is what I know of many US embassies:
If you register with your embassy in the place you live, by providing copies of your passport and filling out a form, you can replace your passport with less hassle if lost or stolen. They will also be aware that you are there in case of an evacuation or some other event that it is just nicer not to think about. I did once receive an invitation to a 4th of July celebration because of this, so inclusion in social events is a possible bonus too.
Think ahead, and do not turn up at a security-conscious embassy with a backpack full of assorted oddities, including your pinchy shoes in a plastic bag and a nearly-full container of Diet Coke.
Many can add pages to your passport when it is approaching “full”; don’t count on this if you are close to running out of pages – ask in advance. I was told in one place that they had run out of the supplements and had not been replenished, which they thought was done to encourage people to apply for new passports, rather than adding pages. However, when they have the pages, it takes about five minutes.
Date: August 19th, 2007 |
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Five More TEFL Blogs To Check Out
I regularly come across interesting blogs, and sometimes bookmark them with the hope of making a post about one of the relevant topics. Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to that, so here are some I’ve come across recently:
TEFL Wanderer has just taken a job as a DoS. I came across this blog because he linked to the TEFL Logue and initially there was a fun series of his own whiteboard works of art with a “Can you guess what this is?” theme. More in-depth content about the life of a Dos …
Date: July 26th, 2007 |
3 comments
Cool TEFL Blog: A Foreign Perspective
I’ve started following a blog called A Foreign Perspective, whose “owner” has been living in Adana, Turkey, for about three years now and teaching English. He is perhaps not your typical English teacher, in part because he’s been in the same location for a length of time (I think the majority of teachers aren’t), and his blog is not your typical English teacher blog.
People mostly take it for granted that the longer you’ve been abroad, the more in-depth observations you can make – perhaps not only about your “host” culture, but also about your own. I think it’s neat to see this in practice in a blog as well.
I came across A Foreign Perspective via a post where author Jake was considering why some of his learners had been studying English more or less all their lives and still couldn’t really speak it. (Of course it also flattered me that he though my response was clever). Since then, he’s made posts on topics like how far a book he’s reading may relate to the country he’s in, a neighborhood boy who now sells tissues on the street (and the challenge of how to really even think about or deal with this, not to mention “prevent” it), and family differences in Turkey. Dialogs frequently develop in the comments section of the blog, which serve to provide even more food for thought.
Date: July 12th, 2007 |
3 comments
eslHQ: Time For A TEFL Logue Review!
I have to say it is unfortunate that it has taken me this long to check out the excellent eslHQ. What’s so great about it? Basically, it’s full of practical information and fun activities – and easy to navigate to boot. The forums deserve a specific mention as well: they are quite a bit more civil than a certain well-known ESL forum, and people actually provide helpful and constructive answers to others’ questions.
There is a neat worksheet maker, a well-organized section of links, and a specific forum dedicated to games – many of which are geared towards kids but certainly not all. I browsed through these and particularly liked the freeze game for teaching past continuous. I also found a number of ideas in a thread about activities for large classes.
Date: June 24th, 2007 |
4 comments
Shrek At Grammarmancomic
The latest addition at Grammarmancomic is that of the Shrek Resource Pack, created by the same force as Grammarman (Brian Boyd), and it goes along with the original Shrek movie; it appears on the site now to coincide with the release of Shrek 3. I’ve personally used the Shrek Resource Pack in class and can confirm that it’s awesome, or more specifically, that it has a whole host of fun and useful activities which are well organized and have clear instructions.
I first used the Shrek Resource Pack about this time last year, in the pre-TEFL Logue era, and it in fact led to my introduction to the main – Grammarman – work of Brian Boyd.
I was teaching a movies “elective” and was looking to show a film which already had some existing material to go along with it. I wasn’t sure at first whether an animated film would go over well with my college-aged students, but it was a hit, and thanks in large part to the Resource Pack activities.
Date: June 12th, 2007 |
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Use TESall.com To Help Find A Good TEFL Job
TESall.com has an neat feature that TEFL jobseekers would do well to check out and utilize on a wider scale.
First of all, there is the Worldwide Job Board: this contains jobs ads but in the form of a message board. The employer posts the ad and readers or potential applicants are free to ask questions, simply posting them as replies. Accordingly, the employer can post replies, so the dialog goes on in a public forum. There are quite a lot of jobs posted here, many of which are waiting for questions. When there is a question, the post migrates to the ESL Job Talk forum.
