As I mentioned before the weekend I was off in Donestk this last weekend at the 25th International House Ukrainian workshop. It was a great time with some amazing speakers and great teachers there. I certainly enjoyed the many different experiences from that weekend (including releasing a Chinese lantern from the centre circle of the Dombass stadium, watching a couple of ballet performances, witnessing a scots man perform ACDC in the Irish pub in Donestk (and then have hundreds of girls ask for his photo), having a Skype conference with Scott Thronbury (oh and 123 other people) being interviewed for an Eastern European TV station, watch a Russian singer perform (who was pretty good) teach some "english" dance moves to hundreds of Ukrainians and many more (which I will blog about later) However It started me on a train of thoughts about my future, both job and blog wise.
Job wise the overwhelming feeling was just that I love teaching and I think teaching English in particular. I say I think because lack of trying/considering other subjects may be influencing this and as such I may equally (or even potentially love greater) teaching another subject but obviously this raised many other questions. If I love teaching English so much then I pretty much NEED to spend another year abroad as there just aren't enough jobs in England (at least that wan't so little experience), The market may change but as it stands I would basically have to spend another year abroad [or possibly move north but that may in effect just be abroad].
This was however backed up by how much I like the Ukraine (in particular seeing a different city with all it's wonders) and further to that, how much I am enjoying learning/speaking Russian. As such staying in Dnipropetrovsk/the Ukraine/Russian speaking countries would not be as bad as I might have thought.
Another thought provoking...er. thought came during the talk from Lucy Horsfield one of the big figures within International House World organisation and International House London. She talked about the impact of blogging on teaching English and how we could learn from other teachers this way. It reminded me about my own blog and made me think about a couple of things. Perhaps I should do some more teacher specific things, as in lesson ideas, interesting articles on methodology, resources etc.
In addition to this I realised that this blog has had a complete lack of Political blogging since I moved to the Ukraine (with perhaps 2 exceptions in articles). As such I have decided on two things, one I am taking myself of the political blogging lists for different services (including Lib Dem Blogs). the other one I am still considering is weather to just resign to not doing any political blogging at all (and intentionally avoid it) or to just not state that I will. At the moment I favour the latter but we shall see. Either way you shouldn't come to this blog expecting any political posts.
So I am going to go through some further changes to the blog (such as the current AD free state etc and now a tumblr version) to make it as user/teacher friendly as possible and still allow me to write personal blogs. Thanks to everyone who has encourage the political blogging side and especially to Lib Dem Voice for the links and golden dozen awards. It was great to find out that someone thinks you have something intelligent to say.
Anyway I hope you do want to continue reading my adventures in the Ukraine and perhaps find out some information about teaching English as a foreign language and as such you will stay on this blog. If not then Thank you any way.
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