This is not as big a question for me as you might think, as my reasons for writing and publishing are mainly selfish:
– I like writing but am incapable of writing anything more interesting
– It helps with my own classes and teacher development
– It makes me feel that the efforts I put into my own classes are not entirely wasted
However, it does take a fair amount of time and effort to publish over 400 articles and 1400 worksheets, so it would be nice to think that I’m having some kind of overall positive effect. Unfortunately, I have my suspicions that good intentions could lead to mainly bad effects, as with a teacher who told me that since my workshop on Q&A games he hadn’t done anything else in class for months. Here are my doubts about my writing and publishing efforts:
– Does free and easy access to photocopiable worksheets make teachers lazy and likely to give their students whatever comes top on Google, however unsuitable?
– Do lists of communication games (e.g. “15 fun Present Continuous activities”) have a similar effect, with teachers choosing the first thing they read which seems okay or whatever seems most fun rather than thinking about which would be most suitable for their particular class (i.e. would lead to most learning)?
– Does the amount of free help available online make teachers think they can do without formal TEFL training?
– Does the advertising-funded free content model used by sites I publish on make teachers and schools unwilling to pay for materials, therefore again reducing the things they will consider for their classes and also taking away the livelihoods of some worthwhile TEFL publishing professionals?
– Does the amount of free help and materials available online make schools think they can offer less support (workshops, books on the bookshelves, selecting the best materials for teachers, etc)?
– Has blogging, Tweeting or otherwise writing about TEFL become a new standard level of CPD for already overworked teachers in certain segments of the profession because of keenos like me? Is that really fair to the people who don’t enjoy writing and/ or have actual hobbies to spend their free time on?
As I said in the introduction, I’ll probably just carry on regardless due to selfish reasons anyway, so please feel free to be completely honest in your answers to my questions:
TEFLtastic 
How many hits do you have a month? :)
A few opinions:
1. Most of the teachers I know that have no REAL TEFL training don’t even use Google or the teacher’s book to make class better. They tell stories and jokes and just keep students smiling and laughing. Come to think of it, it’s not even the ones that are trained, but the teachers that have a conscience and desperately want to see their students succeed that look into making their classes better. Honestly, I find that in real life, often these classes often get rated just as well as the classes by the teacher that works hard and teaches the students while having fun too. Many people often don’t have anything to compare with and are satisfied with everyone else’s lesson until they sit in yours.
2. The concept of developing a full course per student every time with no reusable material is a strange one. Some teachers claim to do this but I find their “individual / unique” course usually greatly uncomprehensive and lacking. To do a sufficient job, does this mean you should plan the entire course and compile a “textbook” of lessons before proceeding? The other polar extreme is a very bad one too where you don’t think about or consider your students needs, strengths and weaknesses, and just act as a robot following some pre-charted course. I think somewhere in the middle is a good compromise. I don’t have the time or salary to make an excellent course per student each time. So like everyone else, I take what is good and try to make it better, invent if it doesn’t exist, and hopefully in the end give something better than anywhere else.
3. If I’m not mistaken, you mentioned in a previous post that it bothers you to use handouts made by other people or previously done by yourself as it is a sign of a lack of professionalism. You then mentioned that you could see other teachers doing that and consider them professional which I think means that you have a double standard, or maybe hold everyone else to a lower standard or perhaps yourself to a higher one, or you just think everyone else sucks but you’re British and therefore too nice to speak your mind. :-) I think one should be realistic. Perhaps being a powerhouse workaholic is the way you define professional. I’m assuming you’re single and you don’t have a family, but imagine you found some cute little Japanese girl and decided to start a family. Do you think you could still be a “professional” English teacher in the sense defined above? You’d have even less time for all that planning and worksheet business. By the way, I also put myself in the category of workaholic English teacher but I think you are extreme. I work six days a week and prepare for all my lessons which includes writing / working on my own material. :)
Once again, I will state that I am a capitalist (and I believe in charity too!). I believe that the best way to see if you are making a difference is to sell your product. If no one buys it, it’s an easy and fast way to understand that you are wasting your time and you’re hard work isn’t worth it. You seem to be very altruistic which is formidable. If you’re worried about the lazy untrained teacher that doesn’t care charging a couple bucks for a paid section or area with a few upgraded activities would probably stop them cold in the mud. If someone torrented your hard work, you probably wouldn’t care, right? I wouldn’t. I mean you could even just make a download button for donations. ;)
To be honest, some of your lessons I don’t care for and I think aren’t much better than many book activities, others are great, and a decent portion are simply dynamite.
