The only permanent thing is change

"The only permanent thing is change", they say. And even though my life has changed to different degrees in these last 15 years as a teacher, at times things change a bit more drastically.

If you have been reading me, you will probably know that I am an Argentinian EFL teacher, lecturer in Practical Phonetics and teacher trainer in Buenos Aires. This is the life I chose for myself many years ago, and after years of hard work and relentless study (and yes, at times a little bit of luck...), I have little by little been able to attain different teaching posts. I can't really say how grateful I am for this decade of pronunciation teaching. I have learned so much from lesson planning, and grading, and first and foremost, from my students, and my success and failure while accompanying their process. 

But today, a new challenge awaits. I envisaged a new life for me, because I think I don't know enough (to my own standards, that is) about phonetics, conversation, pragmatics and communication in general, and I want to learn more; I have this thirst to continue improving on  my understanding of English phonetics to be able to put all my intuitions and hunches in line. And I had to be honest with myself and tell myself that perhaps I was not going to find all that knowledge and all those resources I needed close by. So I made a bet, a sort of dream investment, a couple of years ago. And today, I can say I have achieved a new dream, the beginning of a new dream.

I will temporarily stop being a teacher (well, working as a teacher, because..."once a teacher always a teacher"!) to become a full-time PhD student. And I will be leaving my beloved country for some time, where English is my classroom-only language, to move to a place where I will be probably only use English, from dawn till dusk. And yes, Pronunciation Bites will perhaps change as well. It will may become a log of personal stories of social failure with my apparently posh English, or a blog of observation of different accents of English, a set of reflections on things worth teaching, and who knows what else may become blogging-worthy!

I am so grateful to all the people who have taught me so much in Argentina, in direct and indirect ways. I learned tons from both confrontation meetings and coffee sessions with colleagues and friends; I learned a lot from master classes and from words in passing; from books and from behaviour; from gossip and from advice. I am grateful to my friends, my students, my colleagues and the administrative staff at each and every place I've taught or studied at. I am also grateful to all those people I cannot, sadly, take as role models. I have been infused with ideas of who I want and I don't want to be from each and every person I've encountered, and each and every situation I've had to face, and I am deeply grateful for that.

I won't lie. I find this new experience equally scary and fascinating. I can't wait to embrace the world of learning that awaits. I can't wait to start a life of having almost nothing, of giving up on so many things I've achieved and collected over the years, to humbly get into this "you know nothing, Jon Snow" type of state. I may succeed, or I may fail miserably. But I will try to keep this space open, because I believe in sharing and  because I will always be a teacher, and think like a teacher, and live like one, and most importantly, because pronunciation is, and will always be, my passion.