TEFLology Podcast: Episode 61: Job Interviews, Eilhard Lubinus, and Conference Review

(TEFLology Podcast)

The new episode of TEFLology is available HERE.

(Well, newish.   I'm a week late writing this up.)

I'll post my thoughts on the various topics below:

Conference Review
* I enjoy it when TEFLology does their various conference reviews.  I feel like it's a way I can keep in the loop of what is topical, despite not making it to any conferences myself.

* The part on colorblindness is interesting.  Especially because at my school, we're encouraged to use color in our PowerPoint presentations to highlight different  language.  (e.g. put all the auxiliaries in one color, and all the main verbs in another color).  I never thought about students with colorblindness.
But what to do about it?  Does this mean we shouldn't use color in our presentations?  It seems like a shame to give that up.
Perhaps the best answer is to use color, but also to be aware that some students might be colorblind, and highlight the information verbally as well as visually.

* Interesting discussion on self-access centers.  (One of my old co-workers from the Cambodian days was really big on self access centers.  I wonder what he would think of this.)

*The TEFLologists reference one of their previous episodes with Hayo Reinders

* Another interesting person to read on this subject is Freddie deBoer, who routinely writes about how virtually learning does not work.
See some of his recent posts on the subject: you learn by being taught and Study of the Week: Of Course Virtual K-12 Schools Don’t Work

Eilhard Lubinus
* This section mentioned The Game by Neil Strauss, a book that I've reviewed before on this blog. (Although to be perfectly honest, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I've read this book.  And it sounds like the TEFLologists are as well.)

Job Interviews
* Some interesting stuff here.
I've certainly had mixed results in my own job interviews.  (I suppose everyone has.)  Although in my own defense, I like to think I completely nailed this video job interview.

* At one point, a TEFLologists mentions interviewing for a major language school in Japan that subsequently went out of business.  I wonder if he's talking about one of my former employers (a certain major language school in Japan that went out of business).