Random Quote
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
This may be the most interesting blog theme I've ever seen. http://eflgeek.com/index.php Definitely in my top 5 at least.
---- Steve Dembo
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
"It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'"
---- Sam Levenson
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
---- J. Robert Oppenheimer
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
Employment
Two links related to teaching English in Asia. The first is via Scott Sommers. Scott provides a lot of good solid background and advice on getting a university job in Taiwan. It also seems that much of his advice is common sense that could easily be applied to teaching EFL/ESL at the tertiary level anywhere.
The Marmot (a non-teaching related blog favorite of mine) provides a link to an article about Native Teachers for Middle Schools. There are already 8 comments and sure to be many more shortly. My take on this is that it is essentially a band-aid solution. Until the government and education authorities actually make real changes to the curriculum and provide appropriate salaries and support for native teachers, nothing will be accomplished. With low salaries and substandard housing, that is commonly provided will be possible to attract qualified professionals? I think not. For the most part this is just going to be institutionalized hagwons with government funding but no real planning.
I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it.




