It has been a little quiet here of late, I’ll admit. Conversely, life has been anything but! In the last 11 weeks and 4 days, as well as steadily trying to learn some Italian (most apt phrase I’ve learnt vis-a-vis this summer is “il da fare non manca mai” – there’s never any shortage of things to do!) and experiment with my own learner autonomy, I have:

• been inducted into and worked on a 10-week pre-sessional programme at Sheffield University
• presented at an online conference (The BELTA-TESL Toronto joint effort, themed Teaching Reading and Writing)
• graduated
• attended a wedding (not my own, I hasten to add!)
• written a 4500 word first draft book chapter
• given detailed feedback and then subsequently graded 26,000 words of student projects (so 52,000 words of marking altogether, there!)
• done USEPT (proficiency test for university entrance) examining (speaking) and marking (writing, reading)

and, as of Friday 5th September at 12.45, finally had a break from the world of ELT!!!! It was mainly the project marking and book chapter that put a halt to any blog updating I might have had in mind (there are only 24hrs in a day, and I do need to sleep [and study Italian!] for some of them!)… As they mainly account for the 3 weekends prior to this one just gone, other than the one during which I attended the wedding!

Lack of inspiration to blog, however, is not a problem. So, there will be plenty more posts appearing when I feel ready to return to the world of ELT; amongst others, a post about teaching academic listening and the 4/9/14 update on my Italian learning, as well as an update of my Delta page, to incorporate information about the new module 1 exam format. Of course once I return to IH Palermo, there will be plenty to say on that front too!

So stay tuned and see you soon!  (Just give me a few more days holiday first, please… 🙂 )