So the moral of the story is...

Don't promise rashly, dear readers.

Last week, after a stupidly busy day, I sat wild-eyed and caffeinated in front of my computer. A blog! I thought. Yes! I'll write a blog for esl students! and esl teachers! About...umm...esl!

Then this weekend I tried to write another entry.

And I realised that I just don't have what it takes to write for esl students. That requires absolute commitment to a pared-down, succinct style that just takes too much time and energy to maintain. For me, it's hard enough to write 1 twitter entry a day in under 10 minutes (saying something meaningful in under 146 characters is a hell of a discipline: now I get why all these esl twitterers are out there tweeting 'I had a banana for breakfast :)' day after day).

So the new resolution is... this blog will be like a diary. I will add links for esl students (please feel free to skip my blather and go straight to the language-learning links). And as I am an esl teacher, I'm bound to stumble upon the occasional useful piece of advice for esl teachers.

Let's start with the very famous - www.breakingnewsenglish.com. Sean Banville - thank you! Show me a teacher who doesn't use his stuff and I'll show you a teacher who doesn't know how to google. But he gets a mention because his website is particularly useful at the moment. Not only has he listed 42 lessons on the World Cup, he's uploaded new lessons every day based on commentary of every single match! The man must not sleep.

I've been trying to milk the World Cup for all its worth, too, but in a more authentic (ie lazier) way.

For advanced level students, I've found discussions based on this irate open letter about vuvuzelas addressed to '...Europeans, Cristiano Ronaldo and whingy South Africans' to work well. Check it out - http://gotravel24.com/theme/world-cup-2010/vuvuzela-love-or-lump-it You can have debates, throw around proverbs like 'Silence is Golden' or 'When in Rome do as the Romans do'. It's good fun.

For pre-int or intermediate students, I recommend using the Nike 'Write the Future' ad (it's all over youtube). Play it and pause over each stars face - elicit who the player is, who they play for, why they're famous and how they performed in the World Cup. Use that time to teach language such as 'score a goal', 'win against' 'lose to'. At the end of the ad, ask if any of those players performed well in this World Cup. Then introduce the notion of the 'Curse of the Nike Ad' (read the article about the curse before class so you know what you're talking about - http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/nike, but don't bog the class down trying to make them read it). Use that to lead into a discussion about their opinions of the different players.

Enjoy!