Professional development - Luna leads

For the last 15 years or so I have made an annual trip down to Tokyo to take part in the Tokyo English Language (TEL) bookfair, which these days is run with English Teachers Japan (ETJ).

The event is sponsored by the major publishers as well, and as such is a good opportunity to see what new materials are available. A lot of authors are there to present their new books, and other experienced educators, teachers, material developers are there to demonstrate new ideas and old, explain the obvious and suggest new ways to skin a cat. I always find something useful to bring back to my school, and am delighted to report that so did Tana. Again. I am very pleased that our staff as in the past make the extra effort to develop their professional skills and are prepared to travel, join in, and take their jobs seriously.

Luna's teachers are always well looked after by the publishers, and we are grateful for their continuing support. Cambridge University Press were delighted to see how much use of their readers is on show here (as they should be - there's a lot of quality work being done by you)! Our friends at Oxford University Press are lending us premises to hold FCE exams next week, and we are looking forward to doing more with McGraw-Hill.

This year I let Tana be the genki one, and she found herself on stage rather a lot. She brings this energy to class, as you can imagine. I went to see a few technical presentations, including one by Mr Stout, whose presentation two years ago prompted me to get this blog going properly. Again, he showed a bunch of very handy ideas that I hope to bring into our school's orbit. Please visit his blog? A couple of other presentations fell in to the "me, me, and more about me" category which really annoy me, me, and me; I want practical stuff not 45 minutes of self-inflating rubbish.

Anyway, if Tana & I look tired today, bear with us. A weekend in Tokyo working takes a little getting over!