A new era

Dear Reader,
Bear with me. This site has gone over eleven years without a post. But I am reviving it for a reason.

The basic idea behind it was good. Wikipedia is a trove of biographies, of thousands or millions of people, all interesting and all famous to some degree ranging from zero to a hundred, say, with a hundred being the ones that everyone knows.

Now as esl/efl teachers we can look at our students, see who they care about, open up their biography, make a quick exercise, and start from the people they will want to read about. That was the original intention of this site. The teachers I taught in Peru all felt like they weren't qualified to make good exercises. But they are. You read it, you know English, you make clean questions, you get better at all this stuff through practice. If you can't do it, I can, and will make exercises for people who you choose to have your students read about.

What I've found is a world hungry for esl/efl exercises that are easy and accessible. This of course also exists in a range: 0 and one, anyone can do it, even with zero English. A hundred: a little more extensive reading, harder exercises. The world needs all kinds.

I am considering providing some, just because I can. Stay tuned. By the way, I love Wikipedia. I think it has opened up a new world for us. I respect the difficulty of what they do.

To the question, "How can you do this without simply copying Wikipedia?" I will answer this: Simply close the site while you write. Some sentences will be on the tip of your tongue, like "He was born in 1948." Well, there are only so many ways to say that, and just because somebody on Wikipedia said it before I did, doesn't mean they own it. But if I'm not reading and writing at the same time, I'm writing it myself. Then I'm checking the facts. It's public information. I don't feel like I'm stealing anything.

It's all for the purpose of getting people interested in reading; that's the way I look at it. My teachers in Peru were struggling with that. Why should our students read anything in English? "Because I can provide things that are interesting to you" is the only answer that is acceptable really. Don't rule by force or negative consequences; making them hate English will simply turn them away for years when they actually have their own choice. And it's only a language. You haven't bought a whole culture by simply using it.

You will watch a gradual transformation of this site. I hope you enjoy it.