This is going to seem almost like a troll post, but really it's not. I have recently been asked to write an article regarding Teaching English abroad for a travel magazine. I have taught on a few continents, but obviously it's impossible to have been everywhere. I was wondering if the community out there wouldn't mind posting a few ideas regarding questions teachers should ask empolyers before accepting that wonderful sounding job abroad. I have already thought of a few:

-How much you are going to be paid, in which currency and when

-If accommodation is offered, what exactly is being offered

-How many contact hours you are going to be expected to teach

-Will you have any duties other than teaching

-Who your learners will be (age, background etc)

Any more ideas would be very welcome indeed.

Thanks in advance

Might be an idea if everyone posted their fave sites that they use when looking for material?

I recently came across Just The Word, a site for finding collocations for given words:

http://193.133.140.102/JustTheWord/index.html

We'd like to put up some material on Developing Teachers.com to help teachers with lower levels.

What kind of things do you think might be useful?

James sent me some Tommy Cooper jokes:

Two Aerials meet on a roof - fall in love - get married

The ceremony was rubbish but the Reception was Brilliant.

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Man goes to the docs, with a strawberry growing out of his head.

Doc says, "I'll give you some cream to put on it."

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"Doc, I can't stop singing the green green grass of home."

"That sounds like Tom Jones syndrome."

"Is it common?"

"It's not unusual."

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A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet.

"My dog's cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him?"

"Well," says the vet, "let's have a look at him"

So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then checks his teeth.

Finally, he says, "I'm going to have to put him down."

"What? Because he's cross-eyed? "

"No, because he's really heavy"

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"Doctor, I can't pronounce my F's, T's and H's."

"Well you can't say fairer than that then"

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Two elephants walk off a cliff...... boom boom!

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So I went to the dentist.

He said "Say Aaah."

I said "Why?"

He said "My dog's died."

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So I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said
'Who's speaking please?'

And a voice said "You are."

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So I rang up my local swimming baths.
I said 'Is that the local swimming baths?'

He said 'It depends where you're calling from..'

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So I rang up a local building firm,
I said 'I want a skip outside my house.'

He said 'I'm not stopping you.'

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Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. And there are 5
people in my family, so it must be one of them.

It's either my mum or my dad.
Or my older brother Colin.
Or my younger brother Ho-Cha-Chu.

But I think it's Colin.

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So I was in my car, and I was driving along, and my boss rang up, and he
said 'You've been promoted.'

And I swerved.

And then he rang up a second time and said 'You've been promoted again.'

And I swerved again.

He rang up a third time and said 'You're managing director.'

And I went into a tree.

And a policeman came up and said

'What happened to you?'
And I said 'I careered off the road.'

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Now, most dentists' chairs go up and down, don't they?
The one I was in went back and forwards.

I thought 'This is unusual'.
And the dentist said to me
'Mr. Cooper, get out of the filing cabinet.'

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So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me "Can you give
me a lift?"

I said "Sure, you look great, the world's your oyster, go for it."

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Two cannibals eating a clown. One says to the other

"Does this taste funny to you?"

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Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, and
the other was eating fireworks.

They charged one and let the other one off.

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You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today.
They left a little note on the windscreen; it said 'Parking Fine.'

So that was nice.

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A man walked into the doctors,
The doctor said "I haven't seen you in a long time"
The man replied, "I know I've been ill"

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A man walked into the doctors,
he said "I've hurt my arm in several places"

The doctor said, "well don't go to those places"

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I had a ploughman's lunch the other day.
He wasn't very happy.

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I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I
couldn't find any.

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I bought some HP sauce the other day.
It's costing me 6p a month for the next 2 years.

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Two blondes walk into a building..........you'd think at least one
of them would have seen it.

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Phone answering machine message -

"...If you want to buy marijuana.............press the hash key..."

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I went to the butchers the other day and I bet him 50 quid that he
couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf.

He said, "No, the steaks are too high."

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My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli.

A strong currant pulled him in.

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A man came round in hospital after a serious accident.

He shouted, "Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!"

The doctor replied, "I know you can't, I've cut your arms off".

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I went to a seafood disco last week...and pulled a mussel.

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Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly.

They lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once and for all
that you can't have your kayak and heat it.

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Our ice cream man was found lying on the floor of his van covered
with hundreds and thousands.

Police say that he topped himself.

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Two fat blokes in a pub, one says to the other "Your round."

The other one says "So are you, you fat slob!"

 Example: Could you pop into my office.

I am not sure if this should be classified as a transtive multi-part verb with "my office" as a direct object (type 3) or "pop in" as an intransitive verb with "to my office" as an adverbial of place (type 1).

Any thoughts?

jason 

Hello all. A brief explanation to get things going.

Blogs
A blog is a kind of diary - a place to put thoughts & ideas & questions for others to see & respond to. 

You can make these public, private or for logged on users. It's  better to make them public & put in the tags beneath - words that summarise the post you make - so that others can find you through the cloud tag - see the top right of each page. 

So say you have a problem class, you write about it & then others respond.

This is all on a personal basis. Then there are the communities where all can join & there is a communal blog for all to contirbute to. It is a good idea to join the communities you're interested in & post ideas there. 

The rss feeds are for you to keep up with what's happening on websites of interest to you. If there is an rss feed icon on the web page, click on it & you should be taken to a page with a link which you copy & paste into the box on your 'Resourcses' page. Then you can see periodically what's happening on that site by clicking on view link.   

The idea of the site is just as you say - for teachers to exchange ideas. The best way to do this is in the communities.

There is also a file upload space for you to pass on materials to each other. These are both in your personal space & in each community. There is a 10mb limit for each person & each community. It is not a storage facility.  

Hope this helps.