Well, it's almost the end of the year, and like many of you the TeachingEnglish team will soon be taking a few days off. The site will continue to run as normal, so you can still blog and comment, although there will not be any new content after today until the first week in January.

2009 was the first full year for this site, and we'd like to thank you for all your contributions over the last 12 months. We hope you've enjoyed the chance to interact with writers and teachers from all around the world, as well as the materials on the site. Next year we aim to offer more, especially to those of you who are teaching in specific areas - primary, secondary, business English, to name just a few - and also make it easier for you to get to what you want!

Next year will also see much more in the way of teacher training materials on the site, more video and audio content, a special focus on using stories with young learners to coincide with the IATEFL YL SIG event in Germany, just to mention a few things. Of course we'll also be letting you know about all the developments as the IATEFL Online site for Harrogate 2010 gets underway. Then there's the TeachingEnglish iPhone app (coming soon!), as you can see...

So there's lots for us to do! If you have any feedback please do get in touch. We can't always reply individually, but it is really useful for us to know what you think about the site, and how we can make it better.

Merry Christmas if you're celebrating it, and our best wishes for 2010!

Rob & the TeachingEnglish team