teaching english in hot spots

It depends what you mean by teaching in a 'hot spot'...

There are great places to go and work:

If we go by region and country, we can sense the TEFL teaching hotspots: In Asia, China has an expanding English language market... Hotspots for Teaching English - Language Magazine

Looking for a hot spot to teach in Central Europe? Look no further than Poland! Poland is a bustling country ready for English teachers. This country is home to a variety of beautiful landscapes in the countryside as well as classic architecture and charm in the more urban areas. Teach English in Poland | Go Overseas

You can also work almost anywhere if there's a good wi-fi hot spot: Best Portable Hotspots For Online Teachers - ESL Job Exchange and How To Teach English Online From A Mobile Hot Spot | See Nic Wander

A 'hot spot' can also mean a place where the bombs are falling:

English teacher Olena Chekryzhova, who up to now has been on a more traditional, school-based career. She has spent five months at a frontline battle station in the eastern Donetsk area teaching her countrymen to understand the English of combat manuals, reports Agence-France-Presse. Fighting with English | E L Gazette

From a bunker 105 metres under Kyiv, two entrepreneurial Ukrainians, Oleksii Zinchenko and Maryna Gordiienko, launched Grade University. English underground | E L Gazett

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books, libraries and librarians

Do you have your own 'library' at home?

Here's a great story or two from Charlie Connelly writing in the New European:

The joy of texts
Are bulging bookshelves really “smug and cultish” – or sources of much-needed tranquility?
CHARLIE CONNELLY
9 FEBRUARY 2023 12:00 AM
On January 13, the owner of Broadhursts Bookshop in Southport tweeted: “I have just had a customer in the shop who does not have a TBR [to be read] pile, he reads a book and when he finishes it he buys another one and he never keeps them so he has no books at home bar the one he is currently reading. I’m having trouble believing him.”
The tweet has received more than a million views and nearly 800 replies, mostly along the lines of “This is deranged behaviour”, “What madness
is this?” and “That’s not a bit disturbing.”
The tweet has received more than a million views and nearly 800 replies, mostly along the lines of “This is deranged behaviour”, “What madness is this?” and “That’s not a bit disturbing.”...
Watching the debate rage – fiercely enough for the Guardian to change the column’s headline to something less confrontational – I couldn’t help thinking about Bruno Schröder.
A retired mining engineer, Schröder lived quietly in the small town of Mettingen in north-western Germany until his death in November at the age of 88. He had no close family, his wife had been in a care home for some years and while he was cheerfully polite to neighbours, he kept himself to himself. His unassuming life in an unassuming town would have been unremarkable were it not for the discovery after his death that his modest suburban home had been converted into a personal library containing more than 70,000 books...

The joy of texts - The New European

The joy of texts - Charlie Connelly - New European - 9feb23

Here's the Tweet:

Broadhursts Bookshop on Twitter: "I have just had a customer in the shop who does not have a TBR pile, he reads a book and when he finishes it he buys another one and he never keeps them so he has no books at home bar the one he is currently reading. I'm having trouble believing him. 🙃" / Twitter

And here's more on the book hoarder:

Hoard as many books as you can; let them be your life’s companions

70k Books Found In Hidden Library In This Germany Home!

Late Bruno's 70,000 Books: Germany's Largest Private Library Discovered

There are all sorts of stories around books, libraries and librarians

The Greatest Books about Libraries and Librarians - Beyond the Bookends

50 Best Books About Libraries or Librarians - The Bibliofile

And there are lots of films featuring books and libraries:

Matilda going to the public library with subtitles - YouTube

Harry Sneaks into the Restricted Section | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - YouTube

Secret Library HD Sean Connery and Christian Slater in The Name of the Rose (1986) - YouTube

Seven - Library scene - YouTube

But, to finish, a story from 

The Library of Babel - Wikipedia

The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges - YouTube

The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges - Short Story Summary, Analysis, Review - YouTube

And yet... libraries can be more than books...

