On our Facebook group we have shared more than 1,000 posts, 3,600 comments and 16,300 reactions – that is a lot of sharing! More than 1,800 people have visited the blog from more than 80 countries. And we have published 18 posts on the blog since June, including an on-going series called Greening ELT, and five other guest posts (many thanks to Anita Demitroff, Nicola Meldrum and Kate Cory-Wright). A number of teachers’ associations have contributed to the posts, directly or indirectly, including TESOL Spain, JALT, FECEI, IATEFL, ELT Freelancers and UK ELT. We’d love to host more associations and more guest posts. Please just drop us a line if you’re interested in contributing. We’d be delighted to host any posts on any of the many, many topics that are being discussed over on the Facebook group and elsewhere.
ELT Footprint has been spreading its wings and has made appearances in conferences, publications and interviews. Daniel Barber and Katherine Bilsborough introduced and represented the community at the World Teacher’s Day Web Conference held jointly by IATEFL and the British Council on October 5 2019. You can see the recording here. Katherine Bilsborough and Christopher Graham wrote about the community in the Modern English Teacher magazine. You can read the article here, on our blog. And Katherine Bilsborough and Ceri Jones took part in an interview on the TEFL Commute podcast in October. You can hear the recording here.
Our Materials page is continuing to grow. It now has a drop-down menu on the home page which, hopefully, makes it easier to navigate. We have added a few more Special Day lessons (thanks to Owain Llewelyn and his site ELT Sustainable for a lot of these lessons) and one of our newest pages, Eco-heroes, features a list of inspiring individuals with links to materials that can help us share their stories with our students. Our Templates page is hosting more and more documents and posters sharing examples of sustainability statements, guidelines for sponsors and events-organisers and even an eco-pledge (thank you JALT Japan). We’re also trying our best to keep up with the massive volume of useful links being shared by our members.
There are new projects bubbling away under the surface looking at a range of different topics, from tips on how to approach environmental issues in the classroom to how to reduce our digital carbon footprint. Watch this space – we’ll be posting updates as and when!
In the meantime, I think we should all pause, to consider and appreciate the reach and influence of this incredibly supportive, focused, committed group of people. Thank you to all of you and here’s to the next five months!