You should think about the long term too and self-development. I mean you will grow old one day, perhaps Japan is a nicer place than where I work, but it will eventually be difficult to be 50 or 60 and do this kind of job. Well, I mean, I run all over the city everyday, work incredibly difficult hours due to the nature of the beast of when people can study. Creating something that gives back to you is worthwhile. To have your entire income and satisfaction of work coming from individual lessons only will eventually become challenging and stressful.
Well, you’re much different than I am and I am sure there is much you won’t agree with but I hope I gave you at least something to chew on. I also hope nothing came off as aggressive here. I think you’re great. After all that’s why I visit your site. I think I would die of boredome and if some of the respected ESL Gods actually used the internet or shared down to earth, practical thoughts on the day to day life of inside an esl class.
I tend to write in a stream of thought. Contradictions may arise as well… such is life.
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It does indeed give me much to chew on, so I’ll do so and reply bit by bit.
If you include the stuff I’ve done elsewhere, the number of times people have had an article, blogpost, forum thread or worksheet of mine on their screen must be well over 10 million. The percentage of those people who had actually found what they were looking for will probably be well under 10%, but it’s still a substantial number and so must be having some kind of influence.
Actually, I have a three year old daughter who everyone comments is incredibly energetic and is one of the reasons I don’t have the time and energy I once had. And in fact lack of time is one of the main reasons I don’t try to monetize the stuff on my blog. For example, when the blog came off TEFL.net I could have moved to my own site with Google ads but I simply didn’t have time to mess around with html. And anyway the amount of money you can make from such things is absolute peanuts, I’d be much better off sharing what I can in my free time and working overtime whenever I need more cash (which is what will almost certainly happen when my daughter’s university approaches…). That also means, frankly, that I don’t worry too much about the quality of all the stuff that goes on my blog (unlike the stuff that goes up elsewhere), because after all it’s free, I’m not getting paid for it, and proper teachers will polish it up for their own uses before going into class anyway. It could be dangerous in the hands of the unqualified, rushed or lazy teacher, but I honestly don’t know how much I should worry about that – and maybe not giving too much support will force some of them to go get some proper training. That is one of the reasons I rarely do teacher’s notes or answer keys, give a recommended level, give timings etc – I think being able to do that for yourself is an absolute minimum (and I also hate doing those things!) Then again, I understand perfectly why some teachers are lazy, rushed or unqualified, and I mainly blame the employers. As employers aren’t going to change in the near future, lazy, rushed and unqualified teachers will always be the majority, so I need to give them some help if I am to have any influence on TEFL. But the best influence I could have on them is to make them take a CELTA and then get a better job…
I’ll try and look at my attitude to dosser teachers more in more detail in a future post.
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Good questions, Alex – thanks a lot for posting them!
I sometimes wondered the same thing about my own site (though I haven’t added any new lessons on there for a few months); one of the problems with sharing lesson ideas and teaching tips is that you have no control over who will use them, or how, once they’re online; and I’ve certainly heard of people using some of my stuff without really thinking about their learners needs and interests, or curriculum fit, and so on.
However, I’ve certainly learnt a lot from the blogosphere (including getting advice from a couple of experienced teachers and bloggers about whether I should do the applied linguistics and ELT MA I’ve now started), and I’m sure I’m far from alone. A lot of language schools provide no continuing professional development opportunities at all, or only branded ones (based on an institution’s marketed teaching methodology, rather than on SLA and other evidence), and the internet is hugely useful in helping more conscientious or caring teachers test and learn about new ideas and lesson activities.
I’d also say that, even if (or perhaps “especially when”) a lesson plan is downloaded at the last moment and used to plug a gap in planning, the bits learners respond well to will be the bits teachers will also remember, and start to think about incorporating into their other lessons; and they may well recommend those ideas to colleagues and so on. So I think, in fact, sharing lesson ideas and articles on aspects of language teaching has a very positive effect on English language teaching in general – so please keep up the good work!
All best wishes
Simon
Simon Thomas
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“Does free and easy access to photocopiable worksheets make teachers lazy and likely to give their students whatever comes top on Google, however unsuitable?”
Not really- lazy teachers existed before the internet, so the only difference is the source- in the past they were likely to be photocopying a resource book two minutes before class. Also, there are many good reasons why having something easily printable is useful- substitutions, for instance, where someone has to rush in unprepared. They could be used in emergencies, and by thoughtful teachers or lazy ones- they’re morally neutral.
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