Last blog post of 2020. Here’s how the year went…

January: Handed in my notice at British Council. Started Module 2 of the PGCEi. Goaded a few people on Twitter, felt guilty, stopped using Twitter. For a day.

February: the COVID stuff was on the rise. I was still calling it Corona and making beer jokes. I was teaching unshackled – quite good lessons. Far better than usual. I vowed to always hand in my notice when starting a new job in order to keep up the quality.

March: I thought ‘I’ll finish up all my writing contracts in preparation for my new job in April’. I promptly took on more writing contracts and then felt massively overwhelmed and panicked about starting a new job.

Unbelievably, I realised that some students liked me. One guy bought me an Arsenal shirt on my last day at BC. Another bought me a cake. Most were just happy to see the back of me and my obsession with drawing attention to juncture, and the schwa, and stuff that they mostly found mildly interesting but unimportant. Still, I had fun, that’s the main thing…..

April: new job and online learning. See old posts.

May: new job and online learning. Writing about online learning. Watching webinars about online learning. Trying to convince my wife, a foundation stage teacher, that online learning could work in her context.

That was 1% of my month, the other 99% was spent dealing with tech issues.

June: was supposed to be a long holiday but I’d only just changed jobs and didn’t really want a break. I picked up some cool CLIL writing work along with some other stuff. Was soooo excited about lockdown ending and finally being able to play footie again. Fractured my ankle in the first post-lockdown kickabout, been moody ever since.

July/August: holiday. 8 weeks off at international school ftw. Read some great books: Fahrenheit 451, Tiddler, Tabby McTat, Hairy Maclary (245 times), Kitchen Confidential.

September: kicked on a bit at work (not with the dodgy ankle). Back on campus, got my stuff together and head in the game. Produced the right content for the learners, built rapport, observed some progress. Happy times. Best month of the year.

October: similar to Sept with a half-term included. Felt down because I had no writing work, however I went on a run of completing three cryptic crosswords in a row, so every cloud…

November: Managed to annoy most people at work with my puns. Then managed to annoy a publisher. Then annoyed someone with one of my reviews. Spent the second half of November wondering if my calling in life was to annoy people, so continued doing it for a few weeks with purpose. Kept running into my boss in the pub after work during my ‘30 minutes before I change roles from teacher to dad so please leave me alone to have a pint and do the cryptic crossword’. He is probably convinced I’m an alcoholic.

Came up with an idea for a book. Wrote the proposal, wrote a sample unit, got a book contract. Happy days.

Did a load of WIDA testing at work.

December: finally started running again. Bought my kid a cuddly cactus for Christmas. Commissioned to write some Business English lessons. Bought a NES emulator and got 134 lines on Tetris 2. Graduated from PGCEi. Stopped watching Arsenal for the season.

Have a lovely break everyone 🙂

Categories: General, reflections

Tags: international school, publishing, reflections, teaching, writing