Here's three separate little pieces, not related really, that I thought I'd share with you tonight (er.....uhhh, this morning....it's 4:04 a.m. now....thursday). First is a video of a guy feeding a koala bear. We all know Koala Bears......those cute, pudgy little tree critters from 'down under'.  I...

The other day, while I was searching for the video “Soju Mama” in a recent post, I ran across this commercial: The fact they used this song, and this celebrity, in this commerical, suggests one of these two possibilities: They figured most people don’t know what “I like big b...

I didn’t write that last post at 9:00am today, but rather last night. Scheduling posts to be published at a later date is cool. Neat, and it’s new to me — I couldn’t do cron jobs before in WordPress on my webhost’s space. I love it! And yes, by the time this gets publis...

Okay, okay, I know, it’s a cheap joke, and one all too common on cynical expat blogs. But please, wait, wait, hear me out! Sometimes you really do end up with students in your class, or friends you meet in other ways, who have these names that are just, well… they’re things you can...

Please recommend some movies that would be good to show a class of ESL students. I teach English to refugees in the US, and sometimes in class we'll watch a movie in sections and discuss it. The problem I'm running into is that I'm having a hard time thinking of movies that would be good, so I'd lik...

This post is primarily about teaching writing in an EFL context, especially in terms of using templates and modeling various writing “moves” or “techniques”, and the use of group crit sessions in essay-writing or other writing courses. If you’re not interested in that, ...

Brian’s post — and Roboseyo’s comment appended to it — reminded me of a subject I haven’t yet posted about but have sometimes thought of discussing here. That is, the way SF authors imagine the future of the English language. This is a subject of particular interest to ...

The end of the semester is almost here. I’m waiting for Tim to pick me up. I’m grading final exams, and I can hear students talking about various teachers – hard ones, good ones, bad ones. I’ve been rather reflective on my teaching style this semester, as I’ve gone through various struggle...

Why do I always play? Why can't I just sit down, go through the whole thing, focused and determined and finish? OK, it has happened once or twice before... but it is so easy to read status updates on facebook instead. It's far easier to read Judapest and enjoy the argumentative comments. It ...

Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, AutoZone Inc (AZO), H and R Block (HRB), Ciena Corp (CIEN), Kroger Co (KR), Costco Wholesale (COST) Even as the holiday season ramps up and the calendar quarter begins to wind down, earnings reports continue to dribble in. Among the companies scheduled to re...