Pig Sty Avenue

It’s a right laugh, this. When I first started teaching ten years ago, leaners went from Beginner (no English) to Elementary (a bit) to Pre-Intermediate (getting there) to Intermdiate (lift off!) to Upper Intermediate (might reasonably try to get an English teacher out on a date) to Advanced. They might then think of the dizzy heights of a high IELTS score or a Proficiency exam. Either because the world’s become more complicated or because my understanding of it is more sophisticated, this will no longer do. There’s Skills for Life which ranges from Pre-Entry, through three Entry Levels and onto Level 2 (it goes beyond that, but after Level 2 you’re as near to a native speaker as makes no difference). And there are IELTS scores 0 to 9. And the Common European Framework: Three bands, A-C, each divided into two (why not just A-F I don’t know) and each has a friendly name (from “Breakthrough” to “Mastery”). ...And then City and Guilds International ESOL , from Prelimi...

Nik Peachey's blog is interesting - but I need more time to have a good shufty. And I love this English phonology guide which actually shows the external mouth movement. Teaching pronunciation can be great fun. One of the few times in life when you can usefully say to someone: read my lips! Or something.

India sniffs at Libyan gas.

The Bairn Birthday , originally uploaded by /pɪgstaɪævnjuː/ . Her second birthday. I've just gotten around to post-processing the photos.

Many's the would be efl teacher who've been lured by Nova's fancy website into going to Japan to have an adventure. You don't even need to have any teaching qulaifications, just an English medium education up to a degree. Friends who've taught in Japan tell me that nobody lasted long at Nova, but that it acted as a conduit into the wider efl Japanese sub-culture. No more: it seems to have gone tits-up . The teacher's are in a predicament . Skint, dodging the landlord, needing to borrow cash for your air-fare home from people you hardly know... Happy memories! EDIT: thanks to Michael for this link (from 2004) which give a straightforward view of working at Nova.

psychosis III , originally uploaded by /pɪgstaɪævnjuː/ . Get a head in your garden shed.

I hate the term "wishlist" . But it's a handy concept, nonetheless.