Off2Class and Reflections on Blogging

My grandmother's diary entry on the day of my birth: Friday 17th July.

Here I am – yet another teacher embarking on the blogging adventure!  I had never considered blogging myself until very recently.  I actually love writing and had started writing a book about my tragi-comic globetrotting experiences but never quite finished it and never found anyone to publish it.  So it remained something for friends and family.

Apart from participating in a couple of writing competitions and keeping my travel diaries (something I love having but found a real chore doing), I never strived towards anything more literary than perhaps translating novels.  I have never kept a ‘real’ diary because I couldn’t put my heart on paper with the knowledge that someone, some day, might discover it and read my innermost feelings. 

I also never wanted a fixed commitment like a regular diary and was all the more surprised to discover – the day I flew to London to organise my grandmother’s funeral, that she had kept tiny diaries all her life – just a few telegraphic lines – but written every single day of her life – at least, once she had moved to Great Britain.  Forty years of diaries – day after day!  I spent the next few weeks reading them and it was a real pleasure to discover her joys and woes!  I also really appreciated having learnt German because that is the language she had written them in.

G.s.D. (Gott sei Dank)

My grandmother would have been a great texter!  Her diaries were full of abbreviations it took me very little to figure out but through them I discovered how differently things are perceived over time.  Whenever she wrote about a family member going to hospital, she would use the expression ‘G.s.D.’ (Gott sei Dank) – thank goodness or thanks to God they had returned home again.  It made me realise that the hospital – which I had always considered a place of healing and therefore a positive place to get better in – she (and probably all those of her generation) had considered it a place of dying.  In the mind of the generations born before the First World War, those who went to hospital were lucky to return home again.

So the idea of a blog, a regular commitment, which would be another stress factor in my already very busy life, was definitely not for me.  However, I have gleaned so much pleasure reading other teacher’s blogs and enriched my teaching to an extent I would never have imagined, that it is time for me to join in, hoping to be able to make some contributions to the teaching world.

It was also high time I set up a website and got online with my lessons – in order to carry on teaching even when I’m on the go.  Last, but not least, I wanted to create an opportunity for my son (and subsequently my daughter) to share their language skills in conversation doing YOUNG PILOT’S ESL CONVERSATION with teenagers by a teenager - An endeavour to finance his dream of becoming a pilot by inspiring youngsters through peer-based conversation on topics of common interest.

Hoping not to have bored you up until now, I would like to direct you to an exciting new teaching platform for busy private teachers which has just ended its beta phase, has ready-to-use professional looking lessons loaded on it suitable for both online and offline private lessons (one-on-one or small groups) offering a high quality learning experience with grammar, vocabulary, spelling and speaking as well as a set of Teacher Notes and ready-to-assign homework for each lesson to reduce preparation time.  They are constantly updating the site with new content and give immediate feedback for support.

Use this link to sign up for a free trial period of Off2Class and get a $5 discount if you purchase a Subscription.

https://www.off2class.com/?ref=738IQsZfzqAqbwekY3DfryJDtfbaE2wMV   

---

---

All my grandmother's diaries

My grandmother's diary box