Guest Bloggers - Teaching English with Oxford

Zuhal Aydin studied English Language and Literature at university and currently works at ?stanbul Ayd?n University as an English Instructor. Her interests include educational technology, ESL and EFL teaching, innovative English language teaching resources and products, and English Literature. She is also heavily involved in Youth Exchange projects. Student interactions in Communicative Language Teaching and Student Autonomy are her main areas of focus. Feel free to follow her blog and follow her on Twitter (@eltzuzu).

Thomas Baker has been a teacher and teacher trainer for ten years in Chile. He is the President of TESOL Chile (2010-2012). He is Head of the English Department at Colegio Internacional SEK, Chile. He has published articles in "IH Journal" and "English Teaching Forum". He makes free resources available on Slideshare. Two examples are "Unlocking Reading For All Students", viewed over 4500 times, and "Teaching Debate in Chile", viewed over 2000 times. He recently released a love story, "Looking For Catarina", which was viewed five hundred times in its first two weeks. He writes a blog called Profesorbaker's Blog. Feel free to follow him on Twitter (@profesortbaker).

Lauren Bailey is a freelance blogger who loves writing about education, new technology, lifestyle and health. As an education writer, she works to provide helpful information on BestCollegesOnline.com and welcomes comments and questions via email at [email protected].

Kate Bell is a writer and researcher at EF Education First, working on developing and promoting online English learning worldwide. She is the author of the EF English Proficiency Index, a report which ranks countries by the average level of English competency amongst adults. Kate studied French and Linguistics at Brown University. In her free time she enjoys cooking, gardening, and agitating on environmental issues. Feel free to follow her on Twitter (@galactadon)

Janet Bianchini has been a teacher of EFL for over 30 years. She has taught students of all levels and all ages in Spain, Dresden in the former GDR, Greece, the Canary Islands and the UK. She now lives in Abruzzo, Italy, and spends her free time looking after her olive trees, writing reviews and learning about Web 2.0 technologies. She retains the same enthusiasm for teaching as she did when she started in 1979 as a result of her constant lifelong passion for learning. Janet's Abruzzo Edublog helps her to connect with teachers from around the world. Feel free to follow her on Twitter (@janetbianchini).

Phil Bird teaches ESOL at Barking and Dagenham College in East London and is particularly interested in using technology in the language classroom and for staff development. Before teaching ESOL he taught English in Asunción, Paraguay and Córdoba, Argentina. As well as teaching, he is currently working on a project adapting British Council materials for use with ESOL learners and has started writing a blog called Classroom201X. He is also giving a presentation on using video recording in class at this year's Natecla conference in Guildford. Feel free to follow him on Twitter (@pysproblem81).

William Bradridge has been in EFL since 1990, when he turned up at a language school in Mexico City looking for a job. He gained his Trinity DipTESOL at St George International in London in 1995 and and been a DoS at language schools in the UK and Portugal. In 1997 he helped to set up Global English, the accredited online TESOL course provider. Currently he spends most of his time writing course materials and helping train new EFL teachers. He also enjoys (?) running and is a Street Pastor in his hometown of Exeter, UK. Feel free to follow him on Twitter (@teflguru).

Marilena Chirculete is a Centre Manager at Shakespeare School in Bucharest. She has been teaching ESL classes for six years and has gained experience with different types of audiences, ranging from young learners to teenagers and adults. She is also in her second year of experience as a teacher trainer and workshop host. She is currently specialising in exam-driven courses and course design. Her main professional interests revolve around designing courses that are skills oriented and try to encompass all three prerequisites in class: textbooks, exam preparation and abilities.

Diana Corcos is an experienced teacher and teacher trainer. She has held posts in both the Far East and the Middle East with International House and the British Council. She now works as a Celta teacher trainer in the UAE and as a Head of Department teaching English language at a local secondary school.

David Dodgson is a teacher to young learners at a private college in Ankara, Turkey. He is also a distance student on the University of Manchester's MA in EdTech & TESOL programme. His blog, Reflections of a Teacher and Learner, covers a bit of everything - his experiences in the classroom, his studies, general thoughts on language teaching & education, technology for learning and much more. Feel free to follow him on Twitter (@DaveDodgson).

Sean Dowling is currently the Educational Technology Coordinator at the Sharjah Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates. He has also worked as an EFL teacher in Japan, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. For information about Sean, please go to http://web4learning.net.

