Skip to main content

Introduction

Let me introduce this blog by answering the 6 WH questions:

Who...
is writing this blog? Me (Jeremy Slagoski). You can see my profile in the margin.
is this blog for? Take a look at the list below, which is prioritized from primary audience to secondary audiences.
  • Russian teachers of English
  • Those involved in the English Language Fellowship Program
  • Non-native speaking EFL teachers around the world
  • All ESL and EFL teachers around the world
  • EFL and ESL teacher trainers
  • Those conducting research in curriculum & instruction, teaching & learning, intercultural communication, and related academic fields.
  • Anyone interested in teaching EFL or ESL
  • English language learners
  • Instructors in general
  • Anyone else who has interest in my profession, my interests, and myself.
What...
is a blog? Click here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
is this blog about? See below for another list.
  • My observations on teaching English in Russia
  • My insight into ESL & EFL teaching methods and approaches
  • My reflections on my work as a Senior English Language Fellow
  • My answers to FAQ (frequently as questions) from Russian teachers of English
Where
I am living in Samara, Russia until July 2007.
My work covers the Volga Region of Russia.
My hometown is Kenosha, Wisconsin.
My last American place of residence was Westminster, Maryland.
I have also lived in Japan and Korea.

When
My Fellowship started in September 2006 and ends in July 2007.
I spend about 2 weeks per month in Samara.
I spend the other 2 weeks of each month in other cities of the Volga Region.

Why...
am I teaching English as a foreign language? (summarized answer)
  • I grew up in a multi-cultural family with siblings adopted from Korea and the Philippines.
  • English has been my best and favorite subject since I elementary school.

am in Russia?
  • The English Language Fellow Program selected me out of hundreds of qualified English teaching professionals and then asked if I would like to work in Russia. I agreed.
  • I have always been interested in Eastern Europe because of my Polish heritage.
  • I wanted to educate myself in Russia, which is often misunderstood by the rest of the world.
How
do I teach English? I teach English using the communicative language teaching approach, more specifically using the task-based and content-based approaches. (summarized answer)

do I speak Russian? I speak Russian poorly, but I am taking lessons.

do I go to work? I usually go to work by tram.

is the weather today? There's not a cloud in the sky, but it's very windy and very, very cold.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is Wikipedia Too Difficult to Read?

Image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Afghan_man_reading_Wikipedia_article_in_Kandahar.jpg The short answer via statistical analysis is yes .  For more information, read  Lucassen, T., Dijkstra, R., & Schraagen, J. M. (2012). Readability of Wikipedia.  First Monday at   http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3916/3297 .  Wikipedians are aware that the open online encyclopedia may be too difficult, and there is a discussion of its reading level at  https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reading_level . Much of this discussion took place over a decade ago, but the gist is that many contributors write at or for the college level. What appeals to me most is at the end of the page, where Wikipedians are discussing accessibility and what it means to be open to all. Here's my screenshot (in case it gets edited later). What does this mean for English language teachers? I was interested in seeing how selected Wikipedia articles range according to
1 comment
Read more

Adrian Holliday

In January 2015, the University of Warwick (UK) hosted a lecture by Dr. Adrian Holliday, whose work has greatly influenced my dissertation.  The lecture was recorded and can be viewed at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/groups/llta/activities/events/holliday .  If you are interested in watching the video, I advise that you wear headphones as Dr. Holliday was not wearing a microphone.   For this blog, I briefly summarize the video, highlighting what I found most provocative.  Following that, I explain how Holliday's work has influenced my research and teaching philosophy for the past 5-10 years. Summary of "Revisiting appropriate methodology, BANA, TESEP and 'contexts'" The main purpose of this lecture was for Holliday to reflect upon his book Appropriate Methodology and Social Context , published 20 years ago by Cambridge University Press.  In this lecture, he integrated criticism from another professor whose research I admire, Dr. Suresh Cana
Post a Comment
Read more

TESOL Job Market Trends 2009-2018

I have been tracking full-time TESOL jobs since Fall 2009, my first year as a Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa. Back then, the job market was quite bad because of the 2008 economic crisis. My motivation for tracking jobs was to help my future TESOL students understand the market. This was based on colleagues asking about good locations to live and work. I had hunches but not enough data, and now I have almost a decade of data. What did I track?  In Fall 2009, I started tracking TESOL job announcements from HigherEdJobs.com and the TESOL Career Center for tenure and non-tenure professorships in universities and community colleges. In 2010, I expanded my tracking to include instructor positions at universities (mainly intensive English programs) and "other" jobs, which used to be mainly governmental, non-profit, and publishing jobs. But now they are predominantly in the for-profit higher education ELT industry, including corporations like Shorelight and INTO. In 201
2 comments
Read more