The Job Information Journal, which contains posts by TESall.com forum members on topics like scam warnings or other experiences or advice, is also not to be missed.
There is a thread which starts with the (generally negative) experience of one teacher with a large well known language school in Madrid. It goes on to include the comments of other teachers, one who more or less agree about the downsides but clarifies the bigger picture, and another who comments on the state of other language schools in the city. The school in question has posted a reply as well. I would actually consider this thread recommended reading for those interested in getting a closer look at the trickier aspects of language schools and contracts. I think it’s fair to say that little falls neatly into the categories of “good” and “evil” …and I think this thread provides insight into the complexity of the situation. There’s also a thread called “how to recognize a scam” that is worth checking out.
Date: July 29th, 2007 |
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Online Language Learning: The Loquella Language Tool
Lots of us espouse the value of learning the local language…but this is much easier said than done. Most language teachers will agree that the best way to become proficient in a language is to take a course and then actually use that language with native speakers, ideally ones who don’t speak your own language.
Sometimes, however, taking an in-person course is not a practical option, and Bootsnall Travel Forum Moderator “Static” recently shared this resource on the forums: the Loquella Language Tool.
Based on the language courses designed by the US Foreign Service Institute, there are language courses for Spanish, French and Chinese which you can follow on your own. All you need is an Internet connection and Adobe Flash Player 8.
I’ve done five or six Spanish lessons now – and I like it so far. I studied French in school for four years and a year each of Spanish and Italian, so while I don’t remember much, I’m not a true beginner. There’s a fair bit of repetition of dialogs, building up “utterances” in reverse (EFL teachers can confirm that’s the right direction to do it), and substitution (Juan es soltero. Nosotros?). The focus is not on memorizing phrases that tourists are likely to use, but is more general and, I think, aimed in the direction of making you an independent speaker using “your own” sentences.
Date: July 15th, 2007 |
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New Blog At TEFL.net: TEFLtastic
There is a cool new blog to check out at Tefl.net. At TEFLtastic you can read the adventures and insights – which can be serious, spot on and amusing at the same time – of Alex Case, an EFL teacher working in Japan. In his words, TEFLtastic is “a place where we can all let off steam and so continue acting like the saints we really are in the classroom and the rest of our lives.” And comments are welcome.
One of the latests posts starts with this:
Teaching (college student) teenagers again despite my best efforts to avoid it, there is one factor in the classroom that stands out more than other kinds of classes and, subtly or sometimes not so subtly, affects the classroom dynamic of almost every class. This certain something would, however, under no circumstances get a mention if my lesson was observed and is not written about in any books on teaching English I have ever seen. This is the totally taboo TEFL teaching factor X…
Date: June 26th, 2007 |
2 comments
TEFL Video Resource: YourSkool
You may remember the TEFL Logue interview with Thom Kiddle (and if not, you’re getting old, it was less than two weeks ago!) where he mentioned one of the online projects he’s involved in: YourSkool, a video sharing site for schools.
Current videos range from conference excerpts to three-headed elephants, and you can also find one on the markets in Chiang Mai, Thailand, an event to bring together children with and without disabilities in Bulgaria, and my personal favorite: Through the eyes of…(watch and see how long it takes you to guess).
There’s also “Monk meets tiger.” I’m not really sure what to make of this one.
At the moment, Thom is making an effort to increase the number of videos of teachers introducing their schools. If you can make a video – you can do it. With so many of us around the world, doing the same job…imagine the resource at your fingertips if teachers from a variety of countries shoot and post videos of their schools. I still recall a “Daily life of a teacher in China” which appeared on the web several months ago…see what you can come up with!
Date: June 18th, 2007 |
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OneStopEnglish.com Update
Back in September I alerted TEFL Logue readers to Onestopenglish.com, which I think is a great resource; here’s a brief update on what’s new.
A couple of the latest additions include advice on teaching with film – both some “don’t”s (show Pulp Fiction and/or Basic Instinct, use the film only as an extended listening) and and “do”s (one idea is to show it with local language dubbing, get students to write English captions and compare with the real ones). There is also a lesson on online security, available in three levels, with the story of one “fraudster” and how he did it. And if the Spotlight on The Czech Republic didn’t do it for you, get another teacher’s report on Small Town Czech.
Date: June 8th, 2007 |
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