BBC Radio 3 - Record Review Podcast - Downloads

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elt concourse - 'tons of free materials related to teaching and learning english'

This is a really fabulous, free resource for teachers and learners of English:

ELT Concourse is a website on which you can find tons of materials related to teaching English. It takes some time to click through the sections because there are so many of them. For example: CELTA, TKT, phonemic transcription, a glossary of grammar, lexis and phonology, A-Z training index, etc. Anyone involved in ELT will find someting valuable on the website.

ELT Concourse is a priceless resource – TEFL in Colombia

Here's the website:

This is a free resource for English Language teachers, teachers in training, teacher trainers and learners of English.

All materials on this website are covered by a Creative Commons licence.
You are free to share, copy and amend any of the materials but under certain conditions...

ELT Concourse Homepage

Just look at the index on the left or do a search:

ELT Concourse: the A to Z index

And here's the poster:

ELT_Concourse_Flyer.pdf

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talking about music - on audio

Listening to people talk about music can be interesting - but not too difficult if you can watch them too:

Jay Doubleyou: talking about music - on video

It's more difficult to listen and not have the faces and images to look at, though - but it really is a good method to help you learn a language:

Why You Should Use Podcasts To Learn English

Let's start with the BBC:

Can I download podcasts and programmes outside of the UK? | BBC Sounds

And they have thousands of podcasts on music alone:

BBC - Search results for podcasts music

For example:

POP ROCK FOLK BLUES

The Afternoon Show Podcast - New Purple Celebration - The Music of Prince - BBC Sounds

Podcast Radio Hour - Music Podcasts with Phil Taggart - BBC Sounds

BBC World Service - The Documentary Podcast, Black Roots: DeFord Bailey and country music in Nashville

BBC World Service - Music Life

BBC Radio 4 - In Time to the Music

BBC World Service - World Service Music Documentaries, Aretha Franklin: Queen Of Soul

CLASSICAL

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Podcast Radio Hour, Classical music podcasts with Tom Service

BBC Radio 3 - The Early Music Show

BBC Radio 3 - Discovering Music

BBC Radio 3 - The Listening Service, The Music of Sound

AND MORE

BBC Radio 4 - A Little Flat: The Music Our Ears Overlook

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Into the Music Library

School Radio - Primary Music KS1

BBC Radio 4 Extra - In Search of the Ideal Music Venue

BBC Radio 4 - Soul Music

BBC World Service - World Service Music Documentaries

But it's not just the BBC:

15 Music Podcasts to Listen to Right Now

Best Music Podcasts: 24 Shows You Need To Hear | uDiscover

The 12 Best Music Podcasts to Listen to in 2023 | Podcast Review

And to finish:

WAGNER

BBC Radio 3 - The Listening Service, Tristan und Isolde

Wagner Operas Podcasts

‘Classics Unlocked’ Podcast Explores Wagner’s Epic ‘Ring Cycle’ |

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Discovering Wagner

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Wagner

Episode 5: Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt, with Anthony Negus and Prof Ken Hamilton - Longborough Festival Opera

Best Richard Wagner Podcasts (2023)

Richard Wagner - Top podcast episodes

BEATLES

10 of the best The Beatles podcasts | POD BIBLE | THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO PODCASTS

Best The Beatles Podcasts (2023)

Something About the Beatles on Apple Podcasts

40 Best The Beatles Podcasts You Must Follow in 2023

Top Five Beatles Podcasts | Counter Culture

Something About The Beatles

NOTHING IS REAL

Yesterday and Today Podcast – A fan-made Beatles documentary series

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enforced helplessness and conspiracy theories

During the week that sees the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, BBC journalists Tim Whewell and Nick Sturdee tell the story of how the war has been presented to the Russian people: BBC Radio 4 - Analysis, From Brother to Other

They interview the Russian social anthropologist Alexandra (Sasha) Arkhipova - and she talked about how her fellow Russians are subjected to 'enforced helplessness' - which is basically a feeling of not being able to control things: Learned helplessness - Wikipedia

Most Russians feel helpless - and only very few are showing public opposition - as shown in research Sasha carried out last September:

Participation in street actions that would “not be even reported in any news coverage,” yet were extremely risky, only aggravated the feeling of total helplessness among my interviewees. Thus, while at the beginning of the war some of them thought seriously about organizing protest resistance, after participation in several protest actions, they generally dropped these intentions... RAD291.pdf

Here she's being interviewed by the independent Russian media outlet Eyewitness (formerly TV2):

Tell us about yourself
- My name is Sasha Arkhipova, I am a social anthropologist. Social anthropologists are people who study how other people behave, how other people think. To put it very briefly, social anthropology is the science of understanding understanding, of how other people understand.
The war is more than six months old. What has changed in the mass consciousness of Russians?

