Category: Topics

Sevim Açıkgöz – Turkey

Sevim Açıkgöz is from Istanbul Bilgi University’s English Language Teaching Department. She currently lives and works in Istanbul,Turkey. She is passionate about using technology in the classroom, social media in education, innovation in education and having a personal learning network. . She believes that sharing and learning is the key to professional development. She is also a great cook, conference lover, and a sea, sand, and sun supporter

What are you passionate about Sevim?

First, I want to talk about myself as a person. I give importance to punctuality so I really dislike waiting for someone for a long time. Also, I’m a very tidy person and I do not like any mess around me. As a teacher, I’m very patient but what drives me mad is that I do not like strict procedures that can kill students’ creativity. Schools and teachers must work together and support creativity and critical thinking.

I’m also passionate about technology and social media. I also cannot think of a life without Facebook and Twitter and my personal learning network. I feel that I’m a lifelong learner I want to be a lifelong learner forever.

How and why did you become a teacher?

Why did I become a teacher? I have always wanted to be an English teacher. I always loved sharing my ideas and my knowledge with others. I always wanted to work with a lot of people around me and wanted to give them something very special. Later, I understood that knowledge is something very priceless that you can give someone. Sharing is what keeps me alive! Now, I feel very lucky that I’m doing what I love very much. This is an also an answer about how I became a teacher 🙂

What are you most interested in right now?

I’m very interested in conferences. It is great to learn from great educators and share your ideas with them and enjoy yourself at the same time. I have also organized a conference:  The Third International ELT Students Conference. Now I’m on my way to organize another one for next year. I’m also thinking of organizing seminars at my university. There are some other projects I’m involved in, too,  such as an  ELT theater club, and a website that will be useful for ELT teachers and students. I hope every little thing that is done by ELT educators will have a huge impact on our students and us as well. I also hope that every educator will be a lifelong learner and build his or her own personal learning network.

What things do you do to help you get better at being a teacher, Sevim?

I’m a technology addict. Social media is a must for me. I’m on Facebook and Twitter for a long time every day. I use Social Media to share my ideas and learn from others by sharing links, and talking about some important issues in ELTeducation. I have a personal learning network and this is what helps me develop professionally. I’m always ready to take good chances so I attend conferences  in order to learn and then put into practice what I learned. I’m also a student who is very eager to learn and share with others. I always believe that learning never ends! I also read teacher- training books (not so much so far, but really trying to do it very much).  I also plan to take a Celta course and other teacher training courses that can help me develop professionally. I try to follow the current news in my area and I try to be a good member of the virtual community in the ELT village 🙂

What’s the biggest challenge you face as a teacher?

As I mentioned, I think the biggest challenge for me is dealing with rules and procedures that force teachers and students to do something that the procedures require instead of what’s best.  Teachers must be creative,  and yes of course , there have to be procedures, but these musn’t limit  the teachers’ creativity. It’s our job to to get students to be creative and think in a critical way.

In the classroom, I think one challenge for me involves having to repeat the same lesson with other groups of students. Every lesson must provide new opportunities for students and that means making sure that learning take place, thinking is done, and students have the change to put into practice what they’ve learned.  Classroom management is another issue that has to be mentioned if we are speaking of challenges 🙂 No matter how good you are, classroom management skills are a must and this is what I call my biggest challenge.

What advice would you give to a teacher just starting out on a journey of professional development?

A teacher is a life long student. She must know that she lives in a digital age and that students are already digital people and that it’s been like this for years. She must keep up with the times and she must have a personal learning network. She must share, learn, and exchange ideas with her colleagues.  She should take online courses, face-to-face teacher training courses, and should be a member of some associations such as IATEFL and TESOL. She should attend conferences where she take lots of notes and then compares them with others. She can share her ideas by sending proposals to give presentations at conferences like the IATEFL conference or the Istek conference in Turkey.  She can read lots of teacher training books and she can even write a book for teachers! But I believe that the most important one and the biggest step that a teacher must do is to build a personal learning network.

