2012 is coming to an end and the whole world is getting ready to say goodbye to it and welcome the new year. The New Year Resolutions is a tradition that we, teachers of English, may teach our students as part of the interculural baggage of our classes. However, instead of the New Year Resolutions, this time I would like to say goodbye to this year giving Thanks to all the people or institutions that have helped me and other teachers become better in our teaching practice.

First, thanks ELTeCS Peru (Cesar Klauer) and ELTeCS Latin America(Renate Thummler) for providing us with a space to share and to learn about other initiatives, I have certainly made use of both for communication and also for trying out some of the suggestions.

Then, thanks to all those institutions that organized events for teachers of English: TESOL, IATEFL Peru, ICPNA, Language Centre of Universidad del Pacífico, Pearson, Cambridge, Oxford, Richmond, SM, NUTESA, I could not attend them all but I certainly learned a lot from the ones I could participate in.

Thanks very much for the Webinars and Teacher´s Club and foremost thanks to RELO Andes for all the opportunities and webinars, David Fay you are doing an excellent job!!! I participated in the English Village Online early this year and the Web 2.0 in October (both of them online courses) and along the year I have noticed how much this has helped my own practice: For the first time in years I got the courage to start my own personal blog, I have another professional one and have blogs for the classes I run for the Master in TEFL (blended-learning) course at FUNIBER- Universidad de Piura.

Additionally, I started a Facebook account, have an office in Tapped In, have a Prezi professional account, a Voki account, accounts in Voxopop, Voice thread, edublog, LinkedIn. I learned to use Diigo and RSS and am sure that some people who read this will think all this is part of their daily lives not an extraordinary achievement. Believe me, for me who am nearing 60 and who belong to the generation of Peace and Love and no machines, having the computer and the Internet as one of my main and favourite aids for teaching is something awesome!!

So thank you very much for allowing me to learn, to meet new people, to be in touch with the ones I love, thanks to my colleagues, my friends and my students for teaching me so much and let´s look forward to 2013 and all the new things that are waiting for us.

Happy New Year to all of you!!!

 

M. of Ed. Maria Luisa Mu