If you are working in the Northern Hemisphere, welcome back to your classroom after the summer break. If you live under the stars of the Southern Cross, then let me wish you courage over the next three months that separate you from your long summer break. If you work in a place like Bangkok, with a big break in March-April, let me wish you even more courage!

HLT has spent 7 years offering readers a uni-directional service, just in the way a magazine would have done back in the 18th Century. You have been invited to read what the magazine has presented you with every two months. Apart from the Readers Letters section there has been no free discussion forum in the form of a chatroom or blog.
Would you, the readers, now like an open forum section in the magazine, and how would you like it to be organised? If you have thoughts on this please write to me at mario@pilgrims.co.uk

In my last editorial ( May 2005) I invited people to send me articles on the dark side of EFL. Two people have done so and you will find their pieces in Short articles 1 and Short article 2.
If you have also had bad experiences in your EFL job please write in. I am well aware that whistle blowers need to be protected by anonymity.

Major article 1, Self Esteem in young learners deals with how to breed good self-regard in primary age children while Major Article 3- The curriculum of kindness suggests that the cultivation of happiness is as important in the elementary school ESL classroom as in one's own family. The voice of the Curriculum of Kindness piece, Nancy Schwartz's voice, reminds me strongly of Gertrude Moskowitz in her classic book, CARING AND SHARING IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM. No doubt Nancy's position will annoy some of HLT's drier, more astringent readers. So be it.

In Short Article 7 Pete Sharma writes of some of the seminal moments in his development as an IT whizz-kid teacher and trainer. I would love to have other articles on this model, with people describing the high moments in their own personal development as teachers.

In Readers'Letters a colleague from Turkey questions the mass exportation of ideas like "learner autonomy" from its cultural homeland in post Reformation North Western Europe, to places like Turkey with its much more interdependent and highly socialised culture. I suspect Adrian Holliday might have great sympathy with this writer, Tulay Duman.

If you like sparse, succinct exercises, then have a look at Christine Frank's six creative writing exercises under Teacher Resource Book Preview and prepare to come on our Pilgrims Creative Writing course that will run from July 9^th to 22^nd , 2006. I hope there is enough variety in this issue for everybody to find something that feeds them. If not, hop back through the last seven years. HLT is now a powerful archive.