- Well, first of all, the image of the enemy is changing. That is, the war began when we were told that there were some Nazis in Ukraine, who were making all kinds of attempts on our glorious past and on our present, crucifying boys. In addition, we were told that the Americans had built some laboratories on the borders of Ukraine and Russia that were poisoning us and releasing contaminated pigeons. That is, the enemy was not the Ukrainians, the enemy was the Americans with geopolitical interests and the Nazis, zombified by Americans.

Alexandra Arkhipova: "This is a study of the ogre's teeth, with which he eats us.

Here's another fascinating interview with her on National Public Radio: A "Semiotic War": Decoding Russian Dissidence : Rough Translation : NPR

And here she is on Deutsche Welle: Russians denounce opponents of Ukraine war – DW – 07/07/2022

Another layer of thinking is the conspiracy theory:

During the Cold War, the Soviets often used conspiracy theories to justify fighting the West. Now the Putin regime is doing the same thing with such intensify that it is entirely appropriate to say that “conspiracy thinking is already its new ideology,” Aleksandra Arkhipova says. The folklorist who writes the (Not)Entertaining Anthropology telegram channel (t.me/s/anthro_fun) says Russian leaders with roots in the Soviet past find the use of conspiracy theories effective when no one believes the official ideology as was true then or when there is no obvious ideology as is the case now (svoboda.org/a/aleksandra-arhipova-konspirologiya-eto-uzhe-novaya-ideologiya-/32138044.html).

As Arkhipova notes, “Putin constantly says that we are not fighting with Ukraine. Ukrainians are a fraternal people. In fact, we are fighting with the West, with the Anglo-Saxons” who want to destroy us in a variety of ways. The Kremlin leader most likely believes exactly that, but at the very least, he appreciates the value to himself of promoting conspiracy thinking.

Moscow Trapped By Conspiracy Theories To Justify Russia’s Fight Against The West – OpEd – Eurasia Review

There are ways to protest: through references to music: How 'Swan Lake' became a symbol of protest in Russia - ABC News

And through flowers: ‘I Couldn’t Stay Silent’: Anti-War ‘Flower Protests’ Spread to 60 Cities Across Russia - The Moscow Times

Sasha is also on German language media: Ukraine-Krieg: Russen fürchten weitere Mobilmachung - ZDFheute

To finish, here are a couple of pieces looking at "enforced helplessness and conspiracy theories":

This chapter investigates another possible cause of conspiracy theory belief: learned helplessness. Learned helplessness arises when individuals perceive themselves as unable to avoid negative situations in their lives or to affect desired change... over time, conspiratorial thinking also tends to increase learned helplessness. Conspiracy Stress or Relief? Learned Helplessness and Conspiratorial Thinking | The Politics of Truth in Polarized America | Oxford Academic

Debunked: “learned helplessness,” a theory developed from a cruel animal experiment: Helplessness isn't learned — it's an instinctual response that can be overcome. How neuroscience debunked "learned helplessness" theory - Big Think

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talking about music - on video

Listening to people talk about music can be interesting - and difficult:

Jay Doubleyou: why music?

CLASSICAL:

Jay Doubleyou: british classical music and vaughan williams at 150

Jay Doubleyou: romeo + juliet and west side story

Jay Doubleyou: barenboim and education

Jay Doubleyou: the recycled orchestra of cateura paraguay

POP ROCK FOLK BLUES

Jay Doubleyou: the devil's music

Jay Doubleyou: some rappers have a larger vocabulary than shakespeare or melville

Jay Doubleyou: bass = How Music Works with Howard Goodall - 04 - Bass (Full Show) - YouTube

Jay Doubleyou: folk music

Jay Doubleyou: beatles or stones

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what's the best time of day to do things?

