It’s actually more than a project, it’s a mission! Let me explain.
Last autumn I had a meeting with the sales and marketing people at Macmillan. My new course, Global, was coming out soon and they wanted to talk about promotion around the world. We chatted about upcoming conferences and possible talks that I would like to give when someone said “We’d like you to blog about something relating to this. What do you think?”
“Sure,” I answered, “What about a travel blog, full of reflections on teaching in different parts of the world, trip anecdotes, inspirational photos of teachers and classrooms in different countries and short video clips done in a documentary-style with a handheld camera? Kind of like a global tour of language teaching today?” (as you can suspect, I had been prepared for such a question).
“Sounds like a great idea. What do you need?” they answered. I made a quick list, which included first class flights, five star hotels, a full set of executive leather luggage, a video recording team of two people and a salary that I thought pretty reasonable for the massive work of the travel blogger that I saw myself becoming. I also wanted a reproduction of an astrolabe, an old navigational instrument which features on the cover of my book. But more on that later.
So, here I am in the non-priority queue for the next Ryanair flight, armed with a budget handheld camcorder on loan and a single carry-on bag. No five star hotel on the horizon, nor a video team to follow me around. This is English language teaching, not banking or Apple products, the head of marketing told me icily. And we are in the credit crunch.
But I managed to get the astrolabe. And I’m totally excited about the next twelve months.
9 Comments
Your bosses are cheap-o’s
No, really Lindsay, what were you thinking?
Love the new blog and new concept, looking forward to reading more – jealous as all get-out would love to be doing the roving reporter thing, handheld camcorder and all.
Hi Karenne,
Glad to see you as the first visitor to this blog project! So glad you dropped by and yes look out for me roving around with an annoying little camcorder in people’s faces. It will be getting special use at IATEFL for the various tweet-ups that will occur!
I love the poster. Good luck with your tour – sounds very rock’n'roll.
Can’t wait to see the documentaries! I love the idea!
good idea ..
good luck and stay safe
Sounds like a great idea, Lindsay. Look forward to your impressions and enjoy all the trips!
Ah I love travel blogs and an English travel blog … where the hell …???
Heike
That sounds a really down-to-earth trip around the globe with down-to-earth instruments ,as well!It is nice to see that you are normal like 95% of the world poppulation!!! That seems to be a great mission, I´d love to follow it!
Look forward to seeing it. You might get some inspiration from The Learning English Video Project which seems to have some of the same (global) ideas. Good luck
))