Chia Suan Chong

Chia Suan Chong blogged for English Teaching professional for 8 years, every fortnight, writing her final post back in September 2019. During her time as a blogger, she wrote 173 blog posts, writing from 5 different cities – through holidays, through changes in her career, through 3 periods of maternity leave. She took on different roles as she continued to blog as a teacher, a teacher trainer, a communication skills trainer, an intercultural skills trainer, a writer, a freelancer and an educator and her blogs reflected those experiences as well as discussing controversial and topic issues in ELT and reporting back from conferences. Fascinated by the interplay between culture, language and thought, Chia is now an intercultural skills trainer, materials developer and author. She continues to write for Pavilion ELT’s magazines and had a long-running column in ETp called "Not Only But Also". She is also the author of Successful International Communication (published by Pavilion Publishing and Media, 2018), and is now based in York.

Developing intercultural competence in the classroom

This article considers the importance this soft skill and how to develop an interest in it.

Pavilion ELT Live! 2019

The first Pavilion ELT Live! conference took place a week ago in London, following on from the ETp Live! events of previous years. Instead of more traditional opening and closing plenaries, delegates were empowered through interactive sessions like the Solution Room and participated in some lively discussions. Chia Suan Chong reviews her experience of the conference.

The obsolescence of teachers – the Sugata Mitra controversy

The plenary talk by Sugata Mitra at the IATEFL Harrogate conference on Saturday has sparked many debates on Twitter, Facebook and in the blogosphere. Chia Suan Chong gives her view on whether he was talking about the obsolescence of teachers...

What my toddler has taught me about language learning – Part 5

In the final part of her blog series, Chia Suan Chong looks what she has learnt from her three-year-old about making language memorable.

ETp Live! 2017

Chia Suan Chong recaps the talks at the recent ETp Live! conference in Brighton.