Teaching ESL
And Other "Off The Record" Thoughts

Most of my working hours are spent teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) in one way or another. In the mornings I may be sitting with a group of advanced students practicing conversation skills and in the afternoons standing in front of a very large class of first year University students working on basic English listening and writing skills. Interspersed with these may be sessions editing (but not re-writing) student newspaper articles or proofreading manuscripts for professional journals. Teaching English at times seems to be more of a lifestyle than a job.

Since I enjoy the work so much, I long ago stopped thinking of it as "work." That's probably why when it comes to my hobby time (learning how-to and then developing websites like this one) the theme for the content of the site was an easy choice. I think the best offerings on the internet are produced by individuals with a bit of knowledge and a lot of passion for a particular subject. Since teaching ESL is what I enjoy, why not make the obvious choice?

There is one problem here though, my writing. I'm not what I think of as a "natural writer." I'm slow and deliberate and the words just don't flow easily, especially when I'm faced with the blank white of the computer monitor. I'm sometimes too much of a perfectionist and have to fight the tendency to endlessly rewrite and "tweak" my writing. I also have periods of "writers' block" or what some people may call just plain laziness.

One solution I've chosen for the problem is to take a page out of my own book of advice and indulge myself with a little freewriting and putting down in the written words some of my own random thoughts that don't necessarily fit the structure of the website. I hope you don't mind but this is just for me.

How to Motivate Students in an ESL Classroom