Dr. J's Blog of ELT Praxis

Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/18162314289 What is an Open Educator? According to a recently published article from the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL): An Open Educator chooses to use open approaches, when possible and appropriate, with the aim to remove all unnecessary barriers to learning. He/she works through an open online identity and relies on online social networking to enrich and implement his/her work, understanding that collaboration bears a responsibility towards the work of others. Does this sound attractive for English language teachers? It seems to some who offer courses through or with YouTube. But what does it mean "to remove all unnecessary barriers to learning?" Working for free? Not necessarily. If you read the article, it seems you'd be working on a sliding scale depending on the socioeconomic status of the learners, but this sliding scale is a sliding slope. Ho

Depending where you are and where you want to be, 2016 was a good, bad, or typical year for ELT programs in the United States.  Bad year for university jobs, teaching and administrative Good year for community college jobs Typical year (trending positively) for professor jobs Typical year (unpredictable) for other jobs If you want to learn more, read on. I describe each job sector through my interpretation of ELT job opening announcement data from the TESOL Career Center, Higher Ed Jobs.com, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. University Jobs I work at an intensive English program at a public university in the United States, and it's quite noticeable that the ELT job market has taken quite a hit this year with the Saudi government cutting scholarships . I saw this firsthand as the Saudi enrollment numbers at my university dropped, but this is only a few years where most programs saw record numbers of Saudi students . My data confirms this trend.   Since 2009, I&