I should have thought of this idea before. Forget the 21st century language lab. Forget grammar on a TESOL platter. The clown college is where it's at!

Think of it.

Instead of going to a normal TESOL mill, one could go to this "hip" (thanks to some slick marketing) new TESOL program and learn those same techniques we learn today at a "normal" program.

Yes, at this new clown college, we'd learn all those techniques we are expected to use today to fool ESL students into thinking they're becoming native speakers one hour a week. But at the clown college we could learn to use nothing but smiles, jokes, a whole lot of laughing, and silly games, not to mention orange wigs, striped suits, and size 34 EEE shoes to get our classrooms rocking, our studnents eating out of our hands, our names in papers, and nobel prizes in TESOL for "great" teaching. A lucky teacher or two may even find himself the subject of a blockbuster Asian movie.

Oh, yeah. Just like when the smilely-faced "strategies" are used now in Asian classrooms, no one would really be learning anything from the "new bozos". But no one would care, just like now.

Just like today when the clown techniques are used, our students will come away with five new vocabulary words a year and maybe a pronoun thrown in. But those students would be having a great ol' time, and, most importantly, they'd be forking over mulla to our schools in record amounts if their teachers are grads of the new clown college. We may even be able to finally double our salaries, practically overnight, in places like Thailand.

Lots of current TESOL teachers would drop everything and go to this new college. They at last could stop simply acting like clowns and become real ones. Some are so devoted to the clown persona I'm sure the first classes would be standing-room only.

Now the question is: how do we incorporate this new paradigm into the TEOFL test or even the SAT/ACT?