Sevim, is there any blog or online link you’d like to recommend?

I’m a big fan of Burcu Akyol. She is my idol, so the first recommendation I would like to make is Burcu’s blog. http://burcuakyol.com/

Then there are Işıl Boy’s blog and Beyza Yılmaz’s blog. I’d also like to recommend these. Işıl Boy :  http://isilboy.com/ Beyza Yılmaz :http://byilmaz.edublogs.org/

What’s your favorite quotation about being a teacher?

I’m a teacher. I touch the future!

Victor Hugo Rojas B  – Peru

Victor Hugo Rojas B. is a teacher trainer and educator with more than 26 years of experience. He is associate professor of the Didactics of TEFL at U.N.E. He currently lives and works in Lima, Peru. He is passionate about language teacher training and development, and learning technologies. He believes, fervently so, that teachers must be trained through teaching practice, facing challenges, and creating new methodologies. He is the founder of PETsNet. Also, he is a blogger, twitterer, facebooker, and moodler. Networking is one of his passions.

What are you passionate about, Victor Hugo?

I am really an ambitious and critical educator who tries to be outstanding. I think that a well-prepared teacher must be aware of the principles, theories, approaches, methods, techniques and strategies in language teaching and learning. For this reason, I am extremely passionate about teaching pre- and in-service teachers how to discover, create, plan, utilize, and integrate teaching methodologies and strategies in their EFL lessons. English teachers must acquire an array of strategies to address and meet the students’ learning styles, expectations, and needs. Teaching a foreign language takes more than a common curriculum and tests.  It is an ongoing process of researching, and trial and error procedures. Since language students need to learn to take control of their own learning, English teachers should be the facilitator who keeps students on the right path towards communicative competence.

I am also passionate about integrating technologies in teacher training and teacher development courses. As a course developer, I am currently applying my knowledge of ICT and distance/blended learning in running and delivering the theoretical contents of Didactics of TEFL using different Web 2.0 tools. Likewise, I am a networked teacher. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I have built an extraordinary Personal Learning Network (PLN) with the most prestigious and inspiring ELT colleagues in the world.

How and why did you become a teacher?

I think that I am a born teacher. I have been involved in education service almost all my life. I’ve been teaching more than 26 years in schools, language centers, pedagogical institutes, and universities – mostly in public institutions.

When I was a child and teenager, I used to play teacher with my brother, sister and cousins. But the question is: Who inspired me to decide to be an English teacher? Mr. Percy Rojas was my first teacher of English in the last year of primary school, and Mr. Rodriguez in the last 2 years of secondary school. When I finished school I decided to study teacher education in the university where I am currently working. Because of a temporary closure of the university, my studies were postponed for about 3 years. Fortunately, I studied English in a language school while the university was closed.  My official teaching career started in 1983, teaching English to kindergarten, primary, and secondary students. Great memories!

What are you most interested in right now, Victor Hugo?

Actually, I am most interested in becoming an online mentor of novice and experienced English teachers worldwide. That is the main reason I joined http://iTDi.pro .  I am sure that the professional experiences I gained, up to now, can be shared and help enrich those in similar contexts  — where ever there are programs for new English teacher and where ever English is taught as foreign language. Nevertheless, in terms of my own professional development (PD) I must continue pursuing a Master degree in TEFL/TESOL/Applied Linguistics. I have never been to an English-speaking country. Meanwhile, I will continue working, delivering lessons, mentoring, and training teachers while looking for opportunities. Although I did a Master course in Higher education and in fact just finished it, I am very disappointed in the quality of post-graduate courses in some institutions in Peru.  However, I had to do it to keep my job. I hope this will change, but it would be a bit complicated to study and work in my country since I have to work in different institutions.

What things do you do to help you get better at being a teacher?

I think learning is personal decision. I’ve pursued my own professional development in an autodidactic way.  I have pursued Certificate and Diploma courses, but mostly I’ve attended conferences, congresses, and workshops.

