Welcome to a partially redone Tom's ESL Corner. It has the good fortune of having tomseslcorner as its url, but has always been one of my more obscure sites.
In December of 2020 I started this blog by putting a job resource directory and tesol directory here, but that was because I had moved out of SIUC eight years earlier, and didn't believe SIUC would save them, and believed they were still of some use to somebody. But. they were already eight. years outdated at that point, and today, they're thirteen years outdated. They are not being. updated, and things change fast in the ESL/EFL world (you can probably tell I'm old-school just by my use of ESL/EFL). In any case, I still want to save them, if only to remind myself where we've been, and to remind myself of an unwavering commitment to be of service to the world of ESL/EFL teachers, who are a various, diverse and widespread bunch. I say hello to you all and provide you a corner where you set your pack.
The ESL/EFL world as I knew it has been under assault and is hurting. I think this will drive ESL/EFL learners underground; I certainly wouldn't visit the US as international these days. Yet it's still as important as ever to learn English, just as it is to learn Russian, Chinese, and Arabic. In these violent times it may be best to remember that world peace is best served by our being able to understand each other.
I will try to make this site a hub of my feelings about the above. Nothing for it now but to pick up the pieces, and start all over.
By way of introducing the site, I'll say that I will not probably update the job resources or tesol directories, at least not right away, since I have too much going on, and am not in the best position to do it. I will mostly focus on linking clearly to things that matter to me: my old writing, my new novel, esl exercises that I develop regularly to keep myself going. It's a way of slowing down, gently, clearly, with peace in my heart, in spite of what is happening out there. If I gave anyone the illusion that this was a nice, peaceful place to live with good neighbors and a generosity of spirit, it's because I grew up white and experienced it that way. Now that it's ruled and dominated by mean, small-minded xenophobes, I'll have use my Texas strategy: you can keep playing music as long as you don't talk politics, or mess with Willy's music or the Star Spangled Banner.
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