02 May Behind the scenes of The TEFL Life: #ELTbehindthescenes

My blogging record has been shameful this year (I have a valid excuse, I promise!), but I have still been keeping up with reading the usual blogs I follow. This topic has been written about by a few: the original apparently came from The Teacher James in this awesome post for bloggers with writer’s block or this one on Tekhnologic, but I also came across it on How I See It Now and My ELT Rambles.

So since I haven’t had time to sit still for a minute and think about classroom activities or do any research on theories in ELT, I thought this would be a good post to jump back into the blogging habit, even if only for a day.

Why did I start blogging?

For no particular reason, actually.

I think the original idea came when I decided I wanted to relive my TEFL journey and keep a record of my travels and my teaching experience. I love taking photos and I think it’s such a waste that all my photos are sitting lonelily (how’s that for a word?) on Dropbox when I can put them out there for the world to see.

Plus, I really miss my days in Thailand, China and other places and this way I could pretend for a minute that I was back on my carefree adventures.

Then that morphed into making this blog a storage space for my classroom materials. I had been following TEFLtastic for a while and I liked the idea of having all of my materials, games and activities in one place so that I wouldn’t have to always shuffle through boxfuls of paper or my very disorganised Desktop to find whatever I was looking for.

What do I blog about?

Besides my old travelling tales and lesson ideas, I use the blog to note down my thoughts on whatever bits and pieces of ELT research I have been reading. Writing things down seems to help me order my thoughts and expand on my ideas – whenever I get any comments it’s always a bonus because they usually challenge me in some way.

How do I blog?

Usually with a cup of tea and a bag of jelly babies, with my mini dachshund puppy curled up somewhere nearby.

Often I will blog if I have thought of a new activity or if I have stumbled across something which could be used in the classroom. I blog for a living too so sometimes the research I do for that will spark an idea that can turn into something worthwhile (not always!). And, of course, many times I am inspired by reading someone else’s blog – because people are awesome and can have amazing thoughts and ideas which wouldn’t have otherwise occurred to me.

How often do I blog?

When I first started I was blogging every day because I was reliving my travelling heyday, but when I had dealt with all of my adventures and my blog became more about my everyday life, my posts started slowing down.

Then, earlier this year, this little man happened, so now I try to blog in between poo-namis and newborn metldowns, after I have wiped the milk vom from my keyboard. Oh, the glitz and glam of being a new mom.

I’ve also started a mommy blog (because there clearly aren’t enough of those around) so that takes up a bit of my time too. And I still try to earn a bit of a living.

So there you have it: a glimpse into my crazy life as a newmom/blogger/teacher/puppy-lover. You’re welcome.