The highlight of my involvement in English teacher training and development came when I joined a group of English teachers at the ESS Project supported by the Ministry of Education of Peru and the British Council. I was trained to be an English Teacher Trainer attending intensive courses on TEFL. In 1993, I started training in-service state school English teachers in Cusco. It was one of the most challenging experiences I have ever had. Since that moment I have known that my business was to be an English teacher trainer and educator.

What helps me get better at being a teacher is taking risks by teaching different courses to children, teenagers, and adults in-site and online. My most challenging experiences are when I attend conferences, congresses, and seminars, and give talks and workshops at national and international ELT events.

In addition, I am so grateful to all my virtual mentors.  I have in a large list of contacts from Twitter, Facebook, Ning, and so on. People like Shelly Sanchez Terrell, Marisa Constantinides, Barbara Sakamoto, Michael Krauss, Graham Stanley, Nicky Hockly, Nellie Deutsch, Nik Peachey, Mbarek Akaddar, Hieke Phil, Vance Stevens, Evelyn Izquierdo, Russell Stannard,  and Chuck Sandy are among the extraordinary colleagues in my network.

What’s the biggest challenge you face as a teacher?

My biggest challenge is to train qualified English teachers to help to improve the Peruvian educational system. Since this new generation of students has had more demanding requirements put upon them in order to be competent in the actual globalized world, future English teachers should be able to distinguish among the different approaches and methods in TEFL, apply the theoretical foundations in real teaching situations, create elaborate lesson plans, manage teaching skills and techniques, as well as select and utilize a variety of techniques for evaluation and testing, and demonstrate the effective practice in the use of ICT — at least.

In order to achieve these objectives, the Didactics of TEFL course that I teach is mostly workshop. That is, I will not lecture at teacher students much, except when giving instructions or clarifying something to the group is required. They use my time to assist them individually or in their group. I am active in moving around the class, reading over their shoulder, and answering questions. I teach this way because research shows that it is the best way to run this course. Workshops work better through the use of active and collaborative techniques such as tandem activities, mind maps, controversial discussion, case studies, rallies, jigsaws, forums, museum displays and so on. This is in addition to essays, journal reports, oral presentations, model classes, and virtual interactive activities.

Nowadays, many universities are aimed at selling titles, diplomas, and degrees without making sure students achieve the required competences needed to be a competent teacher. My task is to train pre- and in-service English teachers in deepening their studies of theoretical foundations to be put into practice in order to create their own methodologies.

In spite of  a certain indifference on the part of authorities, I think that teacher educators must reflect on their real roles in training teachers.

What advice would you give to a teacher just starting out on a journey of professional development, Victor Hugo?

Actually, since teachers work with human beings, they must be well prepared to interact, socialize, sympathize, and get along with them. Certain personal characteristics are required to be a counselor, facilitator, guide, monitor, evaluator, director, tutor, material developer, and knower.  The most important thing a teacher must be is a life-long learner. Teachers never stop learning.

There are a lot of alternatives and facilities available to develop professionally. To empower our PD means taking on-site or online English teachers courses and certificate and diploma programs. It also means joining English teaching associations and e-lists, networking, and attending conferences, congresses, seminars, and webinars. Now, we have another great opportunity: to join iTDi.

Victor Hugo, is there any blog or online link you’d like to recommend?

Nowadays, I think that surfing the Net is a must. Teachers can find a huge number of websites related to TEFL/TESL/TESOL. I would like to invite iTDi Blog readers to visit or join some of my online sites:

Issues Concerning Language Education (Blog): This a corner for reflecting, studying, commenting, exchanging, and interacting on topics related to the teaching and learning of a foreign or second language.

http://victorhugor.blogspot.com/

Peruvian English Teachers Network (Ning): This is an academic and social network that aims to inspire, innovate, empower, & transform all English teachers professional development.
http://peruvianenglishteachersnet.ning.com/

PETsNet (Facebook group): It is a free, community-supported, and non-profit network. We particularly hope that novice teachers will find our network a supportive inspirational.

http://www.facebook.com/PETsNet

PETsNet Times : It is a weekly online newspaper.

http://paper.li/PETsNet/1332657904

What’s your favorite quotation about being a teacher?