Evan Frendo is a freelance trainer, teacher trainer and author, and has been involved in Business English training and consulting since 1993. Currently based in Berlin, his work for various corporations and clients takes him regularly to different parts of Europe and Asia. He has published various books and articles over the years, including How to Teach Business English (Longman, 2005), and the Double Dealing series of coursebooks (Summertown, 2004-2006) with James Schofield. His most recent book is Working in Asia (Cornelsen, 2010) which he co-authored with Shuna Hsu. He also writes his own blog, English for the workplace. Feel free to follow him on Twitter (@evanfrendo).

Sarah Fudin currently works in community relations for the University of Southern California's online Masters Degree in Teaching program, which provides students the opportunity to earn a TESOL certificate online. Sarah is a graduate of Lehigh University where she earned her B.S. in Business and Economics (graduating magna cum laude) while captaining the women's lacrosse team her senior year. She went on to coach lacrosse and taught at a small school outside of London for about six months. It was in England that Sarah learned the importance and dedication it takes to become a teacher. Outside of work Sarah enjoys running (she is currently training for the NYC Marathon), reading and Pinkberry frozen yogurt. Feel free to follow her on Twitter (@USCTeacher) and read her posts on the USC Rossier Online Teaching Blog.

Christina Nicole Giannikas is a published writer and has extensive experience in language teaching. Her career history spans from primary and adult language teaching and ESOL examinations in the UK and Greece. Additionally, she has worked as a seminar tutor and guest lecturer for London Metropolitan University and has conducted empirical research for the ELLiE project. For her PhD she conducted a two-year case study in primary state schools and private language schools in Greece, in order to collect data regarding early language learning within a Greek regional context.

Michael Harrison teaches ESOL at Bromley College in South East London and is interested in using technology in the classroom. He has also taught in A Coruña and Pamplona in Spain. When not teaching, he writes a blog, called Mike Harrison's Blog, learns a little Portuguese in his spare time, and thoroughly enjoys capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian art form that combines elements of martial arts, music and dance. Feel free to follow him on Twitter (@harrisonmike).

Elaine Hirsch is kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education and history to medicine and videogames. This makes it difficult to choose just one life path, so she is currently working as a writer for various education-related sites and writing about all these things instead.

Marija Hladni is an English language teacher, translator and creative writer. She has been teaching for over 3 years, mostly PET and FCE levels. She has volunteered on several ELTA seminars and attended a number of British Council Courses for teacher improvement as well as TenT/CAT tools trainings and seminars. She has a BA in English Language and literature from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, and is currently working on her master's thesis.

Li-Shih Huang, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and Learning and Teaching Centre Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Victoria, Canada, has over a decade of language-teaching and curriculum-design experience. She was also the recipient of TESOL's Award for Excellence in the Development of Pedagogical Materials. Her current research examines academic language-learning needs and outcomes assessment, corpus-aided discovery learning, and learner strategies in language-learning and language-testing contexts. Feel free to follow her on Twitter (@AppLingProf).

Anna Konieczna-Purcha?a PhD is a lawyer and a linguist working in Warsaw, Poland. She is both a teacher and a translator. After almost a decade of teaching General English, she now predominantly teaches Legal English to lawyers and translators. Her company, TexteM, helps translators hone their language skills. In her time off, she explores radically different varieties of English by voraciously reading fan fiction.

Originating from Scotland, David Mearns has been working as a teacher in Turkey for nearly twenty years. His responsibilities in the Turkish private school education system have been as a language teacher, university teacher, team leader, coordinator and HoD of an English dept. during that time. However, now he leads the continued implementation and teaching of a HS-Hazirlik program that focuses on e-learning as serious support for more traditional approaches to ESL education. The inspiration for moving into the development and instruction that includes ICT, Web 2.0, M and E-learning was as a result of working toward his own TESOL MSc from Aston University. These days he is still working on improving his ICT-ELT syllabus, and writing a Haz?rlr?k Companion E-Book that will hopefully be published in 2012. Feel free to read his blog and follow him on Twitter (@davidmearns).

Vanessa Medina is an English teacher, freelance ELT consultant and writer. As a student, she has lived in Canada and the United States, but earned her B.A. in Language Teaching from the Autonomous University of Baja California in Tijuana, Mexico. Vanessa has been teaching for more than six years at all levels but enjoys teaching university students best. She currently researches technology use in the classroom and practices new ideas with her students.

Erika Osváth is a freelance teacher, teacher trainer, materials writer and co-author of the European Language Award-winning 6-week eLearning programme for language exam preparation. Before becoming a freelance trainer, she had worked for International House for 16 years. Feel free to follw her on Twitter (@erikaosvath).

