For one reason or another, (namely it’s easier), I’ve decided that I’ll maintain my blog on “Blogger” instead of here.

This is a nice page and everything, I like that it’s integrated within my website but there are too many things that I can’t do easily!

I hope you’ll come and see me there and read my entries as I whittle on about teaching, teacher-training and all that jazz!

My next entry will be all about the ELTAF conference in Frankfurt - jolly good fun and I learned loads - can’t wait to share some of that info with you guys. There were some top presenters (like Ian MacMaster from Business Spotlight, Gavin Dudeney (co-author of How to teach English with technology) as well as Jeremy Comfort (York Associates) + many, many more - they all had some really very interesting things to say and teach!

Especially Duncan Laing from OUP (that was, for me, the best surprise of the day).

OH and… I’ve got photos

So anyway, my new (well, actually my old but am returning and starting anew) blog can be found at: http://kalinago.blogspot.com/

See you there,
K

What a crazy bunch of months these have been. Teaching, teacher training, meetings, writing, website developing, foruming, blah! But all that’s just an excuse, and a way of avoiding this task in front of me BUT what’s the point of starting a blog if I am not actually going to write in it, eh?

I reckon the problem is one of focus or purpose: I mean what should I actually write about? Ha, isn’t that a funny quandary for a writer.

Developing a website by myself - learning all the tips and tricks, nah. Boring, done.

Teaching with technology,hmm…interesting, teaching speaking skills, teaching in general, writing materials… Hmmm. Yes, I just answered my own question.

That’s what a blog’s for after all, the on-line diary experience, to answer one’s own musings so I will write about all the above and, as time whittles on, probably more.

How about I start off with a chat on using video in the classroom? That’s a question I get asked loads in my workshops. AND it’s MUCH, much, much easier that you think.

Yah. That’ll be my next post. Tomorrow.

Hi ya Teachers,

I’ve just posted up the another freebie and it’s available for all you registered members!

This month’s sample is Getting to Know You, a really super set - handy for any first day class (general or business). It’s made up of 30 cool questions, including: Describe your favourite pair of shoes…

Alright, alright teachers, don’t be writing me asking why I would write a question like that: how many of you actually know the words for buckle, strap and heel in another language? Uh huh, that’s why I wrote it!

Had a fabulous launch party last weekend! Here are some photos -

Robert, Michelle (the CC.video text editor) & me chilling
Members from my all-time favourite posse: Writers-in-Stuttgart
What is it, exactly, that makes everyone stay in the kitchen at a party? Answers on a postcard please!
Guy Arthur & Ennis Daniel - two great language consultants/trainers

Well, peeps - keep talking!
And for the materials writers out there, here’s a cool quote -

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.” Winston Churchill

I wonder what Churchill would’ve made of websites, e-books, .pdfs and blogs…

Peace,K

So, wow… I’m here.

I have tested and edited and re-written & changed, added articles, subtracted them too, learned some web programming language and OMG, I’m 50% done which means… Launch!

Today is my birthday and now it’s Kalinago’s too

If you’re really lucky in this life you’ve got a person around that kick-starts you, you know, makes you go further than even your own expectations - who throws you support when you didn’t even know you needed it.

I’m one of those extraordinarily lucky people with a wonderful gang of people who fit that description.

One of those people is Andrina Rout. Andrina gets special mention because of just how insistent she is at making me realize my potential.

When I first arrived in Deutschland around 4 years ago I had had to leave my computer behind in Ecuador and my brand new boss, an Aussie running a great language institute here, Fokus Sprachen, who hardly knew me from Eve, was shocked to hear that I was a writer without ‘ze’ necessary equipment to even type an email let alone anything else.

She gave! me an old laptop and on that wonderful machine with its missing keys and no a: drive, I wrote my first full-length screenplay and started SimplyConversations.

Years later, after supporting my struggle to convince a Publishing House to buy the materials, being as dismayed as I that photocopiable materials aren’t commercial enough (ie. profitable ;-( - and yes, they’re probably right: but hey I’m not in this for the millions, these blessed things work…)

Anyhoo… Andrina came round to my house late last year, insisting that she just had to have some of the lexical sets and at my dithering as we sipped tea and nibbled cookies, she said the most incredible words:

“Sell them on-line, Karenne”

So six months later here I am.

Thank you, Andrina. Thank you for buying the first sets, for testing out the functionality of the site, for editing the long-winded system explained and for providing all those useful tips and corrections.

Thank you for being a great mentor.

And while I’m expressing my gratitude, I have got to say KUDOS to my writing posse: Writers-in-Stuttgart.

You guys really stepped in and saved me from overwork! I’m so pleased with where we’re going and looking forward to all we’ll be doing over the next years.

Thanks to Gus Hagelberg for designing this gorgeous layout, choosing just the right photo and matching all the colours to it and most especially for patiently dealing with my freaking out, for carefully and clearly easing me into CMS = 5 Stars!

!That’s me…pulling my hair out

Friends, family: TA for not telling me to my face that I’ve been so horribly rude working round the clock and ignoring you. Thanks for the great feedback, guidance, love & support. Marty, thanks x a million for taking the gorgeous photos!

And most importantly, thank you thank you thank you to my amazing students who have tolerated being guinea pigs over all these years, who screwed up their faces in displeasure when a question was badly written, who told me with annoyance that I’d made spelling mistakes, who reminded me that I really must bring in the Control sheets to EVERY class (Yes, Martin G, I mean you - you too, Martina)…

To my groups who asked excitedly “are we going to play your game today?” and to the students who after class, said “Hey, Karenne - I really learned a lot with your speaking cards”: Guys and gals, you have made me the teacher I am today and you are the reason I wrote SimplyConversations.

Okay, so this actually isn’t the Oscars…it’s a blog, so I’ll end appropriately with: G*d bless the Internet and Joomla!

K

My very first post: I’m in live-test!

Wow! When I first started this project back in late November, I thought “hey this ‘ll be fun, stick up my materials on a website,” shouldn’t take too long, shouldn’t be soooo hard and then whoosh, reality sets in…

AND then… of course, the very long list of what I wished was on some of the other ELT websites or available in the language learning market somehow became a mega stack of ideas (if you were to come into the bomb zone that is my tiny corner “office” you’d accuse me of de-forestation) - and figuring out how to turn that all electronic was (is) mindblowing.

The hurricane zone

I always liked gadgets per se, my smartphone is just plain groovy: I really like downloading podcasts and taking them into class for the kudos sake (not just the learning aspect… yet somehow over the past few months the process of actually creating a website with a webdesigner has turned me from knowing a reasonable surface amount to becoming a pre-intermediate (CEF B1, at least) in techie-geek-speak = cool language!

Anyway, am just so excited to see it up, would love to know what you think too!

K