“The good teacher discovers the natural aptitudes of his pupils and develops them by stimulating and by inspiring them. The true chief grows the men who follow him”  – Stephen Neill

Students’ background, skills, attitudes, and aptitudes should be identified and empowered by teachers through meaningful and active learning experiences that serve as reference for their future life. Most teachers have been really inspired by one or more of their school or college teachers, and have become their followers.

Malu Sciamarelli — Brazil

Malu Sciamarelli is an EFL teacher in Brazil. She teaches in language schools and in companies, where she’s developed a new concept of ELT in the workplace. She’s passionate about helping students find their own motivation. She believes that if we, as teachers, create these motivational conditions in the classroom, learning will be a pleasant adventure. She’s also an enthusiastic runner and musician and she loves dogs.

What are you passionate about, Malu?

Two words excite me: curiosity and creativity. I feel the need to know, explore, understand, learn, predict  — in fact anything that may lead to a new way of thinking. Maybe that’s why I’m so passionate about teaching: because I can affect how students perceive the world around them. I believe I can ignite a spark of curiosity and help them develop their own creativity. I feel I can help them overcome fears, express themselves, initiate ideas, plans, actions and  a desire for lifelong learning. What I have found is that the more I teach, the greater my own need to learn develops both professionally and personally – my own inseparable challenges! Once a colleague asked me ‘Why do you care so much? It’s just a job!’ For me, it’s not just a job – it’s my life. It’s what drives me. It’s who I am.

How and why did you become a teacher? 

Picture a group of girls, sitting under a tree in the school garden, earnestly promising to stay together through high school and university.  We were only ten years old at that time but knew we loved English.  Being a teacher didn’t occur to us then, so we promised to follow our dream by studying English Language Translation and Cultural Studies and go on to work all together as translators.  I was the only one who kept that promise.  The others fell by the wayside to courses such as Business and Dentistry.

In my junior year at 18, I was offered a position in a multinational bank abroad and a promising career in Business. Imagine the reaction from my friends and family as I turned it down to go on with my translation studies. There was one person, my father, who offered support, urging me to follow and live my dream — though I knew even he wasn’t entirely happy about my choice.

As a newly fledged translator, I was ready to translate the world.  However, to help out a friend I agreed to teach her English classes for just three weeks.  As you all know, teaching is contagious!  The weeks became months and years.  In fact, now picture me having taught for nearly 19 years. There is no other profession where our passion can ignite determination in others to follow their dreams.  I could never see myself wanting to do anything else!

What are you most interested in right now, Malu?

Right now I’m very interested in the implementation of a project that I developed with a teaching colleague in a software company in Brazil.  We have both worked teaching English in companies for over 10 years and came to the realization that while we might be teaching business vocabulary and practising the textbook exercises, our students weren’t learning much they could actually use.  Our students were aliens in a business world.  We immersed ourselves for 6 months in the company, participated in meetings, conference calls, analyzed methodology and evaluated real needs.  As a result we identified three points to target:

1. Teachers often visualize Business English very differently from what a company wants.

2. Students often visualize their own knowledge quite differently from what they can actually do and what their company needs.

3. Business books often visualize the world in a generic and superficial way that is far from reality.

So…our answer!  We created EBP – English Boost Program.  It’s an innovative way of teaching English.  The syllabus and assessments are developed focusing on each student’s needs, making use of simulated meetings and conference calls. We developed the structure of the program and delivered it in the company, full-time, 8am-6pm, Monday to Friday.

Now as teachers, we see we have to understand how the company works, be aware of the trends, and observe each student in action to develop an individualized plan.  Before we started this program, the software company had been in jeopardy of losing their main client because they couldn’t communicate effectively. Now, due to the improvement in real skills, they have not only kept the contract but also opened new offices in Latin America, Asia and the USA.  I was responsible for training teachers to implement EBP in offices in Brazil, Argentina and China.

