By William R. Eubank

For some time in my teaching career it was difficult for me to see beyond day to day lesson plans. At the end of my first year of teaching at Kunming Teacher Training College, Yunnan, People’s Republic of China, I was invited to a meeting with the president of the school, Mr. Young. Teaching colleagues had prepared me - he would ask my opinion of the English Department and how my service in it could improve it - he did this with all foreign teachers at the end of their first year of service.

In the Spring semester of 1989 I was planning to teach 24 hours of classes at three schools; Kunming Teacher Training College, Kunming Teacher Training College Night School and the Yunnan Center of Foreign Languages. I suggested to President Young that my labor, which the college was paying me well for, was walking out the school gate with each graduating class. Wouldn’t it be a more efficient use of my teaching time (and the schools money), if I conducted classes for the 24 Chinese that were members of the English Department - that way some of my labor would stay with the school and benefit students long after I was gone. His eyes smiled and I added 3 very enjoyable hours to my schedule. As a result, I was able to have a greater impact.

Now you might be asking what does this have to do with the MidTESOL website? Well, with this website you may ‘Extend Your Lesson’ and have a greater impact. For example, let’s take a look at a project from a University of Iowa ESL Instructor Karen Mills. Karen developed a series of lessons based on The Catcher In The Rye for her students. She was pleased enough with her lesson that she applied for a MidTESOL travel award and presented ‘The Catcher in The Rye, A Successful Novel for Intensive English Reading Courses’, at the 1998 St. Louis MidTESOL Conference. As part of the requirement for the travel award she wrote an article for MidTESOL MATTERS which appeared in Spring issue. So, let’s take a look at how Karen extended her lesson and had an impact on teachers all over the world.

1. She presented the lesson for her students: Impact - 15-30 students

2. She made a presentation MidTESOL: 15-30 teachers that attended and may have adopted it for use with students

3. Her article was accepted in MidTESOL MATTERS: 400+ copies printed/mailed/read and adopted by some

4. The article was posted on MidTESOL.org: viewed 1,700 times between January and November 1999

5. But wait, there’s more! An article by William in Winter MidTESOL MATTERS - 400+ copies printed/mailed/read, which inspired subscribers to read Karen’s article on the website that leads them to apply for a travel award and present at a conference . . .