Comments on: ELT in Images – roads and book covers

By: Lindsay Clandfield

Lindsay Clandfield — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:31:40 +0000

Thanks everyone for the comments. I have been away from the internet rather a lot recently and sorry I haven’t seen these before. May all your respective roads bring you to a good port (am I mixing metaphors terribly again? too much sun and sangria perhaps)

By: anthony

anthony — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:16:23 +0000

Hi Lindsey, thanks for the thought-provoking posts. Much of the time I have followed those who passed before me along the beaten track. Occasionally, however, “I took the one less traveled by / and that has made all the difference” (Robert Frost). Thanks again.

By: Georgina

Georgina — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:39:00 +0000

Hi Lindsay,

I have to agree that book covers have a powerful impact on the consumer and “roads” is a very appropriate metaphor for development.

Scott’s point of an “Open Road” would probably best desriibe teacher development for me. The traditional road has a beginning and end but I don’t believe there is an end to development. I also like the idea of a never-ending network of different length roads to represent teacher development – each road being a different area/stage of development… that would make an interesting illustration for a book cover (or it could just look a complete mess!)

By: Leahn

Leahn — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:19:23 +0000

Woops computer went strange!

By: Leahn

Leahn — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:18:43 +0000

Thanks for the food for thought!

For me it has definitely been a journey. Long, tiring, fun rewarding and often dangerous!

I have seen my fare share of jungles, gurus and terminator demons a long the way!

By: Leahn

Leahn — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:15:16 +0000

Hi Lindsay,

Thanks for the images they have been food for thought.

I see my development as a long journey, it has been hard, it has been fun, it has been rewarding and worthwhile.

Along the way I have taken a few wrong turns and ended up in the jungle, have been confronted by a terminator or two, have seen the odd Guru and have seen a few changes in trends.

Although I have had many a bad performance the good ones have far outweighed the bad and whenever I thought the jounrney was comming to an end there has always been an article or a workshop that has set me off again!

Corny I know!

By: Jason Renshaw

Jason Renshaw — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:55:13 +0000

Like the concept behind your covers, and to Scott’s road poem I’d like to add my own favourite – from Mr. Bilbo Baggins:

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

On a somewhat less poetic note, just let me congratulate you, the authors and the publisher in general for talking so directly with your audience. It’s refreshing to see a publisher connecting in a direct but honest way with its potential readership!

Keep up the great work!

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:01:24 +0000

Nice series of postings, Lindsay! And an upbeat image to finish on.

Of course, coursebooks too have used the “road” image extensively in order to project the metaphor of “learning-as-journey”: think of all those coursebook titles that are permutations of paths- and -ways, as well as departures and destinations. But is there one called Open Road? If not, I hereby claim it as the title of the Dogme coursebook series, with Whitman’s poem as its epigraph:

Song of the Open Road

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.