What things do you do to help you get better at being a teacher?

There are various things that help me develop professionally.  For my skills and knowledge, I subscribe to EFL magazines and websites and participate in webinars and courses online.   For teaching practice reflection and self-awareness, I do frequent peer observation: twice a month I observe other colleagues’ classes as well as be observed. Each month, we have a feedback and development session. Also, after each class, I do a reflective practice with my students, which not only helps my own development but also their perception of learning, and it works as follows:

1.   At the end of the class we review what we did and list the results.

2.  We analyze the results and discuss how I, as a teacher, and they, as students, influence the outcome.

3.  Finally we plan what we will do differently the next time.

But from my point of view, my PLN (Personal Learning Network) and communities of teachers are the best ways to share knowledge, skills, theories, practices, materials, experiences and new trends in ELT. I also believe that participating in conferences and having the opportunity to network face to face with these communities is vital.

What’s the biggest challenge you face as a teacher?

One big challenge that I’m facing at the moment is how to maintain students’ motivation until the end of a course. Initial motivation flows easily but to know how to sustain it in individual students is much more challenging. What I’m working on is making learning stimulating with motivating tasks that protect and build students’ self-esteem.  In addition, I’m promoting both independence and cooperation among student groups.

With these practices, the objective is to increase their satisfaction and help them continue to reassess individually what drives their learning, so that they can maintain it until the end of the course.

What advice would you give to a teacher just starting out on a journey of professional development?

Simple – ask for help whenever you need it! Accept advice and suggestions from more experienced teachers and also be willing to share your opinions, beliefs and teaching practices. A community is the best place to do it and it has a big impact on our development.

I also believe that one key point in teaching is to know your students, so that we can meet their needs and create a pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom. And when the students know that the teacher is getting to know them, they will know that the teacher cares!

Malu, is there any blog or online link you’d like to recommend?

I follow some blogs, but must confess that I read different posts everyday. What I do is check what teachers from my PLN in Twitter and Facebook are posting daily, then select the ones that interest me most. It’s a great way to keep up with the trends in ELT and also select what you need to read at a specific moment in your teaching development or simply be inspired by what other teachers are writing.

What’s your favorite quotation about being a teacher?

“The teacher in you shines through in all your actions!”  —  Yehuda Berg.

I believe teachers’ lives become examples and inspirations for students to follow.

James Taylor – Belgium

James Taylor is a teacher of English as a second language. Originally from Brighton, England, he currently lives in Brussels, Belgium where he teaches mainly business English in one to one classes. He’s a passionate advocate of a global teaching community, connected online that supports, cooperates and discusses our profession. He believes that as a teacher it is his responsibility to play a part in this community. He’s also a music obsessed, gardening, photographing, crafting, cooking, science and technology enthusiast.

What are you passionate about, James?

There are two things that drive me. The first is my love of teaching. The truth is that I wasn’t always a teacher, in fact I never saw myself as a teacher until it was the only job I could do. After teaching for some time, I found that I loved the job and that hasn’t gone away. It has inspired me and changed my life completely. It has given me a sense of purpose that I never had before and given me an identity. As a result, I feel I have a duty not just to my students but also to the profession itself.

Secondly, it seems to me that there has never been so much cynicism openly and publicly expressed as there is at this time. I don’t think this is healthy and I feel the need to counter this, so I have been trying to learn about how this world works and some of the wonderful things that human beings are capable of. There are countless examples in the arts, science, architecture and engineering of exceptional people who are trying to make the world a better place (just watch a few TED talks for examples). In my own small way, I want to contribute to this greater good and not be one of the people trying to drag us down.

How and why did you become a teacher?

