Good morning
Spring seems to be finally peeping its head around the door this week in my part of the world- been for a couple of long walks where I've actually been able to take my coat off and enjoy the sunshine- it's cheered me up no end!
This week, an inspirational story for you and a bit of an ESOL tilt to the newsletter. Apologies if this isn't your context, but maybe you'll find something interesting in it, anyway - always good to know about different aspects of our wide-ranging profession, I think.
An Inspirational ELT story
Let's start with this - I first met Orlando Delgado Mata at a conference for CELTA and Delta tutors in Kiev and was really impressed by his energy and enthusiasm - people like this are always motivational. He is the Director of Teacher Training and Development for International House (IH) Mexico and this week I caught up with him to talk about how he became a teacher, a trainer, what he does now, how his centre has responded to COVID and going online and finally, his top tip for professional development. Want to see? You can find the
interview here.
Sneak Preview
I started off my teaching career teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in Taiwan and then in other countries, but came back to the UK in 2000 and got a job in a College of Further Education teaching ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages). What's the difference, you might ask? Well, that seems to depend quite a bit on who you ask, so this week, I've made a
short video that outlines some of the differences and whether they really matter. Hope you find it interesting.
Website
To continue with the ESOL theme, here are a couple of related things. These are mainly applicable to teachers in the UK, but again, some of the free resources included might be useful. The first is
NATECLA, a wonderful organisation that supports ESOL teachers in the UK. Their website has some free resources and if you become a member (it's cheap!) they have a lot of excellent training sessions throughout the year and a great little journal. The other resource I want to mention is
ESOL Nexus. This is a British Council funded project that hosts a range of really nice free lesson materials. They're aimed at ESOL learners in the UK, but could easily be used in other contexts, especially for adults at lower levels.
OK - that's it for this week. Hope that you have a great one, wherever you are and feel free to hit reply and say hi. I love hearing from so many of you each week.
Best
Jo
