{"id":53804,"date":"2014-01-21T11:03:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T10:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=53804"},"modified":"2014-01-21T11:03:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T11:03:20","slug":"speedy-spotlight-learning-mistakes-english-teachers-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/speedy-spotlight-learning-mistakes-english-teachers-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Speedy Spotlight \u2013 Learning from my mistakes: an English teacher\u2019s blog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">An interview with Chris Curtis, author of<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/learningfrommymistakesenglish.blogspot.co.uk\/\" title=\"Learning from my mistakes\" target=\"_blank\">Learning from my mistakes: an English teacher\u2019s blog<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> \u2013 one of Cision\u2019s<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/social-media-index\/top-10-uk-education-blogs\/\" title=\"Top 10 Education Blogs\" target=\"_blank\">Top 10 UK Education Blogs<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">. Chris spoke to us about his practical approach, his favourite blogs and being featured in books.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><b><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Chris-Curtis-e1390301940873.jpg\" alt=\"Chris Curtis Learning from my mistakes\" width=\"235\" height=\"219\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-53805\" \/>Why should people read your blog?<\/b><\/span><br \/> I hope people read my blog for inspiration. I often get to about 6pm on a Sunday evening and panic about what to teach and how to teach it. The web is full of teaching resources and it is easy to get fifty PowerPoints on a topic, but it\u00a0isn&#8217;t the resources I am interested in; it is the ideas behind them. I like thinking about what I do and how I could do it better. I certainly don&#8217;t think I do things perfectly but I certainly have improved since last year. So I think my blog is helpful if you are stuck for inspiration or you want to avoid the mistakes I have made in the past. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><b>What makes your blog different?<\/b><\/span><br \/> It is practical. That is\u00a0the\u00a0phrase I have often heard in association with my blog. It features practical ideas and resources for use in the classroom.\u00a0Oh and\u00a0bit of silliness and humour\u00a0through\u00a0my reflections on the crazy world we live in. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><b>What&#8217;s your favourite blog and why?<\/b><\/span><br \/> This is a tough one. There are so many blogs to choose from and I don&#8217;t want to upset people. As my blog is practical, I am going to pick my favourite &#8216;practical&#8217; blogs. Blogs that will provide some helpful ideas for teaching\u00a0in the classroom:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huntingenglish.com\/\" title=\"Hunting English\" target=\"_blank\">HuntingEnglish<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huntingenglish.com\/\"><\/a> by Alex Quigley<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.learningspy.co.uk\/\" title=\"the learning spy\" target=\"_blank\">The Learning Spy<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.learningspy.co.uk\/\"><\/a> by David Didau\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thegoldfishbowl.edublogs.org\/\" title=\"The goldfish bowl\" target=\"_blank\">The Goldfish Bowl<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/thegoldfishbowl.edublogs.org\/\"><\/a> by Mark Miller<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/pragmaticreform.wordpress.com\/\" title=\"Pragmatic education\" target=\"_blank\">Pragmatic Education<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/pragmaticreform.wordpress.com\/\"><\/a> by Joe Kirby<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I visit these sites regularly, but there are so many more I could mention. Follow my\u00a0Twitter\u00a0account <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Xris32\" title=\"Chris on Twitter\" target=\"_blank\">@Xris32<\/a> to see more. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><b>What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a blog?<\/b><\/span><br \/> Stay positive. It doesn&#8217;t take a room full of chimpanzees to write a snide or critical comment. Stay positive and add something to the discussion.\u00a0Offer ideas and solutions rather than look for flaws and errors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t think too much about it. If you spent all weekend\u00a0writing a blog, you have just wasted valuable &#8216;me&#8217; and &#8216;family&#8217; time. Do it and get it out there. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><b>How does a good PR work with you?<\/b><\/span><br \/> Personally, I think PR agencies need to work with schools more. The constant stream of\u00a0information through the media means that schools are often ill-equipped to deal with PR agencies.\u00a0We live in a different world now and\u00a0schools have to approach things with a media savvy attitude. That&#8217;s where I see PR agencies working in the future, helping schools present themselves. Furthermore, I see schools\u00a0needing more PR to sell their school to parents. Mainly, they improve awareness.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><b>What do PRs do that&#8217;s bad?<\/b><\/span><br \/> Don&#8217;t adapt methods to reflect the product or the audience. If a person isn&#8217;t interested the first time, then it is unlikely they will be interested a second time. Not taking the audience into consideration is a major flaw. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">What was your blogging highlight of 2013?<\/span><br \/> <\/b>Meeting some readers of the blog. In my head\u00a0it is only my mum reading my blog. I forget there are other people\u00a0out there that read the blog. Lovely to meet them\u00a0at several events. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><b>What will be big in your blogosphere in 2014?<\/b><\/span><br \/> Having extracts from the blog printed in various books this year is going to be my biggest thing. I still can&#8217;t believe it.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><strong>Editorial information on Stuart Bruce, A PR Guy\u2019s Musings and thousands of other media contacts and outlets, can be found in the<\/strong><\/span><strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/products-and-services\/cisionpoint\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"CisionPoint\">CisionPoint<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/products-and-services\/media-database\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Cision's Media Database\">Media Database<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><strong>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An interview with Chris Curtis, author of Learning from my mistakes: an English teacher\u2019s blog \u2013 one of Cision\u2019s Top 10 UK Education Blogs. Chris spoke to us about his practical approach, his favourite blogs &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":322,"featured_media":53809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[248,4038,4209,5671,5741],"tags":[125,572,763,5687,5688,5689,5690],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}