There are all sorts of guides on 'the best time of day':

This Is The Best Time To Do Anything: 4 Powerful Secrets From Research - Barking Up The Wrong Tree

The Best Time of Day to Do Everything

The Best Time to Do Everything

The Best Time of Day to Do Everything, According to Science [Infographic]

The Best Time of Day to Do Just About Anything

The Best Time of Day to Do Almost Anything

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This is from a great piece in the i-news paper:

The best time of day to exercise, conceive and to learn new things, according to science

Are you having your coffee at the best time of day or going to bed too late? Science might be able to help plan your day to better optimise energy and be more productive

By Kasia Delgado

February 16, 2023 8:00 am

If you’re the kind of person who leaps out of bed and pulls on their exercise gear for a quick HIIT before work, get ready to feel even smugger. Scientists this week announced they might be on the way to finding the ideal time to exercise – and the evidence points to the morning being most effective in terms of fat-burning.

Researchers found that genes involved with breaking down fat and thermogenesis (heat production) were more evident in mice that exercised in the morning — suggesting it had a bigger effect on their metabolic rate. Professor Juleen Zierath, a biologist at the Karolinska Institutet, said: ‘Our results suggest that late-morning exercise could be more effective than late evening exercise in terms of boosting the metabolism and the burning of fat.”

So, what about the best time of day for everything else? While there is no one-size-fits-all answer for every human, scientific research shows that there are optimal times for many of us to do everything from nap to learn a new language. But take note, it’s less about the time on the clock, and when you do things in relation to your wake-up time.

7am: Best time to be creative

Albert Read, author of The Imagination Muscle: Where Good Ideas Come From (and How to Have More of Them). 

7.30: Best time to conceive

Researchers at the University Hospital of Zurich, Switzerland, analysed 12,245 semen samples from 7068 men, between 1994 and 2015. 

9am: Best time for coffee and breakfast

Dr Amy Shah, author of I’m So Effing Hungry: Why we crave what we crave – and what to do about it. 

9.30 am: Best time to be productive

Dr Robert Friedland, neurologist and author of Unaging: The Four Factors that Impact How You Age 

11am: Best time to take a break

Psychologist Dr Emily Hunter found in her study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology...

12 noon: Best time to go outside for Vitamin D

a study in the International Journal of Dermatology...

2pm: Best time for a nap

Professor Carolyn D’Ambrosio, chair of the Sleep Medicine Network 

4pm: The best time for mundane chores

Daniel Pink writes, author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. 

9.30pm: The best time for a shower or bath

A meta-analysis of 17 studies...

10pm: The best time to study for a test/retain information

Researchers from Loughborough University Dr Jayne Trickett and Dr Camilla Gilmore 

10.30: The best time for bed

Dr Sophie Bostock, sleep expert and founder of The Sleep Scientist

The best time of day to exercise, conceive and to learn new things, according to science

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writing as a language learning tool

At the end of the week or at the end of a course, writing can be a very good way to revise, deepen and clarify any language.

Here are a few activities which can be done either alone or with classmates.

1: Take vocab from the week and look them up in a good dictionary: suggestion - Translation from English into German | PONS Then simply copy a sentence that makes sense for you and which will help you to remember how to use it.

And work on the pronunciation with voice recogntion apps! Google Translate

2: Take a text that you wrote during the week and add connectors to make it flow better: Connectives and Linking Phrases - Online Exercises - English Grammar and Connectors and linking words - exercises

3: Take a text that you wrote and that you know needs improving: ideally work in pairs or groups to correct it and give feedback. 

Here's a good place to go to help you correct a text: Grammarly: Free Online Writing Assistant

You could also create your own check-list: Edit and Improve Writing with this KS2 Checklist - Twinkl

What sort of things are you looking for? The CEF will show you what you need for A1 - C2 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages - Self-assessment grid

4: What about basic sentence structure, or syntax? The 4 Types of Sentence Structure | Grammar | EnglishClub and Sentence Structure (A Complete Guide for Students and Teachers)

But we can play a little more 11 Sentence Building Activities You Can Use with Your Students Today and Sentences Structure Games: Top 20 | Sentence Building Activities ESL

To finish, here are a few more things to do: Jay Doubleyou: writing activities for the esl class and beyond

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writing with register: a lesson in using different levels of 'politeness'

CHECKING INTO A HOTEL:

When was the last time you checked into a hotel in English?

