What are you up to?

I haven’t written here for 2 months and I’m really embarrassed. When I decided to start a blog, I promised myself to write 3 posts a month, at least. Well, I hate making up excuses, therefore, I won’t say “I’ve been so busy, sorry”( I have, but then my devil’s side says “so has everyone else!”).

After this shameful two-month hiatus, I’ve decided to share a few things that have happened and will happen in the near future. It’s a way of holding myself accountable, I guess.

• I wrote an article for One Stop English last March called “Teaching online” for their series Challenges in ELT. One Stop English’s team told me the article has been viewed over 12,000 times, which is impressive. If you haven’t read, it’s here.

• Last May I launched my first online course for teachers called Teaching 1:1 online, where I shared ideas and explained the basics of using Zoom in online classes.  I loved the experience and I’m looking forward to getting the evaluation from the teachers who enrolled in the course. I will offer it again in August. I also discovered 2 new techie tools: Crowdcast for webinars and Screencast-o-matic for screen recording. Highly recommend them!

• We had our launching Voices event with lovely and strong ELT women in Brazil and our special guest Nicola Prentis who delivered an awe-inspiring talk online last April. I’m one of the 5 proud founding members of the Voices SIG (Special Interest Group in association with BRAZ-TESOL), which aims to promote gender equality and career development for women in ELT. We had 4 concurrent events in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Curitiba and Vitoria to officially launch the SIG and start planning the next steps. Very exciting!  I must say that having met Claire, Cintia, Ila and Nina and getting to know them by supporting the same cause has enriched my life in such a way I wouldn’t have expected.

  If you want to know more about the SIG, check out our introductory video.

   

  

  Voices launching event in Rio de Janeiro 🙂 

   

• I’m chuffed to bits because I’m going to interview Sandy Millin for my blog ( stay tuned!). I’m a huge fan of her and her blog. It wouldn’t be unfair to recommend only one blogpost that I really like, so you’d better check out her whole blog for teaching ideas.

• Being a cheeky person as I am, I have sent my storytelling lesson plan to Jamie Keddie ( love his work!) and, to my amusement, he gave me a caring and detailed feedback. I love the fact that my ELT idols are so down-to-earth and kind. You can read and learn from Jamie here. I loved his thorough feedback, especially the “reminder” that we should forget the questions and rather, focus on the story itself – it’s a bit hard because we teachers are so used to asking questions, aren’t we? Anyway, I’m going to try out another lesson plan soon based on a narrative song he sent to his subscribers. You can read it and subscribe to his website here to receive his weekly posts and information on courses.

• I’m also over the moon that my Teachers’ group on Facebook has hit over 2.4k members. I remember creating it in 2013 and there were over 100 people. It focusses on freelance English teaching and it’s a quite lively and friendly group. You can join here if you wish.

• I don’t know about you, but I love travelling. Funnily enough, I usually choose London because it’s my favourite place on Earth so every time I’m there, I feel I have a warm glow inside. So, I travelled to my favourite place last month for a 2-week holiday and it was fabulous! Got the chance to grab a cuppa with a few friends and meet some colleagues in ELT such as Hugh Dellar, Mark Heffernan and Karina Thorne. Obviously, teaching was the main part of our conversation, after all what else do teachers talk about when we’re not working? 😉 Mind you, if you live in London or somewhere in the UK and love coffee, let me know so I can have another coffee mate next time I’m there!

• And I was in London when I received the most expected email of all: I got the Hornby Scholarship to study the Masters in ELT  at the University of Warwick. I can’t put into words what I feel right now, let’s just say I’ve been on a high since I got the news. I applied for the scholarship last year and I didn’t pass, so I decided to drastically boost my career opportunities to be more prepared for applying again this year. Soon after my rejection email last year, I decided to organise and speak at ELT events in my hometown, Rio de Janeiro; attended more ELT conferences in different parts of Brazil and I also plunged into blogging. You know when you go out there and make your own luck? That’s exactly what I did and it has paid off 🙂

  I can’t wait to start studying, to meet my classmates, the other Hornby scholars and my tutors! I’m really hoping I can impact the huge and vibrant ELT community in Brazil somehow, during and after my studies at Warwick.

  From October onwards, I will also start writing about my impressions of the course, things I’ll learn there, conferences I will attend ( IATEFL 2018, here I go!), interview tutors and classmates and the like. I’m super excited!

• Last, but not least, I was invited by my dear friend and ELT colleague Carina Fragozo to write some video scripts for her successful Youtube channel English in Brazil. If you don’t know her yet, check out her channel and blog – just bear in mind she speaks Portuguese in the videos most of the time.She has had her channel since 2013 and she combines her expertise in the language ( she’s got a PhD in Linguistics) by giving useful tips to Brazilian learners of English. She does that brilliantly!

How about you? What are you up to?