I’ve been getting into Facebook lately but everything scrolls out so quickly and the group is so large there it’s kind of a blur. I see it as a shallow and wide thing over there and a narrow and deep thing here. Both groups, of course, strictly avoid any discussion resembling arguments about which pedagogy is better or anything involving politics or personalities.
Rather, on both sites our focus is and has been on (1) strategies that build community, (2) our mental health, (3) non-targeted instruction (which for me and Tina is the Invisibles Star Sequence, and (4) classroom management.
So if you are on the CI Liftoff page on FB you may see occasional posts from me over there, but when we need to talk about something deeper affecting our group members and what they may have experienced in the classroom that day, some problem they are having and simply need to talk about, then here is where we do that. (Send me those problems at benslavic@yahoo.com and I will post them to the group.)
The goal of this site has always been, for ten years and a lot of blood, sweat and tears mixed in with a lot of laughter and good will and trust and 6,000 articles and 70,000 comments, to help each other in a safe place that is beyond the incredibly prying eyes of the internet.
There are no experts in this work. We merely want to use the combined insights of the group to become better at language teaching via honest and open dialogue, laying our egos at the door, to perhaps address as a group one group members question, etc. – the day to day grind things.