Mirjana Podvorac graduated from Zagreb University with an MA in English and Italian Language and Literature. She has been a member of HUPE, IATEFL and TESOL Croatia for a number of years. Her main interests are the use of ICT in language learning, CLIL, Life Long Learning and writing stories. She has won the first prize in a British Council Australia Montage Plus Competition, one of her stories got published in the IATEFL's Storytelling in ELT. She has lead teacher training workshops promoting ICT in a language class. She worked in state schools and is currently working as an Expert Assistant for ELT at DOU Education Centre in Zagreb. Teaching for her is a form of creative expression meant to inspire and guide.

Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education performing research surrounding online universities and their various program offerings. She studied English and music at Elon University, developing interests in professional writing, rhetoric, poetry, and classical piano performance. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Tanya Rivka Dy-Peque is part of the team behind Open Colleges. She is an educational therapist who has been working closely with children with learning difficulties and special needs for about 5 years.

Rachael Roberts is a teacher, teacher trainer and author. She has taught in various contexts, in Portugal, Brazil, Poland and the UK, for more years that she'd like to admit to. Her blog elt-resourceful.com is a resource for teachers looking for new ways to create their own materials, or adapt published ones. Feel free to follow her on Twitter (@teflerinha).

Alexa Russell is an established writer for a website that discusses modern English education, including ways that students can take advantage of online technology like using open courseware for English classes to help them study.

Jean Sciberras works full time at NSTS English Language Institute, the very first internationl English Language school in Malta, as Assistant DOS. She is a teacher, and teacher trainer on both local and Celta courses. She has an Honours Degree in English, Celta, Delta and a Post-graduate Certificate in Educational Management in TESOL from Aston University. She has worked in TEFL for 28 years, in Malta, Perugia and Milan. She is Team Leader and Oral Examiner for Cambridge Main Suite exams and often delivers seminars for MATEFL, the Maltese associaition of EFL teachers, of which she is an honorary member. She was also instrumental in organising national seminars and workshops in Malta led by world-renowned speakers like Mark Powell and Adrian Underhill.

Anna Silva has been a language teacher for over 20 years in Brazil, teaching in state and language schools. She has taught all levels and different ages. As she also graduated in Psychopedagogy with emphasis on learning difficulties and disorders in 2005, she has been a Young Learners Coordinator at Casa Branca Idiomas in Brazil. In addition to her teaching experience, she is a lawyer and has taught Business classes as well.

Laura Stamps lives in Wimbledon, South West London and has been teaching for almost ten years. She's taught in Estonia, and now teaches in London. When she's not teaching or socialising she spends a lot of time just reading (especially novels), listening to music or planning her next holiday.

Russell Stannard runs www.teachertrainingvideos.com which offers free training for teachers who want to incorporate technology into their teaching. In 2008 he won the Times Higher "Outstanding Innovation in Technology" award and in 2010 he won the British Council ELTons "Innovation" award. He has been working in ELT for 23 years and is currently a principal lecturer at the University of Westminster. Feel free to follow him on Twitter (@russell1955).

Matt Steele runs brightlylit, a specialist digital publishing and production company for educational content owners. Matt was a teacher and teacher trainer for International House for ten years before working for OUP ELT Division, where he was Head of Innovation and Development for the Digital Media Group. He now provides consultancy and production services to digital publishers.

Helen Stepanova is an English language teacher, teacher trainer and author. Having received her education in Linguistics (BA) and Business Administration (MBA), she has successfully combined her skills teaching Business English in Latvian Business High School 'Turiba' and EIHSEBA University. She has worked in ELT for 14 years, and 3 years ago started her own English language courses called Bright World. She is interested in the popularisation of independent language learning and regularly writes articles on the subject. She is a keen lover of foreign languages and is currently learning French.

Samantha Stroh, a published author, has over 15 years of experience teaching, writing, and editing. She has a Master's of Education and has taught ESL to adults for the government, private schools and universities. She now runs her own freelance writing/editing business, Perfect Pen Communications.

Arizio Sweeting has been in ELT for over 20 years. He has taught and trained in Brazil, Macau, New Zealand and Australia, where he works for the Institute of Continuing & TESOL Education at the University of Queensland (ICTE-UQ). He is a Cambridge ESOL Oral Examiner and an accredited trainer and assessor for the Cambridge ESOL CELTA. He is the author of Language Through Film (Phoenix Education, 2009), and his blog www.proncentral.wordpress.com is a resource for teachers interested in pronunciation and speaking methodology. Arizio is a frequent contributor to English language teaching journals around the world and a regular presenter at national and international conferences. Feel free to follow him on Twitter (@ariziosweeting).

