Recap on ELT Maker Night 5

Irish skies gave us great weather for the first in a long time. So numbers were low. We took advantage and left BlockT for an open space across the square with our special guest Marianne Jordan ...who wasn't going to let any sunny evening spoil things for us.

She's very well known locally as a materials writer through Celtic Publications. Every staff room in Dublin over 5 years old has a copy of Learning English in Ireland and most have seen a copy of Phonetics for Learners of English Pronunciation. She talked us through her work starting in New Zealand teaching tech and business classes and writing mountains of materials for their equivalents to our Institutes of Technology. (She's still getting royalties for that work.) She started doing the materials to foundation year courses as we call them and that meant a return to language teaching. A long road led her back to Ireland about 10 years ago where I first met her at a CES CPD event. I still have my certificate of phonetic knowledge achievement. And did my MSc work on pronunciation materials building for ELT. So it was a big deal for me to see her again. Did she 'find her bliss' writing materials? Probably not but she found her niche- a lot more practical. And Makers are slightly more into that. Excellent stories and sound advice for materials writers from how to manage a project and select partners to which kind of binding and why to self-publish. I'm very happy I made it.

Notes and photos will follow later this summer.

Special note: Colette, Liam and Rob will be running the email list and blog too now. If any other Makers want access, write in and say so.