09 maio 2018

by | in Career, ELT Management, Reflections about Education, Teacher Development, Trends in ELT

Imagine you are feeling a little feverish. What do you do? Bloodletting, of course! You Google the nearest barbershop and get an Uber there so the barber can slash a vein and cure you by removing foul humours from your body. If you’re lucky, they may even use leeches! This may sound absurd to you, but the role of professions changes over time. The teaching profession wouldn’t be any different. Beginning on a very personal example, I’ve been deeply affected by recent changes in mindset and communication. The abilities...

01 maio 2018

by | in Educational Technology, Teacher Development, Technology, Trends in ELT

I will begin this post with a confession: although I have been involved in EFL and digital education projects for quite some time, I am not a heavy user of technology; I don’t really own a myriad of smart devices and, most of the time, I tend to prefer taking notes on a good, old notepad. While not resistant to change, I believe I am fairly skeptical that one device or app, or digital service, will single-handedly change my classroom practice. This skepticism might come from my observation of...

15 abr 2018

by | in Career, Reflections about Education, Teacher Development, Trends in ELT

We all want a positive work environment where we feel safe to share our ideas, projects, concerns, and challenges… where we can offer and seek advice aiming at a greater good: helping learners reach their goals and becoming the best possible professional we can become. Right – that’s a lovely goal. How can we make it happen? First and foremost, we have to remind ourselves that our professional development is our own responsibility – nobody else’s. Jordan Catapano’s article on Professional Development and the Teacher Leader can give us great...

06 abr 2018

by | in Trends in ELT

We have struggled a lot to write this article because we were too worried about technicalities. But, then, it occurred to us that social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies are anything but technical. And that is exactly why we need them right now. In Brazil, with our crowded classrooms, we have never really given personalized learning a try, at least not outside elite schools. Everything comes to numbers in the end. This is how we define who goes to college. And this is how we decide whether a school...