Thursday 3 October

D-Day

It’s D-Day tomorrow, the first day of our 10-week online course. I always feel excited and nervous in equal measure. Excited about working with a group of professionals from all around the world. Nervous about the responsibility in making sure that everything works as it should, technology, etc. Though obviously some things are beyond my control. I do feel privileged to be able to run this course because I really am combining my two professional passions; materials writing and training. Something new this time is that we’re going to start up a waiting list for people interested in taking the next course. This came about accidentally despite being an obvious idea, when some people wanted to sign up for this course but it was too late. So, anyone who wants to join that waiting list, just send an email to:

[email protected] and I’ll add you to it.

Professional Development

This week some professional development came about almost accidentally.

First of all Jennifer Murray gave me a brilliant tip in her newsletter. If you’re a freelance writer or editor and you haven't subscribed to it, you might want to think about doing so. It always comes with some little gem of wisdom or useful tip. I learnt that in Word if we click on ‘Review’ and then ‘Read aloud’ I can listen to an audio of the text on my Word document. I daresay some of you already knew this but I didn’t. I'm trying to think of ways that this could be useful in my work. But sometimes listening to something I’ve read can be revealing. Rather than reading it, I mean. I’m going to listen to this newsletter before I publish it on LinkedIn!

Can you think of a use for this feature?

Then I got a burst of professional development when I prepared for, and then gave, a training session for Rachael Roberts ’ Collective on Facebook. It was about how to write materials for a niche context. Before the session I invited participants to share their questions with me so that I could use some of them as the basis of the session. That was a good idea because it soon because clearer that ‘there is nothing niche about niche’! It can mean different things. I identified three groups of professionals who might need to write materials for their clients or/and learners.

1 Those who help people in very specific jobs or roles. For example, Camilla Walton who helps ESL Landscape Architects develop English speaking and writing skills.

2 Those who help people who are preparing for a specific exam, such as Sangeeta Sathe who helps busy people pass Cambridge B2 and C1 with confidence … or even one paper or section of an exam or training course. For example Sandy Millin (she/her) who runs?‘Take Your Time DELTA Module 1 and Module 3' courses.

3 Those who need to create teacher training material for schools, colleges, institutions or ministries. For example, Emma Heyderman , Annie Altamirano or Vanessa Reilly who all fall into this category but do very different kinds of work.

I enjoyed giving the training session and was given a lot of food for thought on different matters, including a question posed by one participant, who happens to ne a friend, who asked about using A.I. to create materials and even a complete course, for their particular niche.

So … AI again

I wasn’t able to give any earth shattering advice but I did ponder the whole issue, not for the first time. When we work for a publisher or a school, we have to follow the guidelines we are given and we sometimes have to sign contracts with AI clauses. But when we’re freelancers and maybe writing something for which we will own the copyright, then we decide on the rules and they will inevitably align with things like our values and our business needs.

One interesting thought I had was the one I’ve written in this week’s newsletter image. What do you think?

Could it work? Would it be a good course? Should I try it? What prompts would I write?

… and a sad story

On LinkedIn this week, Ceri Jones shared a link to an interesting but quite sad (I thought) essay from Time magazine called ‘I quit teaching because of ChatGPT’. It’s written by a teacher who has given up her teaching job after having negative experiences with AI. You can read the article here but you might like to pop over to Ceri’s thread and read the comments from ELT colleagues or perhaps add a comment of your own. There are differing views and plenty of food for thought, as you might expect.

Writing

A good week in writing for me this week. Just the right amount of work. I’ve written:

… a new outline for a story for a graded reader. I sent one idea in but my editor pointed out a couple of flaws so II had to go back to the drawing board. I haven’t heard back yet as they are on holiday but I think it’s an improvement.

… a second draft of a graded reader story.

… some feedback on a friend’s blog post. This involved more reading than writing but in my world, a lot of my writing work involves a lot of reading.

… some progress tests for a digital product. I love this kind of work as I get to tick things off lists quite frequently.

… a list of possible articles and blog posts (this is ongoing).

… notes and slides for Rachael’s training session.

Productivity: is it a dirty word?

Over the years I’ve read lots of books, articles and blog posts about productivity. Some haven’t been that good but in others I’ve found lots of useful tips. For example when I read James Clear’s ‘Atomic Habits’ I was struck by the clever idea of stacking habits. This means adding a new habit you want to start to an existing habit. A good example is for someone who wants to drink more water to keep a jug of water, or a glass next to the kettle or coffee machine. Then every time you boil water for tea or make coffee, you drink a glass of water while you’re waiting.

This week I went down a bit of a rabbit hole reading some articles about productivity in The Guardian. One of the advantages of digital newspapers is that after reading an article on a particular topic, you can click on one of the tags below to find more articles on the same topic.

This is the article I started with. It was obviously written as a way of promoting the author’s new book, ‘Hyperefficient’. In the book, the author suggests that ‘rather than imposing the rhythms of work on our brains, we?impose the rhythm of our brains on our work’. I don’t know how good the book is but I liked a couple of things the writer of the article mentioned. They weren’t new, but just as a classroom activity you see in a workshop might not be new, it’s sometimes handy to get a reminder. My take-away reminders were:

• We need to do some very personal research to find out when we work best. Nobody can do this for us. Then we need to organise our lives and work around our findings.
• Going out for a walk helps us be more productive. Even, or maybe 'especially' when we don’t have time to go for a walk.
• Blocking time to work in bursts can be a great way to get things done. Especially those things we keep putting off for one reason or another.

Which (if any) productivity book would you recommend?

What do you do to be more productive?

Thank you

As always a big thank you for reading, writing, commenting, subscribing, and interacting. I mean that. They aren't just empty words.

Kath

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