Because I didn’t have a choice! I followed my partner to Brazil, her homeland, needed to do something and teaching English was the only option I had. Gladly, I seemed to be okay at it and I’m still doing it a few years later. To be honest, when I became involved in the world of professional development via Twitter and blogs, I was a bit embarrassed about how I became a teacher and would avoid mentioning it. At the first conference I ever attended, a very famous ELT speaker talked about ‘backpacker teachers’ in a very dismissive way. He argued that our profession was not professional enough and that there were too many unqualified teachers working in schools.

While I agreed with his point of view that we need to raise the professional standards of our field, I think it was unfair of him to label teachers like myself as unprofessional and bring the industry down, just based on how we became teachers rather than the way we taught. I think many good teachers enter the profession this way, and that once they realise that they want to remain a teacher, it is then their responsibility to become qualified. The truth is that there are many different ways that people can become teachers, and when we find the ones who love what they do, we as a profession and as a society, have to cherish them, protect them and give them a chance to grow.

Unfortunately it took me a while to come to that conclusion. I spent a couple of years not really mentioning my entry into teaching. Now I realise I have nothing to hide. How I became a teacher is completely irrelevant. What matters is what I do now, in my classroom and in my teaching community. Spending time with this community is what has given me the confidence not just to forget about this unimportant issue, but also to try new things, to challenge myself and my students and, I hope, become a better teacher and person as a result. That is the power of community.

What are you most interested in right now?

I currently teach business English to advanced learners, so I spend a lot of time watching presentations and analysing what it is in the way they speak that makes great speakers engaging. This can involve looking at very specific areas such as rhetorical questions, joke telling, charisma and how to pause while speaking. It’s different from other things I’ve taught in the past, and I find it very interesting, as do my students.

I’m particularly interested at the moment in how ELT seems, to me at least, to be designed for extroverted and outgoing students and teachers, and neglects introverted learners. I’m looking to do more research into this area in the future.

What things do you do to help you get better at being a teacher, James?

The first thing I needed to do in order to become a better teacher was to develop openness. I had to be ready to accept new ideas and acknowledge that sometimes I am wrong. I tell my students that mistakes are a good thing because that’s where learning happens. Well that’s true for me too. On a more practical level, I blog, I use twitter, I read blogs, journals and books, I go to conferences, online and in the real world, and I’m always on the lookout for new resources and stimuli for my lessons.

I have to give a special mention to #eltchat as this point. Every week teachers from around the world get together and discuss the issues that affect us as teachers on Twitter. Through the chat I have found a wonderful network of supporting and caring teachers, including many of the teachers you can find here in the iTDi community. Thanks to the tireless work of the moderators, especially Shaun Wilden and Marisa Constantinides (and also iTDi’s own Barbara Sakamoto), they have created a real community. They have also given me the opportunity to create the #eltchat podcast, which I present and produce every month, and this has been a wonderful experience for me personally.

What’s the biggest challenge you face as a teacher?

As a freelance teacher, it’s finding work and doing paperwork. I’m not very comfortable selling myself and I can’t stand the accountancy side of things. They are not the reasons I became a teacher. My advice if you are in this situation? Get it done as quickly as possible so you can spend time on the things that really matter.

What advice would you give to a teacher just starting out on a journey of professional development?

Realise that your students are your partners in this. You are going to work together on a collaborative project to improve their English. There will be times when you teach them, and they’ll be times when they teach you. At times, you will need to be a teacher, but at other times you will have other roles to play. Few jobs give you the opportunity to experience this kind of personal growth, so relish it!

James, is there any blog or online link you’d like to recommend?

There are many great ELT blogs that I love reading and being inspired by. You can find my favourites by looking at the blog roll on the right hand side of my blog.  Instead, I’m going to recommend some non-ELT sites to provoke and stimulate your mind, some sites which might just provide you with a few ideas for lessons along the way. As I said above, there are many fascinating and wonderful projects out there, so why not bring them into your classroom?

http://www.brainpickings.org/

http://www.youtube.com/user/melodysheep

http://www.ted.com/

http://www.newscientist.com/

http://www.wired.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/family

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/downloads/

What’s your favorite quotation about being a teacher?

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.”  — John Hope Franklin