Jeremy Taylor is a freelance writer, teacher trainer, photographer and fire juggler. He has worked in Germany, Egypt, Czech Republic, Ireland and France and is now back in the Czech Republic, slowly renovating an old house and trying to tame the jungle around it. He has written 50 books, mostly for language learners, and is now passionate about ebooks – including a number of joke books for language learners. When he's not writing, teaching or training, you will probably find him in his garden, growing an impressive quantity of bindweed. You can find out more about him on his website or feel free to follow him on Twitter (@MrWriteCzech).

Shelly Sanchez Terrell is a technology teacher trainer, the VP of Educator Outreach for Parentella.com, and an English language teacher based in Germany. She is connected to over 10,000 educators worldwide and the co-organiser and co-creator of the award winning educational projects, Edchat and the Virtual Round Table ELT conference. Her presence in the educator community has been recognised by several notable entities, such as Converge Magazine, the 140 Conference, Mashable, English Central, Tefl.net, T/H/E JOURNAL, and ISTE. The New York Times learning blog has included her on its list of the top 78 educators to follow. Her language education blog, Teacher Reboot Camp Blog, is ranked as one of the top 50 best blogs for education leaders. Shelly has also made a presence with her free e-book, The 30 Goals Challenge. Feel free to follow her on Twitter (@ShellTerrell).

Jean Theuma has recently become a freelance teacher trainer after being an Assistant Director of Studies for both Bell and EC Malta. After working as a costumier with the National Theatre and raising 3 children, she moved into English language teaching in 1998. Since then, she has taught on all types of courses from young learners to business to exams. Jean is the IATEFL Liaison Officer for the Malta Association of Teachers of EFL (MATEFL) and, for the past 6 years, has given sessions to teachers on INSET programmes and conferences locally, as well as in Spain and the UK.

Fiona Thomas has been working in the EFL industry since 1988. She is particularly interested in management of EFL organisations including teacher / tutor and client management. As well as teaching she has run Cambridge exam centres, been a Director of Studies of a language school in Barcelona and since 2001 is Director of Education at Net Languages, a large online language school. She loves exploring new ways of learning, teaching and managing and of course the online world provides her with lots of opportunities to do just this. Read her thoughts on her blog, and feel free to follow her on Twitter (@FionaTT).

Annie Tsai is a tech-savvy EFL teacher from Taiwan. She's enthusiastic about teaching via IWB and other Web 2.0 tools. She works with elementary school children and enjoys growing and learning with her class. She believes in hands-on learning and reflective teaching. In addition to being a zealous educator, she's also a dog lover and a passionate backpacker. She believes that the best reward for a teacher is to see children develop through his or her guidance and advance into something better.

David White works in the overlapping space between education, academia and technology. He co-manages Technology-Assisted Lifelong Learning (TALL), an award winning elearning research and development group in the University of Oxford. Among other things, he specialises in research into what motivates learners to engage with the web based around his Digital Visitors & Digital Residents principle. David is an engaging speaker who has presented at numerous conferences and workshops. He is keen to see beyond the technology to the larger underlying trends that are emerging as society moves online. Visit the TALL blog for some of his recent thoughts, or feel free to follow him on Twitter (@daveowhite).

Nicole Whitehall is currently a student at the University of Maryland majoring in Psychology. She is also a mommy blogger, tech-geek, and photography enthusiast. Feel free to follow her on twitter (@nicolewhitehall).

Christopher Wright has worked as a Business English Teacher and Business Trainer in the UK, US, Spain and France since 1999. He´s particularly interested in helping to develop global employees by improving their business communication at an international level by using a mix of Business English, Management Skills, Communication Skills and Intercultural Communication. He´s also involved in a website project, called Quick Business English that provides Audio English phrases for skills such as meetings, emails, presentations, job interviews, negotiations, conference calls, telephoning and management. Feel free to follow him via the Quick Business English Audio Blog and on Twitter (@ChristopherWr).

Fatih Yücel is an ELT instructor, SFL vice director, ELT blogger, Cambridge ESOL examiner and freelance trainer. He graduated from the English Language and Literature department at Beykent University and received his BA degree in 2004 and his masters in 2008. He currently works at Beykent University, School of Foreign Languages as vice director and teaching examination classes. His professional interests include teaching for exams, the use of technology in language classroom, language productivity and classroom language-teaching practices.