What did you say and what did the receptionist say?

Write it down!

What are the guests and receptionist saying in each of these situations?

Write them down!

First at 6 minutes:

Then at 11:45

S1E1.A Touch of Class - video Dailymotion

Here's more: Jay Doubleyou: got a room

What are the differences in language?

What other examples can you think of?

Write them down and compare!

This is called "register"

And why do we do this?

Write an email to a hotel to book a room

What sort of register did you use? 

And could you have used a different one?

With lots of ideas and examples here: different ways to ask for a room in a hotel in english phrases - Google Search

And another situation here: S2E1.Communication Problems - video Dailymotion

ARRANGING A MEETING

Imagine you are someone of a very specific age/profession/personality]

[six-year old girl with a very strong personality]

[a young actor, still very insecure and nervous]

[a young business woman, very ambitious and very pushy]

[a middle-aged postman, always happy to chat]

[a sixty-year old man, just retired from the police force]

[a seventy-something someone who is about to be crowned king/queen]

[an eighty-five year old woman, retired from the diplomatic service]

Now write a series of emails to arrange a meeting - either a coffee for a bit of gossip or a formal business session to discuss something serious or whatever.

You decide on the purpose of your email.

But you must know before hand who you are writing to.

When you have finished, send your emails and reply!

But there are still problems about meeting up. 

Follow up your emails with a phone call 

MORE IDEAS FOR WRITING WITH REGISTER:

• Take the same story in the news and see how different newspapers use different language [The Times vs The Sun]
• On celebrities: Declan Donnelly to host Saturday Night Takeaway alone, ITV confirms | Television & radio | The Guardian and Saturday Night Takeaway: Ant McPartlin's absence addressed by Dec Donnelly | TV & Radio | Showbiz & TV | Express.co.uk and Declan Donnelly receives standing ovation after presenting Saturday Night Takeaway alone | The Independent
• How to write a good Tweet: How To Write a Tweet — Tips and Tricks | Grammarly
• Expand a Tweet into a paragraph or two - and vice versa
• Analyse some literature: 
• the most difficult section of Joyce's Ulysses where he re-enacts the development of the English language from early translations of Latin verse to contemporary Dublin slang 6. Oxen of the Sun – Telemachus

With more here: Jay Doubleyou: pragmatics: it ain't what you say it's the way that you say it

And some really interesting stuff - especially when it comes to writing styles: Jay Doubleyou: register

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why young chinese are 'lying flat'

Young Chinese do not want to have children:

Frustrated by increasingly iron-fisted government policies during the Covid lockdowns, young Chinese people have adopted an apathetic “lying flat” philosophy, which encourages a rejection of high-pressure jobs. In their 20s and 30s, many resist doing what is expected of them and instead settle for a low-desire life or move abroad. Having children is the last thing on their minds. An online survey last year of more than 20,000 people, mostly urban women between 18 and 25, found that two-thirds have a “low birth desire”. 

‘The last generation’: the young Chinese people vowing not to have children | China | The Guardian

Over the Chinese New Year, there were jokes about 'lying low': Lunar New Year: why a skit about lying-flat cadres is China’s Spring Festival gala hit | South China Morning Post

So, what is 'lying flat'?

The ‘lying flat’ or tang ping movement is a phenomenon that emerged in China in 2021. It describes the generations born in the late 1990s and 2000s who, disappointed by their lack of social mobility and economic stagnation, have decided not to ‘not strive for their futures’. They do not want to follow the values of hard work, home ownership, marriage or living standards sought after by past generations.

China’s young ‘lie flat’ under social challenges | East Asia Forum

Here's a good piece from the BBC: 'Lying flat': Why some Chinese are putting work second - BBC News

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